Brioche
A while ago – could be last year, could be a lifetime away – I was on the lookout for a classic brioche recipe. Somehow though, the recipes I’ve come across were not quite right: either missing something or having too many personal additions. Luckily I was already interested in a book called Le grand manuel du pâtissier and managed to find a copy with metric measurements (side note: if you are still using imperial and cups for cooking and baking, please just give up and get a scale). Finally, an authentic French brioche recipe was found. And I am convinced everyone needs to know about it.
Cheddar scones with dill
Somehow I regularly forget how awesome scones are. It has to be one of the easier and quicker ways to produce something satisfying and bread-like. And then those endless variations limited only by one’s imagination or personal taste preferences… Obviously, as someone who often bakes on impulse and therefore dreads the entire “bring to room temperature” step, I love scones of all kinds for keeping it simple and instead needing everything to be immediately out of the refrigerator. In other words, with such short baking times and no need for planned prep, homemade scones in about 30 minutes are exceptionally obtainable. There has already been a sweet recipe, so this time we have savoury cheddar scones with dill.
Ricotta pancakes
Who knew that a good way to lose all of one’s free time is to have 3 babies in about that many years? To illustrate further: this simple and rather stress-less recipe for quick ricotta pancakes has been photographed over a year ago. Variations of these pancakes happened multiple times during that time frame; much to the ecstatic thrill of the earlier mentioned babies. All you really need to make this recipe is some kind of blender. Did I mention that taste can be customized with a single ingredient switch? The pink hue here is freeze-dried strawberry powder. Alternatively, it can be citrus zest or even vanilla extract.
Cheese waffles
Ah, good intentions. Do they ever really work out exactly as originally envisioned? Let’s say you have a family vacation coming up. In view of that, you do your best to get organized and prepared. Aside from trying to predict what essentials might be needed for 3 children ranging in ages from 3 years to 3 months in a totally different climate, you also obviously try to get everything else in order. Like align a couple of recipes for your blog. Get everything photographed and almost ready to be published so updates are semi regular. Then you dream up a scenario of nearly utopian proportions that while the children are all napping you can work on the posts. As if you have never been on a family vacation with your children before. As if you don’t know that they will be in a wanderlust-induced high before you even enter the airport to depart. And there will be essentially no naps throughout the entire trip, certainly not any simultaneous ones. Leaving you happy and fulfilled but also extremely stripped of any illusion of free time. Lucky then that these cheese waffles take almost no time to make.
Tiramisu
Mascarpone has to be one of the greatest inventions. I always forget (and frankly, don’t want to accept) it’s actually classified as cheese because it’s missing all the traditional cheese taste notes. There is nothing savoury or sour, which is what you normally and generally expect when eating cheese. Instead it just tastes like very thick and rich cream. And because of those qualities, I think mascarpone gets as close as humanly possible to being a single ingredient dessert. Which is why it’s also so easy to make something great involving mascarpone. We have previously used it in this summery crowd-pleasing creation. Today, a slightly more traditional tiramisu.