Monday, May 29, 2023
Kiwi fruit: green, gold and ruby red
Tuesday, November 29, 2022
Kawakawa liqueur - liquore al kawakawa
Friday, November 25, 2022
Ricotta cake with fresh redcurrants - Ciambella alla ricotta con ribes rosso
Friday, July 22, 2022
Tagliolini alle zucchine
Tuesday, July 19, 2022
Tè al ribes rosso - red currant tea
Monday, May 23, 2022
Zucchini and ricotta dumplings in spinach and blue cheese cream, with walnuts
Tuesday, May 10, 2022
Vegan and sugar free chocolate mousse
Monday, April 25, 2022
Feijoa cake
Cut the feijoas in two halves and remove the flesh with a teaspoon. Set aside. Beat the eggs and sugar first until the mixture is pale yellow, then add the butter and, little by little the flour. End with vanilla. Stop beating and fold in the feijoas. Pour into a greased or lined baking tin (20cm is good) and bake at 180℃ for about 45 mins (until a toothpick inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean). Tip upside-down on a serving plate while still hot, the feijoas tend to go to the bottom so I keep the cake upside down to have them at the top. Dust with icing sugar and let it cool down completely before serving (so that the base of the cake will flatten nicely). Yum with cream or mascarpone!
Sunday, April 24, 2022
Green smoothie with feijoas... and more flowers from the garden
Sunday, March 20, 2022
Ricotta with strawberries, manuka honey, edible gold and cornflowers
I have been on a diet recently so this is a pretty low-fat dessert: ricotta with strawberries marinated with lemon juice (a mixture of regular strawberries and tiny Alpine strawberries from the garden) and a tiny little bit of mānuka honey. For best effect the dessert is decorated with edible gold and cornflower petals. It was stunning to look at, and delicious!
Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©
Wednesday, February 9, 2022
Colourful beet salad
Monday, January 10, 2022
A round vegan custard slice, step by step
Saturday, January 8, 2022
Ricciarelli di Siena, and homemade/recycled Christmas decorations
Wednesday, October 13, 2021
Banana blossom and carrot salad
Friday, July 23, 2021
Soft baked cheesecake, "Japanese style"
Ingredients
1 x 250g pack of cream cheese (I used Philadelphia)
50g butter (I used salted butter, follow instructions if you use unsalted butter)
150ml cream
50 sugar
5 eggs (large)
80g self rising flour
lemon zest and juice
Apricot jam for the topping (optional)
Cube the cream cheese and butter and place into a mixing bowl with the cream and sugar. If you use unsalted butter add a very small pinch of salt too. Place the bowl on a pot with boiling water (Bain Marie) and mix well until all the ingredients are melted. Make sure that there are no lumps of cream cheese! Remove from the heat and then add the egg yolks, one by one, mixing well. In the meantime whip the egg whites to a stiff peak, and also heat the oven to 180C. Add flour to the main mixture, then lemon zest (1 lemon) and lemon juice (one or two tbsp, depending on your lemon - Mayer lemons are sweet so you need more, if you use a more acidic lemon one tbsp will suffice). Fold in the egg whites little by little. Pour into a 18cm round baking tin lined with buttered baking paper (on the bottom and side of the tin - I butter both the tin and the baking paper). Place the tin on a larger baking pan filled with 30-40cm of hot water and place into the oven. The cake will also bake at Bain Marie. Turn the heat down to 160C and bake for about one hour. Turn the oven off but do not remove the cheesecake: leave it to cool down in the oven with the oven door slightly open. Sadly it will drop a bit in heigh while cooling, but this is normal. I am not sure what kind of stabilisers commercial bakeries use to keep their baked cheesecakes super high, but this is more about taste, and the homemade does taste better! When the cheesecake has cooled down remove from the baking tin and if you like brush the top with a little apricot jam thinned with hot water.
I particularly like this cheesecake because it is so soft and not so sweet, so I can have it for breakfast with my coffee. For dessert instead I like to add some Italian amarena cherries in syrup, or some berries, fresh or frozen, marinated with a little sugar and lemon juice, to give it a bit more sweetness and flavour.
Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©