Jammy sandwich

I was in Brussels this weekend, and our friends recommended going to a great place for breakfast (as for brunch it's overfilled with people ). You sit down and order what you want to eat-  we ordered cappucinos and a basket of fresh baked breads. At your table is around 6-10 different jams and spreads (sweet stuff like their kind of nutella), and you eat what you want to. But we had a problem, wanting to try out all the jam tastes so we made a colorful jammy sandwich, which basicly involves smearing jam in stripes over your slice of bread. This allows you to try all the jams, they don't mix together and the taste is perfect:). So if you have many jams you like but don't eat every day- this is an option for you. On this particular piece of bread in the photo there is from the top: butter, fig jam, sweet orange jam and raspberry jam. Also, this is so nice loking that the kids sitting not far away from us also wanted some! Great way to feed your babies!

Caprese Salad

We're not going to write here about the origins of this salad, because you can Wiki that. We love this salad, as it's fresh, flavourful, and brings out the best of basil, ripe tomatoes and chewy mozzarella cheese. Classic stuff.

Type of dish: snack, salad

Cost: cheap

Difficulty:  easy

Time:  5 min

Serves: 1-2

Preparation time: 5min

What you need to make this dish:

Cutting board, plate , sharp knife

Ingredients:

• 1 tomato
• 1 mozzarella
• Colored pepper
• Pinch of salt
• 3-4 basil leaves
• Olive oil

How to prepare:

Wash the tomato, and slice in 3-4 mm slices. Cut the cheese same way. On the plate, lay one slice of tomato, on it a mozzarella slice,  continue with rest until you have your plate set. Drizzle over some olive oil, season with salt and pepper. Now roll up the basil leaves so they look like a cigar, and cut them rolled. Sprinkle the plate with this and serve!

Additional information:

You may use dried tomatoes for a different taste, or spread a tsp of pesto on the plate before laying out the tomato and cheese. If you have a rectangular plate, serve up in a line, with chopped basil leaves on the tomatoes and mozzarella.

Basic tomato and cucumber salad

Basic tomato cucumber salad. If you have any leftover cucumber and tomatoes, you can make this simple salad as a side or a quick snack. It’s easy and really good. 

Type of dish: snack, salad

Cost: cheap

Difficulty:  easy

Time:  5 min

Serves: 1-4

Preparation time: 5min

What you need to make this dish:

Cutting board, small bowl, sharp knife, spoon

Ingredients:

• 1 tomato
• 1/4 cucumber
• Colored pepper
• Pinch of salt
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1 squeeze of lemon juice

How to prepare:

Wash the veggies and dice them. Put in a bowl, sprinkle with salt and pepper, add the olive oil and lemon juice, mix and serve. 

Additional information:

You can add some lettuce if you have some. Additional are: red onion or shallots, black pitted olives, feta cheese. You can serve this in a glass or on a plate with a lettuce leaf underneath.

Caramelized Mushrooms

Try this out for an addition for your salad,or mashed potatoes. Also, great for topping meat with sauce. The mushrooms caramelize on a frying pan with the addition of butter and salt, and it's very easy to make.This stuff is gorgeous. I don't bother doing toppings, I just eat this with a spoon and gurgle with joy.

Type of dish: side, topping

Cost: cheap

Difficulty: easy

Time:  15 min

Serves: 2-4

Preparation time: 5 min

What you need to make this dish:

Sharp knife, cutting board, medium frying pan, wooden spatula

Ingredients:

• 200gr mushrooms
• 2 spoons of butter
• 1 tbsp salt

How to prepare: 
Chop up the mushrooms very finely, this is going to be a sprinkle, so the pieces of mushroom are supposed to be small. Heat frying pan on medium heat, and once hot, melt the butter, and throw in the mushrooms. Add a pinch of salt and mix every 3-4 min to turn the mushrooms. Every time you mix, taste a bit and add more salt. Soon, the mushrooms will become yellow- brownish, and the pieces slightly sticky. When they don't get any smaller, and they taste just right (salty, lightly crunchy), remove the pan from the heat and serve.
 

Colorful arugula salad

This one is a beauty. And of course, quite simple to make. Color up your table!

Type of dish: salad

Cost: medium

Difficulty: easy

Time:  10 min

Serves:4

Preparation time: 10 min

What you need to make this dish:

Spoon, sharp knife, cutting board, medium bowl, salad spinner (or use a large cloth and go outside)

Ingredients:

• 50 gr cream goat cheese
• 2 small bell peppers (red and yellow)
• 1 packet fresh arugula
• 6 cherry tomatoes
• pinch salt
• pinch pepper
• olive oil
• lemon

How to prepare:
Wash the veggies and arugula. Put the arugula in the salad spinner to dry it up. If you don't have one, put the leaves in a large cloth and catch the corners and sides firmly, go outside and spin in wildly around (it will splash, so don't do this inside). Place the spinned arugula in the bowl, cut the tomatoes in quarters and put them in the bowl. Slice half of each pepper into thin pieces and put that in the bowl. Add salt and pepper, a dash of olive oil and a squeeze of lemon juice and toss the salad gently. Using a spoon, put the cream cheese in spots on top of the salad. Now, you can serve!

Additional information:
If you have lime, you can use lime juice to give the salad a nice kick. Also, any fresh raspberries are also nice.

Serve with:
Croutons or buttered toast. Also, delicious on it's own.

Pasta with pesto

My sister loves pesto. She buys pesto. For me, the stuff shops sell is disgusting. So I made pesto. It's quite easy. I didn't find any pine nuts in the store, so I bought sunflower seeds that work just as well, but you need to roast the seeds before adding them to the blender.  Same thing if you find pine nuts. Great thing about this homemade pesto is that you can freeze it (but if you plan on freezing, don't add parmesan cheese. It doesn't freeze well). But if you plan on making a whole lot of pesto, add the cheese. No preservatives, no junk. Just pure, fresh goodness.

Type of dish: main

Cost: medium

Difficulty: easy

Time:  20 min

Serves: 6-8

Preparation time: 15 min

What you need to make this dish:

Blender, spoon, sharp knife, medium saucepan, small frying pan, collander, plates to serve,

Ingredients:

• 20 gr parmesan cheese
• 2 fresh basil plants (or basil bunches, whatever you get)
• pasta
• 1/2 packet sunflower seeds
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 30 ml olive oil (plain kind, nothing fancy)
• 1 small garlic clove peeled (additional)

How to prepare:

Heat water in the saucepan, when boiling, put in the pasta to cook (according to the time on the package). Heat frying pan, and when hot, add the sunflower seeds roast them a little. Toss them around for a few minutes, and when done, put in blender. Also put in the garlic clove, olive oil, salt and pepper. Now, cut down the basil leaves, (JUST LEAVES!) and throw them in the blender too. Cut up the parmesan in small pieces and toss that in the blender. Put the top on the blender and blend for 5 minutes, stopping to swish things around, so everything is well cut. Additionally, if it seems to you that it's not oily enough, add more olive oil. When the pasta is cooked, drain it, clean the saucepan and put back in the pasta, add a healthy dollop of the pesto, mix around do the pasta is nicely coated with the pesto and serve on plates, adding a basil leaf on top and a few shavings of parmesan cheese. Yum! Dig in!

Additional info: 

if you have ziplock baggies, the size of a childs hand, freeze in them each a large spooon of pesto. If you have small plastic containers (I have some from IKEA), put in the pesto, and for freezing, pour some olive oil on the top, then freeze. If you have more ice cube trays then normal people have, freeze in the tray, also adding a layer of olive oil at the top. When you need it, just take it out one day ahead and pop in the fridge. It'll defrost nicely. When I don't have time for long defrosting, I just fill up a bowl with lukewarm water, pop the frozen stuff in and just replace the water with fresh lukewarm, until the product has defrosted completly. Bah, that easy. Just don't use a microwave for this, as it usually cooks the stuff before you want it cooked. Sorry to pop your dreams. I really am sorry. 

Serve with:

pasta of the long kind, like tagliatelle, spaghetti, and so on. Also, some pesto with a caprese salad is nice too, but add first more olive oil, as it serves like a drippy sauce. You may also add some pesto to garlic bread,or to your usual tomato sauce (because it's basil).

Financier with raspberries

 So, we had requests to make financier with raspberries. So, since the season for fresh raspberries passed, thankfully we had some frozen, so the only issue was to defrost them before making this lovely dessert. Basicly, the recipe is the same, just add raspberries after pouring the almond mixture in the tartelet forms. We did around 6 raspberries per form, but you can add more. Also, we didn't have enough almond powder, so we used ground almonds which came later on in a different texture for the financier. Even with the ground almonds, the financier was excellent, but we prefer using almond powder anyway.

The recipe for financier is here.

Tuna corn rice salad

I was first introduced to this salad by my BFF, Justyna (Cherie, it's been 8 years!). We had this kind of unspoken deal in the early days, she'd come over, we'd cook something good to eat, watch SATC, drink a bottle of wine and eat, then go out to town. Oh yeah, we're crazy:) That's how we roll.
Every now and then I still make this salad, as it's easy, good and healthy. Great for parties too.

Type of dish: main, salad

Cost: cheap

Difficulty:  easy

Time:  20 min

Serves: 4-6

Preparation time: 5 min

What you need to make this dish:

Large bowl, can opener, spoon, medium saucepan

Ingredients:

• 1 can of tuna
• 1 can of corn
• 1 bag of rice
• 2 tbsp mayonaise
• 1 flat tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1 medium onion

How to prepare:

Heat water in the saucepan, when boiling, put in the rice to cook (according to the time on the package). Dice the onion into small pieces and put in the bowl. Open the cans with tuna and corn, drain from the liquid and put the contents of the cans in the bowl. Add the mayonaise, salt and pepper. When the rice has cooked, cool it down and add to the bowl. Mix well and cover and put in the fridge for at least an hour. After that, ready to eat! 

Chocolate raspberry cream jellos

Yup, we made that. Can you tell by the drips?
After the defrosting  the raspberries for the financier, we still had a few leftover and lots of good juice. As well as some cream. And yummy chocolate. So, after throwing nearly everything out of a cabinet in search of gelatin, we could get down to business. But, make sure you have a microwave- it saves time.

Type of dish: dessert

Cost: cheap

Difficulty:  easy

Time:  40 min

Serves:10

Preparation time: 5 min

What you need to make this dish:

3 spoons, 3 bowls, 10 shot glasses, microwave

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of sweet cream
• 1 cup of raspberry juice
• 1 block of chocolate
• 1 spoon of milk
• 2 tsp gelatin
• 2 tsp sugar
• 10 raspberries

How to prepare:

Prepare yourself the shot glasses. In a bowl, pour in the raspberry juice, add  1 tsp of sugar and 1 tsp of gelatin. Mix with a spoon and put in the microwave for 40 seconds. Take out, mix again, the gelatin should dissolve. When it's done, using the same spoon, pour at least 2 tbsp to each glass. Put in the fridge for 10 min. Now do something for 5 min and after that, pour the cream in another bowl. Also, add sugar and gelatin and pop in the microwave for 30 seconds. Take out and mix, so the gelatin is well blended in the cream. Take out the shot glasses and pour in each 2 hearty spoons of the cream.  Put the shots back in the fridge. Busy yourself with something useful, do the dishes, and in the last bowl, pour in milk, add the chocolate (break it in small pieces), and pop in microwave for 40 seconds. Take out, stir well and bring out the shots one last time. Pour in 2 spoons of the chocolate in every shot and put back in the frigde for at least 15 min. After that, you're good to go and have some fun eating:)

Publish Post

Additional information:

You can also add a dollop of sweet whipped cream on top of the chocolate part. Yummy yummy!

Chicken drumsticks in thai curry sauce

Yeah, this was good. Really easy to make, and the tastes! Oh, you should love thai food. There is a hint of lime, the smooth coconut milk, melting cashew nuts and the chicken meat is tender love. And the rice must be basmati or jasmin. Let's roll!

Type of dish: main

Cost: medium

Difficulty:  easy

Time:  40 min

Serves: 4

Preparation time: 15 min

What you need to make this dish:

Cutting board, large saucepan with thick bottom and lid, medium saucepan, small frying pan, small bowl, wooden spatula, spoon, ladle, paper towel, graterplates to serve,

Ingredients:

• 8 chicken drumsticks
• 1 lime
• 2 bags of basmati or jasmin rice
• 1 can of coconut milk
• 1 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 tsp of palm sugar
• 1 tbsp of thai red curry paste
• 1 packet of cashew nuts
• fresh coriander
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1l. chicken broth
• salt, pepper

How to prepare:

Wash the drumsticks, set aside on cutting board and pat dry with a paper towel, then sprinkle with salt and pepper. Heat saucepan and frying pan. In the saucepan, once it's hot, melt the butter. On the frying pan, toss the cashew nuts and roast them, tossing them every few seconds. Once the butter has melted, put in the saucepan the chicken and fry, turning every now and then until golden brown. Add the broth, coconut milk, and curry paste to the chicken, mix well. Turn the heat down to low and put on lid. When the nuts are toasted (somewhere are brown), remove them from the frying pan to the saucepan. Heat water in small saucepan for rice. To the chicken, add palm sugar and fish sauce. Taste and add more fish sauce if needed. Let it simmer for 25 min. Cook the rice according to packet instructions and when done, drain. Grate some lime peel and sprinkle some into the small bowl. Fill bowl with rice and turn upside down on a plate. When the cooking time for the chicken is up, squeeze some lime juice into the pot, stir again, and pour a laddle of the sauce to the plate, placing 2 drumsticks next to the rice. Proceed with rest of the plates same way. And scoop out some nuts to set in the sauce. Garnish with fresh coriander leaves. Ready!

Additional information:

If you or your guests are allergic to nuts, you can skip them and instead, use some carrots for color. Just julienne a carrot and add it to the chicken when the stock is in the pot. It'll cook nicely.

Foolproof tomato soup

I know, I know. Another tomato soup. I can bet you it's not going to be the last one either. But We're sharing this one with you because, well, it's foolproof. It never goes wrong. It's fast to make. Easy on the stomache. Good for the soul. You get the picture. Really, try this out.

Type of dish: soup

Cost: cheap

Difficulty:  easy

Time:  10 min

Serves: 2-4

Cooking time: 10 min

What you need to make this dish:

2 medium saucepans, ladle, spoon, teaspoon, colander, bowls to serve

Ingredients:

• Any kind of small pasta, 1 1/2 cup
• 1 chicken stock cube
• 2 tbsp tomato concentrate (or paste)
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 squeeze of lemon juice
• Pepper
• Salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• Creme Fraiche (sour cream)

How to prepare:

Bring water to boil in both pots. In one of them, put in the stock cube and tomato paste and mix around. In the other pot, give a pinch of salt and throw in the pasta to cook the time according to package. In the soup pot, add the butter, salt, pepper, sugar and lemon juice, mix well, taste to see if it needs more salt, or pepper. Don't add any more sugar! Once the pasta is cooked, drain and divide in bowls. Pour in some soup to each bowl, add a spoon of sour cream on top and additionally garnish with fresh basil leaves of fresh cut parsley. Serve!

Additional information: 

You can make the soup more thick, by mixing half a cup of soup with a teaspoon of flour. This was our grannies method for bad times, when cream was scarce. Still, this soup works with flour, and cream. 

AE showed me a cool trick with basil today. Take a basil leaf  in your hand and clap them once. The basil releases it's fragrant aromas, and you can either serve it whole, or slice it. Enjoy!

Simple salad

I'm a sucker for salads, I think most of you know that by now. This is the easiest of all salads known to mankind. Once you get hooked on it, there's no going back. Use lambs lettuce, it has more body, is fairly crunchy and mixes well with other ingredients. You'll fall in love with the delicate flavour.  All you need apart from the lettuce is good quality olive oil, I used black truffle oil that my darling brought me from a truffle specialized shop in Paris. I love it when he remembers what I need:)

Type of dish: salad, side

Cost: medium

Difficulty:  easy

Time:  3 min

Serves: 2-4

Preparation time: 3 min

What you need to make this dish:

a large bowl, salad spoons

Ingredients:

• 1 packet of lambs lettuce
• 1 tbsp of the best olive oil you have

How to prepare:

Pour the olive oil in the bowl and swish it around the bowl, so it coats the sides. Toss in the salad, mix gently and serve. HA! That SIMPLE!

Additional information:
We got the hint that Maille (which makes great french mustard) makes raspberry vinegar. When you serve yourself some salad, have a few drops of this vinegar over it. D-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s. And we seriously recomend having some truffle olive oil. So good. Oh.

Chicken curry salad

Don't believe everything you read. This is not a curry, it's a salad with curry powder, but it's a favorite amongst friends and family.  I think I had some regular chicken salad somewhere, called Hawaian, but it didn't taste right. It lacked a flavourfull kick that the curry adds. The celery is a crunchy addition to this salad. Besides, I know you wanted this recipe. Badly. Come on, admit it!

Type of dish: salad, main

Cost: medium

Difficulty:  easy

Time:  20 min

Serves: 4-8

Preparation time: 10 min

What you need to make this dish:

Cutting board, a large bowl, a spoon, colander, medium saucepan, knife

Ingredients:

• 1 bunch of celery
• 1 packet of raisins
• 1 can of pineapple
• 1 chicken breast, deboned and skinned
• 2 tbsp mayonaise
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 pinch pepper
• 1 tbsp curry powder (taste a little, should have a kick to it)

How to prepare:

Heat water in saucepan. Wash the chicken, set aside to drain. Wash celery and cut into 3-4 mm thick slices and put in a bowl. Cut the pineapple into bite sized pieces and put in bowl along with the raisins, mayonaise and curry powder. Now, cut the chicken in small dice and throw at once all in the boiling water. Let it cook for 8 min, until white and cooked. Drain and let it cool before adding to the bowl. Give the stuff in the bowl a good mix, try some and add salt and pepper as desired. I know it's good, but once it cools down in the fridge for a couple of hours, it gets better. Put in frigde and mix every hour or so. After at least 3h it great to eat. Drool, but not into the bowl! 

Serve with ideas: I'm not going to be creative here, but serve with pieces of fresh baguette. The sauce is delicious!

Baked apple

Another seasonal product dessert. This is simple, delicious and easy to make. Must I say also fast?
My dad used to make us these for dessert during long winter evenings, and I still favour this dish. I think you should too, you know?

Type of dish: dessert

Cost: cheap

Difficulty:  easy

Time:  18 min

Serves: 1

Preparation time: 3 min

Baking temperature: 190C

What you need to make this dish:

Apple corer or a veggie peeler with the sharp pointy tip, sharp small knife, small baking dish, teaspoon

Ingredients:

• 1 apple
• 1 tsp of you favorite jam

Told you it was simple!

How to prepare:

Heat the oven to 190C. Wash the apple, and use the apple corer remove the core and seeds from the apple. Help yourself with a knife if you have problems with the veggie peeler. Now, put the apple in a small baking dish (our tartelet forms work just perfect), and into the hole you just made, place a teaspoon of jam inside the apple. Now, pop the apple with form in the oven and bake for 15 min. After that time, should be ready to eat! Yum!


Additional information: this is so good served hot and served cold. You definitly have to wet your apple in the pectin that flowed out during baking. So darn good. Dang.

Awsome simple pasta with zucchini

We had half of a zucchini, goat cheese and pasta. Well, some olive oil and lemon too. As usual, we were hungry and needed a fast dish so AE would make it in time to pick up her kids from preschool. This is perfect. It’s tasty, fast, easy and sooooo good. I know we gush a lot about food, but hey, if it’s good, why not share it? By the way, we only share with you the recipes that we made and which we liked, and only those, which are good enough to tell you about them (like the case of the pumpkin pie- it was ok, but not great. So no posting it here. We also make mistakes. I think we should have a separate folder for recipes gone bad. Would you like that?)

So anyway, here’s the how to.

Type of dish: main

Cost: medium

Difficulty:  easy

Time:  12 min

Serves: 2-4

Preparation time: 10min

What you need to make this dish:

Cutting board, a bowl, a fork, a veggie peeler, colander, medium saucepan, bowls to serve, knife

Ingredients:

• 1 small zucchini
• 1 box creamy goat cheese
• Colored pepper
• Tagliatelle
• Olive oil
• Salt

How to prepare:

Boil the water in saucepan, and add the pasta. Cook according to time on package.  Wash the zucchini, and using the veggie peeler, peel thin slices. Slice them in smaller pieces, like 2x4cm and place them in a bowl. Pour in some olive oil and add two tbsp. of goat cheese. Add some salt.  Mix the products so the cheese incorporates the olive oil and nicely coats the zucchini. When pasta is ready, put in colander and drain. Put pasta in bowls, add the cheese mix and mix well. Sprinkle with pepper and serve!

Additional information:

It’s also good as a salad. Then you’d serve it cold, but don’t keep it in the fridge.

Scrambled eggs

Suprised, huh? But this isn't any old scrambled eggs recipe. It's poetry about scrambled eggs. It's creamy, delicate, melts in your mouth, cheers you up, it satisfies your cravings. This version is served by the best hotels as a breakfast. You dream about these eggs when you wake up in a bad shape. Ha! And we have the recipe!
Here it is:

Type of dish: breakfast

Cost: medium

Difficulty:  easy

Time: 7 min

Serves: 1

Preparation time:2 min

Cooking Time: 5 min

What you need to make this dish:
bowl, medium sized frying pan, wooden spatula, plate, small saucepan with water

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 1 tbsp cream 18% or 22% (doesn't matter)
• 1 tbsp freshly grated parmesan cheese
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1 pinch white pepper
• 1 tbsp butter
• additionally 2 frankfurters (small sausages)
• Slice of bread, or baguette

How to prepare:
Heat the water in the saucepan and when boiling, add the sausages. Lower the heat to medium. When we finsh making the eggs, they'll be ready. On high heat place the frying pan, and when hot, add the butter. Let it melt. In a bowl, combine the eggs, cream and spices. Mix well with a fork, so no bits of cream are visible. Now pour in the eggs to the frying pan. Using a spatula, bring to the middle the curdled eggs from the sides. This way, the liquid egg mixture pours to the sides and cooks quicker. Add the grated cheese and mix continously in an 8 fashion until the eggs are scrambled, but still moist. Remove the pan and put the eggs on a plate. Now take out the sausages and place next to the eggs. Add some toast or fresh bread and eat up!

Additional information:
You can add to the eggs some herbs d' provancal, or fry up on the pan with butter some finely cut shalots. Or add a tomato. And fry up seperatly a few bacon strips. I'm hungry. How about you?

Risotto with asparagus

Aspargus…Aspargus… What am I going to do with fresh green asparagus? Isn’t it obvious? Risotto of course!!! I have to say, it’s always a success, friends, family, they all love it!

Type of dish: main dish

Cost: medium

Difficulty:  medium

Time:  45 minutes

Serves: 4 people

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking Time: 30 minutes

What you need to make this dish:

A large frying pan,  vegetable peeler, wooden spatula, plates to serve, a small bowl to use as a mold, grater

Ingredients:

•         A bunch of green or violet asparagus

• 300 to 350 gr of Arborio rice or rice for Risotto
• 50 gr butter
• 1 onion medium or two shallots
• 5 ml white wine
• 1 l hot vegetable broth (stock cube)
• 100 gr grated fresh parmesan cheese
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 pinch white pepper

How to prepare:

Prepare the asparagus: break off  with your hands the bottom of the asparagus (it’s the hardest part, so not very good) and peel if necessary. Cut into parts (2 to 3 cm) and keep the heads aside. In a large frying pan on high heat, melt the butter and add the onion or shallots finely cut. Add the asparagus (without the heads) and cook gently for 5 minutes turning the heat to medium. Add the rice and turn on the heat again on high. Immediately add the white wine and the broth in 3 times (this is really important) only add the second part and the third part of the broth when it is completely absorbed. Keep mixing all the time. Mix away!

When the rice is half cooked, add the asparagus heads. Taste the rice to verify the cooking process and add some salt and pepper. Then, you can add the parmesan and just a bit of more butter. Stir until it melts. The rice shouldn’t be crunchy but creamy, don’t salt too much because you already have the broth, the wine and the parmesan which are quite salty. Serve hot. 

Additional information:

To obtain a beautiful first sight, put the rice in a bowl and reverse upside down in your plate.

Serve with ideas:

This risotto is a dish but you can also serve with prosciutto ham… Hmmmmm, so so good! Do a Vector Oh Yeah!

Financier

From what google translate tells me, this means financial. Why, I have no idea.

We had egg whites leftover from another recipe.  Not wanting them to go to waste, Anne Elise came up with a recipe for financiers- a madeleine sort of small cake, with almond powder (or processed almonds with sugar powder). They look absolutely stunning, smell beautifully and are absolutely to die for. Seriously. Here’s how to make them:

Type of dish: dessert

Cost: medium

Difficulty: medium

Time:  45 min

Serves: 6

Preparation time: 15 min

Baking  Time: 20- 30 min

Oven temperature : 210 C

What you need to make this dish:

Big bowl, an egg beater, 6 small tartlet forms, or muffin forms, saucepan, spoon

Ingredients:

• 5 eggs whites
• 125 gr almond powder
• 2 cup sugar powder
• ½ up of regular flour
• 150 g butter
• Butter for forms

How to prepare:

Preheat the oven to 210 C,  wipe the tartlet forms with some butter, set aside. Heat a saucepan over high heat, put in butter and melt, when the butter is liquid and turning a light brown color, remove from heat. You have to watch the butter. Look into the butter. Mix the butter. See your yummy future. Be careful not to burn the butter. Set aside. In a bowl, mix almond powder, sugar, flour, egg whites and mix wildly for 3-4 min. Add the butter to the egg mixture when it cools down to room temperature. Mix again. Pour the mixture in the tartlet forms, filling each one up to half the  tartlet form. Put in oven and bake approx 20 min, or when it becomes light brown. Take them out of the oven when they’ve risen to form a peak in the tartlet forms. Leave them to cool down, eat cold. Serve from the tartlet forms.

Additional information:

The baking time depends on the power of your oven. If you don’t know your oven that well, check every 5 minutes how the financiers are doing. Say Hi! to them. They might finance you through a crisis:)

Serve with ideas:

Fresh fruits like raspberries, and especially with coffee. Drool. Or make them with raspberries here