Italians like to make things at home. This includes tomato sauces and preserves, pasta, sausages and smallgoods and, of course, liqueurs. Home-made things are better on so many levels. For one thing, you know exactly what went into your food and then everyone knows that food prepared with love always tastes better. I have always…
Poire Belle Helene
Today’s recipe is a dessert: Poire belle Hélène is a beautiful looking treat made up of vanilla poached pears, served with a warm chocolate sauce, whipped cream (or vanilla ice cream) and toasted almonds. Need I say more? I personally love it. I think pear and chocolate, just like orange and chocolate, is a match…
Snow Cupcakes
I made these Snow Cupcakes for my daughter’s Frozen birthday party. She loves cupcakes, so they are always on her party menus… This time, I wanted to make them a little different. You see, I love making cupcakes because I think they look really beautiful and you can play around with so many flavour and…
Orchid Panna Cotta #SundaySupper
For this week’s Sunday Supper, we had to come up with recipes with 5 or less ingredients. This could be a challenge, but one that I like! To tell you the truth, many Italian recipes have just few ingredients as we like to keep things simple, most of the time. This week though I really…
Malloreddus with Walnuts and Prosciutto
Today I am going to share with you one of my Regional Italian recipes! And this time I will take you all to the beautiful island of Sardinia or, as we say, Sardegna. Sardinia is a popular holiday destination for people who love the seaside. In fact it has some of the best beaches and…
Irish Coffee
As Paddy’s Day is fast approaching, I thought of sharing a classic recipe: Irish coffee. You know I love my coffee and I generally have espresso (better yet, macchiato), but on a cold winter’s evening, I love to indulge with something more. Irish coffee is simply delicious and very easy to make. It is the…
Creamy Nutella Liqueur #nutelladay
Sara from Ms. Adventures in Italy and Michelle from Bleeding Espresso have declared February 5th “World Nutella Day 2014″ – “a day to celebrate, to get creative with, and most importantly, to EAT Nutella”. Raise your hand if you like Nutella!!! If I had to ask this question in an Italian classroom… I would probably be surrounded by…
DELIZIA ALL’AMARETTO
If you follow me on Facebook, Twitter or Google+, chances are you have already seen a picture of this cake. It was so delicious and it looked so pretty, that I couldn’t resist and gave everyone a sneak peek of it. We had if for our New Year lunch and it was very successful. It is…
JASMINE AND MANGO PANNA COTTA SHOOTERS
These panna cotta shooters are a very elegant and exotic dessert. I believe they would be the perfect dessert for any New Year’s Eve dinner party. When I smell jasmine, I am always brought back in time… you see, in the house I used to spend my summer holidays in Sicily, we had a beautiful…
SALTED CARAMEL PANNA COTTA
You know how much I love panna cotta, but what you may not know is that I consider it my “go to” dessert for when I have little time, but still want to impress my guests. You do need to make it in advance, but it comes together in 15 to 20 minutes. It is…
HOME-MADE MASCARPONE
Today I want to share a little secret with you: mascarpone is probably the easiest cheese to make at home. Really. Anyone can make it and it only requires 2 ingredients: cream and lemon juice. I usually buy mine at the grocery store, but I must confess I am not totally happy with the mascarpone…
PARMIGIANO REGGIANO PANNA COTTA
I know I know… I am sure you are thinking that I must have gone mad. Yes, Parmigiano Reggiano is a cheese and Yes again, Panna Cotta is (usually) a dessert. But hear me out. What is panna cotta made of? Basically, cream. To which we add flavours, milk (sometimes), gelatine and sugar. If you…
BAILEY’S MOUSSE
Happy Paddy’s Day everyone! Raise your hand if you love Bailey’s! I DO!!! I am not a very keen wine drinker (I know I know… very un-Italian…), but cocktails, sweet wines and sweet liquors are a different matter. And Bailey’s is one of my favourite… to drink and to cook with. That is why in…
CRÈME VIENNOISE CHOCOLAT
Today’s recipe is sinful. It is a chocoholic’s dream. So… my dream! While growing up in Italy, I would sometimes be treated to a “ready made” chocolate cream produced by a well known French company and it used to be my all time favourite snack! Well, this recipe is very close to that cream, only… it is better. …
TRUFFLE HONEY & VANILLA CRÈME BRÛLÉE
A little while ago, my husband and I went out to have dinner at a delightful restaurant called Chophouse. We ate really well and I was particularly impressed by their Wagyu Tartare with truffle aioli, pear, pine nuts & white soy dressing and by their Wagyu Striploin with harissa… divine! Also, I was pleasantly surprised…
WHITE CHOCOLATE PANNA COTTA SHOOTERS WITH RASPBERRY COULIS
If you are not new on this site, you will know that I love all desserts that you can eat with a spoon: mousses, creams, trifles… and panna cotta! I also like individual servings and I have been making these panna cotta shooters for a while now. I often take them to friends’ houses for…
ITALIAN STYLE HOT CHOCOLATE WITH WHIPPED CREAM
Italian winters can be really cold. I miss the short days, cosy evenings and heart warming food that we used to have during those cold months. The truth is, it never gets that cold here. One of the special treats we would have in winter was hot chocolate. The Italian hot chocolate is creamy, thick and sinful. …
PISTACHIO AND CARDAMOM SEMIFREDDO WITH ROSE CREAM
Today I want to share with you the recipe for a special dessert. A few weeks ago, my friend Abeer from Cake Whiz asked me if I wanted to be a part of a special project she was working on for Christmas. She asked a few of her favourite bloggers to come up with a Christmas…
SOFT VANILLA & PINK SALT CARAMELS
I made these caramels to give away as presents for Christmas this year. I had wanted to try and make my own caramels for ages, but all the recipes I came across had corn syrup as one of the ingredients and I wasn’t very keen on it… especially since I have never seen it around…
HOME-MADE BAILEYS IRISH CREAM
Baileys is at the top of my list of favourite liquors. I love it plain or in cocktails… and I also use it to make sweets. I make a killer Baileys Ice Cream and I always recommend it to people who want an easy ice cream recipe that does not even require an ice cream…
MUDDY PUDDLE CUPS
If you have ever seen an episode of Peppa Pig, you will know that Peppa’s favourite game is “jumping up and down in muddy puddles”. I had seen something similar on Pinterest, but I could not find a recipe for it… so I decided to make up my own version of edible “Muddy Puddles” for…
PAPPARDELLE WITH RADICCHIO AND SPECK
Radicchio (pronounced rah-DEE-kee-oh) is a chicory very specific to certain areas of Northern Italy, especially Veneto. There are a few varieties, but Chioggia (the round kind) and Treviso (the elongated kind) are the most common. I have only ever seen Treviso in Sydney, so that’s what I have used for this recipe, but the round variety…
