Cherry Fudge Ice Cream

Cherry Season!!!

When I left my old job at Adverteam, I brought my dear colleagues something to remember me by: Cherry Fudge Ice Cream, made of panna ice cream which is basically ice cream of whipped cream, fresh cherries and caramel sauce. It was divine!!!

I think I gave them a last good impression... and some pounds!

Cherry Fudge Ice Cream

 Buon Appetito

Chef Steph

Fun Facts about Holland & Bosnia

I have an announcement to make: I am moving back to Holland!!! Before you start yelling 'seriously??? you are leaving Italy, THE land of good food, for Holland, the land of cheese??!', I am posting these pics to convince you of the beauty of my country!

Simply Breathtaking...

Furthermore, this morning I had a taste of some Bosniac sweets! My colleague whom you can follow on his blog http://blog.katana.it/:  he posts really cool groundbreaking advertisement, marketing and communication activities from all over the world. If you are a marketing professional I'd suggest you follow his blog regularly as he collects the best ideas out there! Some are absolutely hilarious... check out this MacDonalds one.
Anyways he brought these cavity creating yummyness in the office this morning and around here you have to be fast because otherwise it is gone before you know it, so had a piece of baklava at 11am! MMMMMMMMMMMMMM.....

I am not sure to be getting recipes, because I think Bosniac mamma's don't like to reveal their secretes, like Italian mamma's do, but I will try real hard to get them before leaving end of June!!

Bosniac Sweets

Bon Appetito

Chef Steph

Cook to impress: Coeurs Fondant Tout Chocolat

International cooking means going beyond Italian and Dutch cuisine, hence today I offer you: Chocolat Fondant! A little French chocolate cupcake that will melt your heart with it's melting heart....
Basically you don't bake the cupcake all the way through so that the inside remains liquid, smooth, hot & sexy chocolate.

Food can be sexy and this is proof! Mmmmmmmmm....

I made this with Chef Cathinka in Hamburg two weeks ago and she got the recipe from Nestle's new app that you can get on your phone, or simply go to their site: http://www.latableadessert.fr/
Obviously it's a site based on Nestle chocolate and has marketing intentions only, but heck, if that means we get easy going, real deal, sexy french chocolate desserts in our homes: je dirais que c'est tres tres tres bien! <3

Ingredients:

• 100 gr pure chocolate 
• another 8 cubes of pure chocolate
• 3 eggs
• 80gr powdered sugar
• 50 gr of butter
• 1,5 tablespoon of flour

How to make it:

Preheat your oven at 260 degrees Celcius.

Melt the chocolate au bain marie and add the butter once it's melting.

In a bowl you mix the eggs with the powdered sugar, after which you slowly add the flour.

When the mixture is homogenous, you add the chocolate and stir well.

Butter and flour your cups in order to avoid sticking and fill them up for 1/3, place one chocolate cube in each cup and finish it by covering up the cups with the remaining mixture.

Place the cups circa 10 minutes in the oven.

Outcome: Eat them when they are still hot and you will truely be in heaven for at least a couple of minutes! 

Coeurs Fondant Tout Chocolat

  Bon Appetit

Chef Steph & Cathinka 

Happy Birthday Chef Robert: Strawberry Chocolate Chip Cake

Bonjour Y'all....

It is another beautiful day because it is my papa's B-day! I don't think he will be very thrilled with my announcing this tiny fact on the world wide web, but what he doesn't know- yet - is that this post is my birthday present to him!!!!

My papa is cool! I am proud that he is my dad, because he is a succesful, inspiring and wise man with patience and advice at any time of the day. He is my 'go to' in a million different situations and talking to him makes me think twice about whatever is bothering me - saves the € on a shrink eh?! Lucky me! Anyways, he has made his life his own, doesn't mind what others think, all the while remaining the most respectful man I know. I don't think I have ever seen him being rude or angry to anyone (outside of the house), and that makes him an inspiration.

Most importantly, I can share my love and passion for food and wine with him. I will never forget one of the best summers of my life where I spent a month at my parents house in Brussels because of several non- important-to-mention reasons. Many would ask me: 'seriously?? and you enjoyed this?', and I would honestly answer 'YES!' My daily tasks consisted of: sleeping in, breakfasting, choosing recipes to cook, do groceries, tan, walk the dog, sleep some more, read and start cooking.... and drinking once my dad came home and got the bottle of wine to match dinner from the wine cellar'. My idea of a SPA!

The coolest part is that I can enjoy lots of wine with my dad! How many peeps can say that? Priceless are the moments I spent in the garden, on a terrace, in a restaurant getting tipsy with my paps and talking about literally everything in life.

Dad, you're cool and I love you and I am proud to be your daughter!
Happy happy happy birthday!

A birthday deserves a birthday cake:

Ingredients:

• 200gr softened butter
• 200gr bio sugar
• 4 eggs
• 200gr whole weat flour
• 1 teaspoon soda
• 12gr baking powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 250gr strawberries chopped in little pieces
• 200gr chocolate chips

How to make it:
Start by heating up the oven at 170-180 degrees Celcius.
Grease a circular cake form of circa 24 cm diameter, with some extra butter.
Mix the butter and sugar into a light creamy mixture - make sure you use a big bowl because you need to mix in many ingredients.
After which you add the eggs one by one mixing while you add them.
At this point you add the flower and baking powders into the bowl. Mix well but not too long, as you don't want the cake to become too tall by rising too much.
At the very end, you mix in the strawberries and chocolate chips. Do this manually because if you use an electric mixer you will squash the fresh strawberries and that would be a shame.
Pour the mixture into you cake shape and place it in the preheated oven
Usually it takes around 30-40 minutes to bake a cake, but this one needed an hour because of the wet ingredients. Use pin to check when it's ready - if it comes out clean, it's done!

Outcome: MMMMMMMMMM.... one of the best inventions I have ever created. And many people, whom I made eat the cake can testify! The only thing that bothered me was that the strawberries en choc chips sank to the bottom instead of spread out in the cake --> any suggestions on what I can do to prevent this from happening?????

Strawberry Chocolate Chip Cake

Buon Appetito

Chef Steph

Lemon Muffins

It's sunny, life is good and that deserves some happy cooking.
What makes you happy?? 

Yellow makes me happy and well answer me this: what is a happier color than yellow????
Yellow stands for creative and intellectual energy, it symbolizes wisdom, means joy and happiness. People of high intellect appearently favour yellow, maybe because it is linked to gold and smart people want the money money money.... lalala... money money money! Yeah yeah money might not be the only thing that makes you happy - cos food already does - but it is an important factor to happiness - how else are you going to buy that food that will really make you happy?
Back to yellow....  Yellow brings clarity and awareness. It helps you make decisions and gives relief to those who suffer from burnouts, panic, nervousness and exhaustion. Furthermore it stimulates your concentration skills and therefore sharpens up your memory.
Makes me think of why, unconsciously I have been wearing lots of yellow lately, and reading the above, I realise it has actually helped a lot. My mind IS clearer, decisions have been made and I am smiling and bubbeling again. It might have been the clothes, but it might also have been the LEMON MUFFINS!!!!! My god were those babies good. I will no longer withhold you with my psycho-babble and just give you the recipe alright.

I got these from the BBC Food site made by James Martin. Tweaked it here and there with my own healthy freakness - but didn't change the taste a bit.

Ingredients: for 9-10 muffins

• 2 eggs beaten 
• 85gr brown bio sugar
• 240ml half full fat milk
• 100ml vegetable oil - sunflower oil
• 300gr wholeweat flour
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 0.5 teaspoon salt
• 4 biological lemons, zest only

How to make it:

Heat the oven up to 200 degrees Celcius, grease up the muffin cups or use paper cases. 

As all muffins, the trick is to prepare the wet ingredients seperately from the dry ones and then once you are done, you mix them all together.

Wet ingredients: mix the egg, sugar, milk and oil in a large bowl.

Dry ingredients: mix the flour, baking powder, salt and add the lemon zest.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones and mix roughly. Don't mix too much as you don't want too much air to get into the mixture as that will stop them from rise the way they should.

Spoon the mixture into the muffin cups and put them in the heated oven. Bake for 30-35 minutes until well risen and golden.

Take them out and cool them on a wire rack - if you can resist.

Outcome: Happy happy happy happiness!!! 

Lemon Muffins

Buon Appetito

Chef Steph

Cook to impress: Raffa's Tiramisu

Hey foodies! Sorry for my absence once again but I have been out and about for work with a van called the FIGHTVAN! And what happens in the Fightvan, stays in the Fightvan!!! So no can say, nor reveal any other information on where, how and what we did :) But it was FUUUUNNNN, and... I got a tan.

In the meantime, I gave Chef Cathinka the assignment to post her one person pizza on the blog, yet she has been too busy as well I guess to do so which means we all left you hanging for a couple of days without any recipes. I am truely sorry for that. Thank god we have a new Chef that has sent in something highly postable to make up for it....

I present to you: Chef Raffaela!!! She will get the colour bright pink as she and her sister Sabrina (they come as a unit :) ) are the most pretty, fashionable and amazing ladies out there! So whenever you want to find one of her recipes, just look for the pinkness.
She is introducing herself with a good Italian classic: TIRAMISU!!! Yeah baby... prepare your running shoes for after; you'll need to be working off the whole tray of the yumminess, as you won't be able to stop after one serving!

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 60gr Sugar
• 1 pack of vanilla sugar - vanillina
• 200gr of Mascarpone
• 6 espresso cups of coffee
• 28 savoiardi (finger cookies... the long light cookies)
• pure dark cacao

How to make it:

Prepare the coffee and cool it down in a big cup.

Separate the egg whites from the yolks. To the egg whites you add the sugar and the vanilla sugar, and then you start beating it up until you get a nice fluffly foam. At this point, you add the mascarpone to the foam and continue beating it in order to get a silky and thick cream (hmm sounds like a poem...).

Now you are ready to start the layering process of the Tiramisu into a rectangular tray.

Spread a first layer of the cream into a rectangular tray, on top of which you gently place the cookies that have been soaked one by one into the coffee. Don't soak them too much or they will crumble into the coffee. On top of the cookies you spread another layer of cream and you finish the layer off by dusting it generously with the dark cacao. 

Create another layer like this and finish it off with lots of cacao again.

Cool in the fridge until you serve.

Chef's tip: the number of cookies depends on the tray you are using, but seen the fact the tray shouldn't be too big, you would need a pack of cookies more or less.

Outcome: HEAVEN

Tiramisu

Baci 

Chef Raffaela

All Purpose Strawberry 'Jam'

I had waaaay too many strawberries in my fridge and my sole little belly couldn't handle devouring all of them by itself. So I had to find a solution in order not to throw them away.
I decided to make a strawberry compote or rather a coulis of them.... and it turned out suuuper good. It's more a kind of jam than a compote and is spreadable on bread, or as a sweetener in your yoghurt and I have another little surprise for you in store for what to do with it...

Ingredients:

• 1kg strawberries
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice

How to make it:

Blend all the strawberries.

Cook the strawberries with the lemon juice in a pan over a slow fire. It needs at least 30-45 mins. Make sure it gets all thick and gewy!

Voila you're done... put it in the fridge over night and it will get even gewier.

So goooood!!!!

Peanutbutter & Homemade Strawberry Jam Cracker!

Keep tuned for part 2....

Buon Appetito

Chef Steph

The Curious Case of the Peanut Butter Banana Oatmeal 'Brownies'

Sometimes you just feel like creating things or in my case of creativity: cook things, but you don't necessarily feel like going to the grocery store, so you need to be creative with what you have. And really sometimes you are just lucky enough to come across a recipe that has ingredients which are all waiting in your cupboards! This was my case of the Peanut Butter Banana Oatmeal Brownies, a recipe found on Foodbuzz (check right side Foodbuzz Top 9 recipes every day).

This easy to make cake/brownie/bake.... whatever you want to call it, makes a good solid breakfast or light lunch or is simply a satisfying snack! It has the moistness of a brownie, the taste of a peanut butter cookie and is sweet enough to please any sweettooth out there - while being packed with nutritious fibres and vitamin D that will keep you going for hours and hours and hours! Jackpot!!!

Ingredients:
240gr Instant Quaker Oatmeal
55gr Brown Sugar
1 teaspoon of Baking Powder
0.5 teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
1 teaspoon Vanilla
120 ml Milk
1 Egg
1 large Banana - smashed
64 gr Peanut Butter

How to make it:
Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celcius.
In a large bowl mix together the dry ingredients: oatmeal, sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.
After you add the vanilla, milk and the lightly beaten egg. Mix it all up.
Last you add the peanut butter and the smashed banana to the mixture.
Poor the mixture into a lightly greased 8x8 baking pan.
Put into the oven for 20-30 minutes until golden brown.

Outcome: Who needs brownies when you have these babies?? Well every one does, but they sure do their job well as a change once in a while! Serve plain or with fresh fruit, jam, greek yoghurt, whipped cream, chopped up nuts or simply some more peanut butter.. any topping will do.

Peanut Butter Banana Oatmeal Brownies

Buon Appetito

Chef Steph

First Gelato of the Season: Gelato Biscotto

No recipes for you.... but had something so extremely good this afternoon after lunch with my colleagues at Adverteam that it had to be shared!
I live in Milan right.... so what is Italy famous for??? Except for pasta and pizza.... GELATO!!!

Today's flavour: BISCOTTO aka COOKIES!!!
Dana over at My Little Celebration would have enjoyed this one for shizzle!

Gelato Biscotto

Ciao for now

Chef Steph

An Edible Perspective: Almond Butter

Peanut Butter... or any kind of nutty butter is just to go NUTS for! Not only is it good during breakfast, snacks or in some cases for dinner (Eh Tina?), but it's also the BEST fat burner that exists.

Many many many people think: peanut butter = fat = gaining weight!
instead it's: peanut butter = good fats = losing weight. Weird eh? But it's true... thank god!

Living in Italy means not having direct and easy access to this 'superfatburning powerfood', so I have been looking for a way to make it myself. Over at 'The Edible Perspective' Ashley posted how to make an almond/coconut butter that is sure worth a shot!
For ingredients and How to Make It - go over to her blog!

Outcome: dunno yet, but it sure does LOOK good! Will let you know how it turns out! 

Are you just as tempted looking at this beauty like I am??

Ashley's Almond Coconut Butter

Another Shot At Muffins: Healthy Chocolate Chip Muffins

I never give up a battle!
My last muffins were good but there was definitely some space for improvement. So today I gave it another shot. This time however I gave them the good old fashioned chocolate/vanilla twist!
And guess what??.... I WON the battle!!!!

Have a look at this beauty

Ingredients:

• 50 gr oat meal 
• 150 gr whole grain spelt flour 
• 50 gr flaxseed
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1,5 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla powder
• 2 eggs
• 4 tablespoons sunflower oil
• 10 gr vanilla sugar
• 50 gr brown sugar
• 250 ml milk
• 100gr crushed 85% chocolate

What to do:

Whisk together the dry ingredients : oat meal, spelt flour, flaxseed, baking soda, baking powder and vanilla powder.

Then beat up the eggs, add the oil and sugars (vanilla and brown), afterwhich you stir in the milk.

Once both mixes ready, stir in the wet mix into the dry mix. Make sure it gets a nice homogenous mixture and that you let in some air while stirring.

At the end you add the crushed chocolate and give it another good stir.

Put the mixture into buttered or slightly oiled muffin cups.... 20 min in the oven and voila!!!

Outcome: DUHLICIOUS!!!! Ask Chef Robert!! 

BUON APPETITO

Chef Steph

Healthy Apple Cinnamon Muffins

Oat Bran Apple Cinnamon Muffins

When sick, or when training for a marathon like I'm doing, you are always at the look out for good but healthy foods in order to fuel your body with things it needs.
My latest trend is to buy a big bag of apples that are on offer in my supermarket: peel them, cut them into pieces and make a nice apple compote out of them! Healthy, sweet without any guilt!!!

Last sunday, I thought to use this home made compote in some healthy muffins. So I looked for a recipe and found one on the womenhealthmag.com, the site of Women's Health Magazine.

Oat Bran Apple Cinnamon Muffins - to make 12 muffins:
http://recipes.womenshealthmag.com/Recipe/apple-cinnamon-oat-bran-muffins.aspx

These baked beauties are a cardiologist's dream food--the pectin fiber in apples, the oat bran, and the vitamin E-rich canola oil are loved by docs because together they lower both total and LDL cholesterol and keep insulin and blood sugar levels under control. But protecting yourself against heart disease won't even cross your mind when this dessert-worthy combo of apples, cinnamon, and nutmeg hits your taste buds. Too yummy to be typecast as breakfast muffins, they can be popped anytime for a filling and satisfying bite.

Ingredients:

• 50gr oat bran
• 150 gr whole weat flour
• 50 gr flaxseed
• 1teaspoon baking soda
• 1,5 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 egg
• 4 tbs canola oil
• 55 gr brown sugar
• 100 gr apple compote
• 30 gr walnuts or pecans crushed

What to do:
The trick of muffins is to mix the dry ingredients together and the wet ingredients together, and only then you gently stirr them in together before pooring them into the muffin cups.

So in this case:

Heat oven to 170 C.

Mix oat bran, whole weat flour, flaxseed, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon together in a bowl.

In another bowl whisk together the egg and the oil, after which you add the sugar and apple compote.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones and add the crushed nuts.

Poor the batter in the muffin cups and put into an oven for 20-25 mins.

The outcome: the taste was good but they needed to get a little bigger. Any tips??

BUON APPETITO

Chef Stef