Christmas #5 | Christmas cookies

So probably this is gonna be my last post about Christmas this year, I'm sooo sad about it but on the other hand I'm happy because I wanted to write 5 post about it and I manged to do it.

Maybe I will add another post with some photo I took these days in Milan, but I'm not sure about it because I don't have a good quality camera.

I can say I've just finished with gifts, it was hard but I'm really proud of myself when I think it's Christmas in 4 days and I don't have any other gift to wrap. 

If you're super late and you don't know what to do, well, this is another recipe I wanted to share becuase I bake cookies every year for some friends or parents, and every year it's a success. 

Shortcrust pastry can be a little bit hard, but if you know how to do it, I can guarantee that you'll get delicious cookies.

Baking cookies can also take a lot, because after preparing shortcrust pastry you need to leave it in the fridge for a couple of hours, so be sure you have enough time.

Ingredients (for about 50+ cookies)

200g sugar

400g flour

250g butter cut into cubes (room temperature)

2 eggs

A pinch of salt

Mix sugar, flour and salt in a large bowl. Then add butter and mix everything with your hands until completely combined. Now add eggs to blend your dough.

In case the dough is too flaccid, add some flour.
Put it in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

When your pastry is ready, roll your dough on a floured surface until is 0.5/1 cm tall: using a Christmas-biscuiti shape, make you biscuits and put them on a baking tray.

Bake at 200° for 10 minutes, until the cookies' surface is golden.

Decor with frosting if you want (recipe here) or just serve them.

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Enjoy your Christmas cookies and Christmas Eve ♥

Christmas #4 | Home made chocolates

This is a very easy, fast and funny way to make chocolate. I think that you can make chocolates in order to eat them or to give them to your friends as a Christmas gift, and you won't fail.
What I love about making chocolates is that you can really let your creativity run wild. You can use so many types of chocolate and a lot of flavors with it... You simply need a chocolate mold with Christmas shape, and then you can really do whatever you want.
I'm gonna show you my kind of chocolates, but you can do them differently of course.

Ingredients
Chocolate
Chocolate mold
Nuts

Decoration
100 g powdered sugar
2 spoon of hot water
Food coloring

Crumble your chocolate bar.

Cook chocolate in bain marie until it's completely melted, then put it in your chocolate mold. Add a nut in every single chocolates shape and be sure it's completely hidden by the chocolate.
Leave your chocolates in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

When your chocolates are ready, prepare cake frosting: put your powdered sugar in a small bowl and add two spoon of hot water and the food coloring if you want. Mix until it's completely combined, then use a pen or a toothpick to decor your chocolates.

How do you prepare your chocolates?
Let me know in the comments.

Apple dumplings

A few days ago I wanted to cook something for my boyfriend with two apples we had left. He loves apples so much, especially if cooked; I honestly like them only if fresh.

So, since I didn't have a baking pan good for a classic apple pie, I decided to try something new. 

This is what I did. My boyfriend liked them, so I can post the recipe here. 

It's really simple, fast, and of course you can personalise it in order to make your own apple dumplings.

Ingredients for 4 dumplings

One sheet puff pastry (rectangular)

One apple

50 gr sugar

Lemon juice

Cinnamon 

(Powdered sugar)

Cut an apple in little cubes and put them in a bowl. Add lemon juice and cinnamon to the apples. Lemon juice is really important because if you don't use it, your apple cubes will become black.

Cut puff pastry into 4 equal pieces.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.

Meanwhile, put sugar, cinnamon and lemon juice in a small pot and let them cook until completely melted. You'll get caramel.

With a pastry brush, spread the caramel on puff pastry (which shouldn't be too much cold or the caramel will istantly dry). Then add some apples cubes, and in the end close the dumplig. 

Do the same with the other dumplings and in the end make two little incisions on the top of the dumpling.

Bake 10 minutes, then let them cold a little bit.

You can add some powdered sugar or just eat them.

Baci di dama

Easter is almost here, and it means... baking!
In my opinion there's nothing better than a sweet gift for your friends: it doesn't get dusty or useless and it contains serotonin, the happiness hormone.
This year I decided to bake baci di dama, which is the italian translation for lady's kisses. They're 100% italian, from Turin to be precisely. The consistency is similar to the cookies' one, but they look completely different. Baci di dama are composed by two cookies kept together by a thin layer of chocolate. If you like hazelnut and chocolate, you will love baci di dama!

The recipe is pretty simple, even if the procedure is a little bit long, so be sure you have a couple of free hours.
This is the recipe I have, it's the basic one, but of course you can personalize it by adding what you like the most (for example I think that coffee or flavor like cinnamon and vanilla can be great with it).

Ingredients for 30 baci di dama

200 gr hazelnut

200 gr sugar

200 gr soft butter

300 gr (or less) flour

1 egg yolk

50 gr dark chocolate

50 ml double cream

Ground finely the hazelnut. 

Put the sugar, yolk, flour, hazelnut and butter in a large bowl and knead until they're completely mixed. If it's too soft, put it in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

Prepare two baking trays, then shape little balls with the cookie dough. They shoud be same size.

Preheat the oven 180° for 10 minutes, then bake baci di dama for 20 minutes.

While baci di dama are baking, prepare chocolate: cook in a bain marie chocolate and double cream, until it's completely melted. 

When the cookies are ready, let them cool down for 10 minutes.

Then take a cookie and put some chocolate on the flatten side. Cover it with another cookie. Wait for the chocolate to cool down and solidify, then your lady's kiss is ready!

Pancakes

Today, during the lunch, my parents and I were talking about food and I said to them that I will make waffles next time my boyfriend comes here, so my dad told me "hey, I don't want to wait for him, let's do them today!". Making waffles is a little more complicated than pancakes and we missed some ingredients so I suggested to make pancakes instead. They're really fast to bake and I usually conserve the pastry for 2/3 days.

I've been baking pancakes for three years looking for a good recipe. I tried a lot of recipe on the Internet but the only one I really liked was this one from VivaLaFocaccia, a blogger/youtuber who comes from my city, Genova.
I used his recipe pretty much but every time I used it, I added or modified something and now I can say I've created my own recipe for pancakes. Everyone who tasted them was quite enthusiastic.
So let me share with you my own recipe. I hope you'll enjoy!

Ingredients for about 10/12 pancakes

250 gr flour
250 ml milk
80 gr sugar

1/2 baking powder sachet
50 ml seed oil

1 egg (I know, it's not in the photo but it's totally necessary)
a pinch of salt

Take a large bowl and combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.
When they're mixed up, add slowly the milk and the oil. While you're adding them, mix the ingredients in order not to have lump in the end. When you have a perfect mixture, add the egg and mix it. If the mixture is too liquid add some flour. It mustn't be too liquid or too solid. A middle way is what you need.

Now it's time to cook: you can use a pancake maker or a simple skillet.
If you use a skillet, like I do, you must keep it to low heat. When it's warm, take a generous spoon of pastry and let it cook for about 2 minutes. When there are bubbles on the surface of the pancake like in the second photo below, flip it carefully. Now wait for other 2 minutes and then put it in a plat.
You can eat it hot or cold, I suggest hot of course!

My favourite matches are strawberries and chocolate, ice cream with nuts or chocolate topping, banana and chocolate. I love fruit and I can't avoid to put it everywhere.

Here's my personal pancake. Yummy!