I knew that sooner or later I’d have to talk about Carnival. As I have already mentioned, Carnival parades, more or less successful fancy dresses and colourful confetti that will sneak into your dresses worse than the sea sand into your swimming costumes, well, they are really not my cup of tea. The Carnival is the last obstacle before spring and I am really looking forward to the day when the snow will finally melt, giving way to all the warm temperatures expectations.

Though, it would be unfair to affirm that I do not like Carnival as a whole. Actually, on a second thought, there is something I appreciate. First thing, I have fond memories of the Carnival tales my teacher used to tell us during winter days at the elementary school, with that fun and irriverent traditional masks: Columbine, Harlequin, Punchinello, Pantaloon and Balanzone, and our Stenterello from Florence… I still love their vintage and romantic allure.

Then there are the Carnival sweet treats.

Now we are talking business, Carnival sweets constitute a valid reason to appreciate this time of the year! In Tuscany during Carnival days we traditionally eat cenci (litteraly rugs, fried dough) and rice fritters, and I really wouldn’t be able to choose which one I prefer. This year, feeling brave, I sat mum and grandma at a table with two significant Tuscan cookbooks, Pellegrino Artusi and Giovanni Righi Parenti, to scribble down two valid recipes for our traditional Carnival sweet treats, in order to give grams and steps to our a little bit of this and a little bit of that procedure.

Working on the cenci recipe, I took notes from Artusi’s 453. Cenci recipe for what regards ingredients quantities and from Giovanni Righi Parenti’s recipe for flavours and aromas, with the addition of orange zest and vin santo.

First with my ​​grandma and then on Sunday afternoon with mum, we tried to give to the cenci the traditional crispness that makes them melt in your mouth and the fruity orange scent that mum remembered from her childhood.

A teaspoon of baking soda will help the cenci to be light and develop those airy bubbles on the surface, a sign that you knead the dough, rolled it out and fried cenci perfectly, or, at least, it’s like this according to my parents’ childhood memories!

Anyway, this is the recipe of our family Carnival cenci, but I’m pretty sure that every family in Italy has it’s own secret recipe, along with a special and different name for this carnival fried dough, since they are a cross cultural element. My friend Judy told me that her Russian grandmother used to make similar sweet treats for Carnival, adding a dash of vodka to to make them light as a feather!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Carnival fried dough, the Tuscan cenci

You should be interested also in:

1. My Canelés de Bordeaux and my Carnival fancy dresses
2. The Tuscan pine nut cake – a recipe with a story
3. Tuscan Nutella and meringue tart

For me, living on the border between the provinces of Siena and Florence, driving south in Tuscany means going through one of the most breathtaking scenery on the planet, the Val d’Orcia and the Crete Senesi, declared by UNESCO, in 2004, World Heritage Site. The outlines of the hills are well known throughout the world, just as the small group of cypress trees at the top of a small hill that seem placed there on purpose to inspire photographers and dreamers.

Pienza, Bagno Vignoni, San Quirico d’Orcia… these are lands of cheese, hot springs and soft landscapes. Then Montalcino, known throughout the world for its wine and also for the excellent extra virgin olive oil, the view that stretches to a far horizon of rolling hills and an abbey just outside the town where the air still vibrates with mysticism and Gregorian chants.

When you drive southward  you have a far away reference point, the Mount Amiata, an ancient and no longer active volcano that dominates the surrounding valleys, the Val d’Orcia, the Bolsena lake, the Chianti and the plain of Maremma. In cloudless days you can see the Amiata mountain even from Siena and my house, covered with chestnut and beech forests. Though it has the fire in its remote past, now is the water that represents its main source of wealth: the Fiora waterworks supply with the local water the entire southern Tuscany and northern Lazio.

Until a few years ago the Mount Amiata was well-known for its winter tourism, being the most important ski resort in the southern Tuscany with its ski tows and its cozy mountain huts. Nowadays it is instead mostly appreciated for the fresh air, the green areas, the hot springs and a straightforward and hearty cuisine.

The goal of our southward trip was Piancastagnaio, famous for its incredible houses clinging to the side of a cliff and protected by the fortress Aldobrandeschi. Piancastagnaio is named after the splendid chestnut trees which surround the town and gift the villagers with one of the most important ingredients of their local cuisine, the chestnuts, celebrated every year in the famous Crastatone festival.

If you’ll ever visit Piancastagnaio, I do suggest you to climb to the Rocca Aldebrandesca, just to enjoy the pictoresque view of the town spreading beneath, with red roofs, the clock tower and the smoke from the chimneys, painting the scenario of an old time mountain village, genuine and true.

And now we enter in a Lord of the Rings genealogy: Piancastagnaio is the hometown of my friend Paolo, who is the husband of my best friend Laura, famous for the luscious Sacher Torte recipe, as well as for being the daughter of Rita, who revealed me the recipe for the delicious pine nut cake, and from now on also for being the daughter-in-law of the woman who gave me the recipe of the ricciolina, the decadent cake who pushed us South!

A first clarification is due, since I really do not want to raise the wrath of neighbour villagers, separated by colorful rivalries as always happens in Italy: the ricciolina tart belongs to the culinary tradition of Abbadia San Salvatore, not to Piancastagnaio. So do not hold it against me if the recipe comes from Laura’s mother-in-law from Piancastagnaio, I strongly believe that a thick slice of shortcrust pastry filled with creamy chocolate spread – now replaced with the world famous Nutella – would help even the most bitter enemies to come to an agreement.

The ricciolina tart hides between two crumbly shortcrust layers a thick Nutella filling and a generous handful of dried fruit, just to make it even more devilishly good. As the filling is made with Nutella, the first thing that comes to mind would be to use hazelnuts, but you can find sometimes also almonds or walnuts. I chose walnuts.

The walnuts are extremely appreciated in the Tuscan pastry making (just think at cavallucci) and their use goes back to the old times when myths and legends were part of the everyday life. Despite the love for this rich dried fruit, the relationship with the walnut trees has always been based on respect and fear. It was thought that the witches chose these trees as a shelter: every time the wayfarers found a walnut tree with a cracked trunk, they used to abandon that path not to wake up the witch who rested inside.

This is a mountain tart, a rustic and traditional shortcrust with a thick filling of Nutella and walnuts, covered by a gentle puff of meringue on which you can draw squiggles of chocolate, from which the cake takes its name.

When Paula from Bellalimento asked me to contribute with a Nutella sweet treat to the blog Bellanutella, I decided to take up the challenge and dig into the Tuscan culinary tradition to find a typical cake made with this delicious chocolate spread… this was definitely a cake worth the trip to the Mount Amiata, I bet you will adore it, too!

Head over to Bellanutella blog to discover the mouthwatering recipe to make the ricciolina!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Tuscan Nutella and meringue tart

You should be interested also in:

1. Yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake – Are you a cook or eat person?
2. Dark Chocolate Meringue Tart
3. The Tuscan pine nut cake – a recipe with a story

When I’ve found my groove and I’m not hung up on traffic and number of comments and whether I’m going to quit, it’s so gratifying. It brings me so much in terms of interaction and feedback and ideas and inspiration. It’s really worth every ounce of energy I pour into it. It has grown with me. It’s really the key to everything else that I do.”

Clotilde Dusoulier, Chocolate & Zucchini - from Will Write for Food, Dianne Jacob

… I wouldn’t be able to express my feelings in a better way or to find better words to celebrate my first 3 years of blogging today. Today, when I’m back home from London full of ideas and inspiration and I am ready to put everything into practice, today, when the snow has covered everything in white, softness and quietness, today, when the new life has finally begun.

And I want to thank you, because Clotilde’s words are true, true because I do appreciate your feedback, the love and the friendship, the interaction that grows constantly and makes me grow, an everlasting spur to do better not to disappoint you.

Therefore I decided to make this special treat for you, my Mum’s tiramisu, the basic version, still missing here on the blog… I could not wait any longer to publish it! As we are celebrating, I decided to make it a little bit more special with a step by step video: thanks to Valeria for being such a patient actress and to Laura for being a perfect assistant director!

P.S. Click on YouTube for a larger video!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

A tiramisu to celebrate 3 years of blogging

You should be interested also in:

1. Tea Tiramisu
2. The Daring Bakers’ Challenge: Tiramisu
3. Yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake – Are you a cook or eat person?

I like San Gimignano in the early morning, when it is still not crowded with tourists, when you see the local people passing along the streets almost incredulous to have San Gimignano for themselves, yet still for just a few more minutes. I like it when the footsteps echo on the cobbled shady streets, resounding between the high walls of the houses.

I like the gray colour of the stones, especially when they have just been washed by the rain of the early spring. In San Gimignano, along the main street that goes to the Cathedral from the park outside the walls, just after the main gate on the left you find the Pasticceria Armando e Marcella, one of my favourite pastry shops in the world. Every time that mum took me there as a little girl, just entered my question was always the same: Mum, could you buy me a rice tartlet?

The subtly lemon scented rice pudding tartlets were my favourite sweet treat as a child, whether bought by mum on a common Saturday when we went to visit my granddad Remigio who lived there, or by my aunt Silvana in an early morning before going to the market when I used to spend in San Gimignano a few days during the summer holidays.

It might depend on their special character or in their essence interwoven with childhood memories and flavours, but they are still my favourite choice on the rare occasions when I have breakfast in a bar, or when I enter in a baker’s shop and they have just been baked and are still warm with a gentle creaminess inside.

I baked them just before leaving for London, in one of those days when you need comfort from food and memories, using my grandma’s rice cake as basic recipe and working on it.

I scribbled down the recipe, took a few pictures and came to London meaning to write this post from here, from the warm and cosy kitchen in South East London, where there is always an Italian coffee. But then, as it always happens to me abroad, I felt like cooking home food and I baked again my rice pudding tartlets for breakfast along with minestrone, my mum’s veggie soup (not for breakfast!). The rice pudding tartlets, changing the country, have changed as well.

In Italy they are and should remain the tartlets you buy in a pastry shop, or better, in your favourite baker’s shop, round or softly oval, wrapped in a paper towel. They are supposed to be eaten standing up, perhaps with a coffee if you’re a grown-up or with a thick pear juice if you are a child, they are covered with icing sugar, that icing sugar that will inevitably dust your best dress in sweetness in the most important morning of your life.

Here in London, in the foodblogger headquarters, where any excuse is good to take new pictures or experiment a new combination, we played around with flavours and presentation. No icing sugar but a spoonful of thick greek yogurt and a drizzle of raspberry sauce, cooked with just a hint of sugar, to add a nice tart note. It goes well with our plans for tomorrow and a cup of Earl Grey.

Now you are spoilt for choice on how to serve these subtle lemon scented rice pudding tartlets, I already tried and tested the recipe for you!

Behind the scenes

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Mum, could you buy me a rice tartlet? The Italian rice pudding tartlets

You should be interested also in:

1. Light rice pudding
2. My Greek dinner: rice pudding
3. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: rice cake

Mum has a sweet tooth for whipped cream. Sweet tooth may be simplistic to describe her relationship with whipped cream and the speed with which her spoon speeds under my eyes when I make a cake, returning to her full of whipped cream.

This said, she loves simple and traditional desserts: tiramisu, mantovana, rose cake with almonds, cream puffs. Simple, caring, reliable, reassuring, good, just like she is for me.

Saturday was her birthday and as usual, in a hurry and trying to fit everything that needed to be done, we could not celebrate properly her special day, apart from a huge bowl of real homemade fries, crunchy and sprinkled with Maldon salt crystals.

Though, since I am foodblogger and a daughter, I could not play dumb longer, and yesterday I made a simple cake to celebrate her in the afternoon with the rest of my large, noisy and happy family, you know perfectly all the adjectives that usually come along with my family on a Sunday afternoon!

Yesterday morning I had little time and a great desire to take a walk out pretending it was already spring, so I needed an error proof cake. In these crisis moments I always have an ace up in my sleeve: the pound cake is the basic recipe I bake every time I want to create something from scratch, avoiding disastrous side effects. You just need eggs, flour, sugar and butter in your pantry, you can replace butter with yoghurt, cottage cheese, mascarpone cheese, olive oil… and the cake is ready to be baked.

Yesterday I substituted butter with plain whole yoghurt and I added two heaping tablespoons of intense unsweetened cocoa in the dough. The result was a deep flavoured and light chocolate cake, moist and soft inside. Then, since we’re enjoying the citrus season, I have enriched the cake with lemon custard (the same I used for the Tuscan pine nut cake) to give a marbled effect and add a citrus freshness to the cake.

You can replace the lemon custard with lemon curd or make a simple cocoa pound cake with no other additions, now you know how it works with it! Do you have other tempting ideas for the marble effect? I would suggest also a good strawberry jam…

Happy birthday Mum, I love you!

I told you that the sunny countryside was tempting me in a walk outside, so as soon as the cake was ready I run out (ok, I walked out, I still have to exercise more after the Christmas feast to be able to run avoiding a heart attack!) to see which surprises the Nature had reserved for me. I was not wrong.

On the way back home I saw something moving in the fields in the valley: there were three roe deer running into the woods nearby. In the picture they are nothing more than spots of colour, but I believe you can still recognize them! A little farther on there was another herd of seven deer, but this time my fixed lens could not take a picture of them, so I simply watched them graze peacefully.

Searching for other ideas for a pound cake?

• my first attempt with pound cake was the mascarpone and strawberry pound cake, bookmark it for the upcoming strawberry season!
• this is one of the cakes I loved the most, the lemon and white chocolate pound cake. Since we’re not in season yet, use frozen berries for the topping, or just whipped cream.
• the persimmon cake, bake it with apples or pears for a wholesome afternoon cake.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Cocoa pound cake with swirls of lemon custard

You should be interested also in:

1. Strawberry and mascarpone pound cake
2. Lemon & White chocolate cake
3. Dutch cocoa cupcakes

They came home gift-wrapped as only Santa’s elves would be able to do: two kilos of intense Caffarel dark chocolate. They came home along with a shower of chocolate stars, wrapped in a shiny yellow and red paper. As you can see from my pictures, I was put in charge of the 20th of December in the Advent Calendar, a game started on December the 1st with Kja’s chocolate pudding, a festive treat you would’n miss!

I had more than a month to think about my chocolate recipe to perform my part on the 20th of December, and I was perfectly aware of what I was going to make with my two kilos of chocolate, a smooth chocolate spread.

A chocolate spread, especially if made ​​with extra virgin olive oil, can be stored for some time and is a good idea for a gourmet Christmas gift. Make it precious with a beautiful handmade label drawn with old pencils in shades of brown, use a Christmas napkin to cover the lid of the jar and tie it with a velvet ribbon.

The simplicity of the recipe is redeemed with the high quality of the ingredients: choose a light and fruity extra virgin olive oil, a not too strong or pungent one as could be an olive oil from Apulia, fabulous with burrata and orecchiette but not in pastry. The cocoa powder I used is from a local chocolate shop and artisan confectionery, De Bondt of Pisa, so intense that it made ​​me forget the love for the Dutch cocoa. The hazelnut cream is organic, made ​​exclusively with blended hazelnuts, which means that, if you want, you can blend the same weight of shelled hazelnuts into a cream.

Despite my psychological and material preparation and the bags with the best ingredients arranged on the table, my chocolatier’s Apprentice thermometer abandoned me when least expected, so I went to a rule of thumb.

Christmas is really close now, so take a few hours for yourself, chop the chocolate in a warm kitchen, inebriate yourself with its dark smell while melting it in water bath, indulge yourself in mixing it slowly with the hazelnut cream. Pretend to be Vianne Rocher for a night, lost among puffs of cocoa and dark chocolate flakes, you deserve it!

P.S. Try this chocolate spread on warm bread, then you’ll tell me what you think!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Hazelnut and olive oil chocolate spread

You should be interested also in:

1. Chocolate & Tahini Truffles
2. Olive oil cookies + some notes on the use of olive oil in confectionery
3. Chocolate, cream and mascarpone trifle

We are all talking about Christmas lunches, dinners, gourmet gifts to impress people we love, chocolate afternoon treats in front of the fireplace, lit by the lights of the Christmas tree and the flames of the fireplace. But what about breakfast? This year I want also an lavish Christmas breakfast, slightly different from the usual milk and cereals, soft and fragrant.

I want to start greatly the day that for me is one of the most exciting of the year with a soft tiny cake, whose flavours and fondant heart remind the typical Sienese ricciarelli. This is a very special tiny cake, where the lager beer gives a light malty aroma.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Almond and orange tiny cakes for breakfast

You should be interested also in:

1. Tiny cakes with apples and carrots
2. Ricciarelli, Siena’s almond cookies
3. The Italian breakfast, spelt flour and cocoa ring cake. Guest post for Kulsum of Journey Kitchen

My granddad Remigio used to walk with a cane, more for habit than necessity, and often waved it like Charlie Chaplin. He also had the same funny walk, and loved to wear his hat at a jaunty.

Once in a while, when mum was at work, I spent an afternoon with him in San Gimignano. Our main activity was going to the park to pick up the pine nuts. The park was right outside the city walls, with gravel paths surrounding the shady flower beds and big pine trees, huge.

Now the park is unfortunately different, they cut down my huge shady pine trees, but if I close my eyes I can still hear the gravel crunching under my child feet, and the balsamic smell of the pine resin, the birichicchero, as my granddad called it.

After the walk with my eyes pointed down in the winding gravel paths searching for the tiny precious gifts, I sat in the entrance of my granddad’s house, on a marble staircase, and opened the pine nuts with a small hammer that he kept just for us grandchildren. The hammer blows, a bit insecure, roared into the hall and the pine nuts shells flew everywhere.

I ate one pine nut after the other with my hands blackened by the fairy pine nut shell dust, leaving just a tiny handful for a possible cake. That’s why I waited so long to make my first pine nut cake! This is a recipe with a long story, my favourite kind of recipes as you may already know, just like last year Laura’s Sacher Torte.

This year the protagonist is Rita, Laura’s mother. This is Rita’s pine nut cake, passed on by Giuliana, who seems to have had the recipe from a famous Sienese pastry shop… here the mystery deepens, but since it is Christmas I want to tell you this perfect recipe. The pine nut cake recipe had all the credentials to succeed, I had tasted it several times at Laura’s and I really wanted to bake it again, that’s the result!

The recipe, tried and perfected for years by more than one family, is a reliable one: it is simple to make and gives a tremendous satisfaction to take it out from the oven, hot and sprinkled with toasted pine nuts, not to mention to eat it, with a fondant custard heart dotted with juicy raisins soaked in sweet wine. Talking about the silky custard, don’t miss the recipe, it has become the standard procedure to make custard at home!

Now just have a look at this slice of pine nut cake, it looks exactly like the cake showed in the San Gimignano pastry shop windows I looked at  with greedy eyes coming back home from the park with my granddad, with one hand secured into his huge hand and the other one holding tightly my bag of pine nuts.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

The Tuscan pine nut cake – a recipe with a story

You should be interested also in:

1. Cocoa pound cake with swirls of lemon custard
2. Yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake – Are you a cook or eat person?
3. Lemon & White chocolate cake

I received a gift. I was living one of those moments in your life when you need to find a goal, something to commit for, something so important to deserve sacrifices and long hours of work. I wanted to find out who I was, I wished to be able to define myself through a dream. In that moment, a few years ago, my passion for food, Tuscany and writing lighted up and showed me what was meant to be made.

I realized I had received a gift, I had been living for my whole life in the Tuscan countryside, one of the most beautiful areas of the world. I could share this passion, the love for my region and for our food and our traditions. That could be the goal I was searching for in the past, that could be the reason that would lead my actions, giving a meaning to my everyday life. This will be my job from January, I couldn’t ask for a greater gift than passion!

This was the ultimate gift, this is the first mental image I had when Gloria asked us to talk about gifts for the Italy blogging roundtable. Don’t miss, on the 14th of December, the posts about gifts written by Gloria and by the other participating writers, Alexandra from ArtTrav, Jessica from Why Go Italy, Melanie from Italofile, and Rebecca from Brigolante.

This said, I am also a material girl and I adore simple gifts, received and made. I love the rustling of decorated paper, untying glittered ribbons or wrapping home-made gourmet gifts with care and imagination for my dear ones and friends.

This is one of the reasons that made me sign up to the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap, hosted by Lindsay of Love & Olive oil and Julie of The Little Kitchen:

The premise is this: sign up. Receive the addresses of three other food bloggers. Send each of them one dozen delicious homemade cookies. Receive three different boxes of scrumptious cookies from other bloggers. Eat them all yourself (or, you know, share. If you want. No judgement either way.) Post your cookie recipe on your blog. See everyone else’s cookie recipes. Salivate. Get lots of great ideas for next years’ cookie swap. Rinse and repeat.

How not to sign up? Rossella asked them to extend the chance to take part to the swap to Italy as well, and we managed to reach the critical number of required foodbloggers and we largely exceeded it. Just add foodbloggers, cookies, Christmas and swap into the same jar, shake it up and you have one of the most exciting event of this Christmas!

I received buttery and decadent ginger and chocolate cookies from Nathalie, crunchy Sicilian cookies with pistachios and chocolate from Claudia and original chestnut shortbread cookies from Rossella.

My cookies, instead, travelled all the way to Luisa, Alessandra and Annamaria. Curious to know my recipe? It was a simple short pastry cookie, made with organic flour, butter and eggs and flavoured with the most fresh and natural essences: orange, lemon and mandarin peels, a citrus Christmas for everyone! They are the perfect treat for the afternoon tea, slightly crunchy and fruity. My favourite ones were the lemon and cardamom cookies, amazing with a cup of steaming black coffee.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Gifts, Christmas swaps and short pastry citrus cookies

You should be interested also in:

1. Christmas cookies, III episode
2. Cookies: Christmas reharsal
3. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: cavallucci, typical Tuscan Christmas cookies

Here I am, I’m sorry if I am a bit absent in these days but Juls’ Kitchen is eventually moving. After many and repeated problems with my Italian hosting company, Tophost, I am finally turning to a new hosting service on the advice of a blogger friend, Jaxies. I cannot thank her enough, I am already deeply in love with Host Duplex!

Stalking chatting with the founder who tells you what’s wrong and how to solve it, and who also takes responsibility for fixing all your problems, has no price: it is the first totally unexpected Christmas gift. In these moments you really realize the importance of courtesy and professionalism.

Here I come to today’s theme, another quick idea for a Christmas gift: White Christmas meringues. They are meringues, absolutely simple meringues, but, trust me, just write white Christmas meringues on the label of your nice gift bag and you’ll see happy faces all around you!

This is Jamie Oliver’s tested meringues recipe, this time flavoured with organic lemon peel and organic vanilla essence, a sweet and fresh cloud, a delicate as crystal gift for your loved ones.

Sorry, I lost all your comments in this post, but finally my blog has a reliable American server and a beating Tuscan heart: we’re ready for great things!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

White Christmas Meringues

You should be interested also in:

1. Gifts, Christmas swaps and short pastry citrus cookies
2. Ginger Meringues
3. Jamie Oliver’s Christmas cake

I am passionate about the stories that tell a cross-section of life from the unusual and alienating perspective of an object, which unexpectedly connects the characters and is often the key to understanding something more about their lives, their expectations and their dreams.

I could tell you of a slow Tuscan Sunday afternoon, the one of two days ago for example, from the strange perspective of this particular autumn persimmon cake, a cake for a relaxed afternoon tea, wholesome, not too sweet, simple.

I baked the cake just after lunch, inspired by the basic and reliable pound cake recipe. It is the right cake for the autumn, a simple one perfect for a break in the afternoon: it has a slightly nutty taste given by the whole spelt flour, a caramel hint thanks to the moist muscovado cane sugar and slices of juicy persimmons, the fruit that best represents the season of flaming colours, the smell of fireplaces and the need of something cosy and warming to go with a cup of steaming black tea.

As in a film, follow me in a changing of scenes and focus your attention on the cake, brought from a silent kitchen into a crowded living room, where uncles, aunts, grandparents and cousins are chatting in the soft light of the fireplace. The cake is lightly dusted with icing sugar and leaves a subtle scent of vanilla and fruit as it passes through the people, making everyone turn to understand where that good scents comes from.

Just as the cake is laid on the table, in the midst of mismatched tea cups, cane sugar, lemon and spoons, the door opens and comes the long awaited guest who enters for his first time in the living room into his little blue pram, just a month year old, with a delicate sweet face, a feeble voice and a chiselled small nose.

In one corner of the table the cake is sliced in the dim light while everyone is looking elsewhere, gathered around the pram to study every little movement, a first release show made ​​of wheedles, eyes blinking in disbelief and shrieks. Gradually, the slices of cake are passed from hand to hand and reach the proud grandparents, bringing back the attention to a chat about lullabies and nappies.

Further along the persimmon cake reaches the couch, where my uncles are already planning the Christmas lunch, mixing restaurants and dishes with more serious references to taxes, salaries, crisis and possible solutions. That is the corner of the serious discussions, where a slice of nutty cake is highly needed to soften the hearts, to go with a steaming cup of tea with sugar and lemon.

From outside the headlights of a car illuminate the open windows, lively pictures sparkling in the evening. A few minutes after comes into the room the baby girl who used to be the youngest of the family, now ousted by the newly born, all wrapped in a pink scarf and a white hat, with her arms around her father’s neck.

With decision and a merry attitude she wins everyone’s attention and she sits next to the cake that becomes again the star of the afternoon in front of her hungry eyes. Bite by bite she eats three whole slices, alternating the sugary persimmon cake with greedy gulps of water, drunk with the transportation that only children have, as they strive to appreciate every moment.

The scene closes on the living room after dinner, when the last remaining slices of the cake are wrapped and taken home for breakfast by the last one leaving, a lover of wholesome food, just like the persimmon cake is.

Here is my recipe for the persimmon cake, which seems even more but it is autumn: it has the color of the leaves rustling with vibrant accents of sliced ​​apples.

I have used for the first time crunchy to the bite persimmons, while usually I find and eat in a joyful mess the soft persimmons, the ones you eat with a spoon. This kind of persimmons, with a texture that reminds apples, is perfect to bake a cake for the afternoon tea.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Persimmon cake with whole spelt flour

You should be interested also in:

1. The Italian breakfast, spelt flour and cocoa ring cake. Guest post for Kulsum of Journey Kitchen
2. The Tuscan pine nut cake – a recipe with a story
3. An apple cake for Dario’s Food styling and food photography workshop

They are three. Three white hairs. Three white hairs that I see every morning in the bathroom mirror, highlighted by the harsh spotlight that makes them stand out, so white and straight, among the other soft brown curls, that instead are huddled peacefully on my head, as they are supposed to be, as curly hair, in the early hours of the morning.

Until a few months ago, every now and then I spotted one white hair that wanted to stand out from the others and that – poor deluded – was short-lived, because as soon as I noticed its unwelcome presence, it was eliminated with decision. You, the intruder, what do you think to do here?

Then, lightning, a thought: it is generally believed that every white hair is actually a sign that we managed to indulge a whim. So why on earth are we trying to hide this flowing of time marked more by happily satisfied whims than by wrinkles? this is really a pleasant way of looking at the passage of time, a way that celebrates the achievements and victories, the small moments of personal satisfaction, and transforms them into trophies.

The first English afternoon tea at the Four Seasons. A flight to London. A relaxing massage with aromatherapy. A twelve-hour night’s sleep under a duvet soft like a cloud. Horse-riding in the woods looking in the distance at the towers of San Gimignano. A ’50s style garden party with red and white striped straws. A flight to London, again. The second English afternoon tea, this time at the Ritz. A day of idleness while everyone is at work. The red lipstick. The blue nail polish even though I was in the office. My colourful clothes combined with crazy fantasy. The truffle of Alba. A moelleux au chocolat. A flight to London, yes, again … one year of white hair, thank God!

When I made ​​this decadent chocolate pudding with a lavish molten heart I just thought: now I’m going to indulge a whim, let me bake just for myself a sumptuous moelleux au chocolat. I’m not talking about those frozen and surely industrial patty-cakes you can find in almost every restaurant, presented as house specialties, this is a real moelleux au chocolat, made by carefully following the recipe found in Jamie Magazine issue 22, completely dedicated to France. It’s made ​​with mostly organic products and the best chocolate I found, a bag of 70% cocoa dark DeBondt chocolate drops.

This was the first time I baked a real moelleux au chocolat, therefore the thrill of discovering the soft and dense dark chocolate molten heart with a spoon was true and pure. It was undeniable worth the white hair!

Although you can find here on Juls’ Kitchen many foreign recipes, linked to traditions of other countries, the French recipes are really not well represented, they can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Here they are all together, just in case you feel like French style after this decadent chocolate pudding!

• riz rouge de Camargue with fennel confit, a savoury memory of one of the best holidays on the road, Camargue and Provence, during  the summer of 2010,
• Vérònique’s crepes with salted butter and raspberries, to transform a so far pretty anonymous dish in a family dish, thanks to the story and words of a French friend,
• cherry clafoutis, a secret whispered on my door,
• omelette with herbs, from an Elizabeth David’s recipe, my absolute favourite food writer.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Moelleux au chocolat

You should be interested also in:

1. Chocolat verrines… to lick your fingers!
2. Les Mendiants – Vianne Rocher favourite ones!
3. Robert’s Absolute Best Brownies: a life-changing minute

I succeeded to post the recipe at the second attempt. I baked this biscotti for the first time early this summer for a special Tuscan dinner with friends, writing the ingredients on a small piece of paper and losing it as expected at the end of the evening. It’s always the same: you put the notes scribbled down with codes and abbreviations that only you can understand in that book because you are sure you will easily remember that it is there, except then forgetting about it after 5 minutes, giving the recipe for missing for the months to come.

The same happened with the small duvet buttons, put into the box on the shelf because it was clear that I would have searched for them there the next year… and of course I secured the duvet to the sheets with pegs for months! And it happened again with the new necklace I bought in Germany, put in the most obvious and easy place to remember and found at the end of the season during the wardrobe change, just by chance.

But here I admit it, Your Honor, I’m a persistent offender with recipe notes. I even bought a black Moleskine just for my recipes, but most of the times I forget to write there ingredients, temperature and steps on the glossy pages of my diary.

As in the best fairy tales, when you least expect it the slip of paper comes out, and the only thing you need to do is to decrypt with archaeologist attention my infamous abbreviations, so obvious when you note them down for the first time, so obscure when you find out the recipe months later.

After having sent a good bunch of darns to the past me, who insists on writing half in Italian and half in English, hopping from language to language and from units of measurement to units of measurement, I eventually managed to reconstruct the basic recipe of the cantuccini made with chestnut flour.

Since in this period I’m playing with alternative flour and sweeteners, influenced Heidi Swanson‘s useful and mind-opening books, I slightly changed the original cantuccini recipe, trying to make them mirror the amazing colours and flavours of autumn.

I chose the chestnut flour, so sweet, and a whole oat flour, enchanted by how Heidi describes it: in her opinion it gives a moist and creamy sweetness to cookies and cakes. Just to bring these biscotti a step further in the scale of indulgence, I stirred in a generous handful of 70% dark chocolate drops, strong and slightly bitter. Now pull out the vinsanto, the cantuccini are ready!

You can store the chestnut flour in a tightly closed plastic box or bag in the freezer: since it is obtained from dried chestnuts, it will keep the floury texture, without turning into a frozen brick.

For an improvised snack with the dear flavour of the ancient times just stir the sweet flour with water until you get a smooth and liquid batter, similar to the pancake mixture. Brush with extra-virgin olive a small non-stick pan, heat it on the stove and pour a spoonful of batter into the pan, spreading it evenly. Cook for a very few minutes on both sides and enjoy necci, chestnut pancakes typical of the Garfagnana area, simply good with just a dusting of icing sugar or a spoonful of fresh ricotta.

If you love chestnut flour just like I do – after all when you taste the best quality chestnut flour it will be like having a chestnut melting on your tongue, such a real taste -, do not miss castagnaccio, the most typical and rustic chestnut cake, made just with olive oil, rosemary, raisins and pine nuts.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Chestnut flour and chocolate drops biscotti

You should be interested also in:

1. DB Challenge: crostata with 2 fillings {chocolate & tahini and chestnut pastry cream}
2. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: chestnut cake
3. Jamie Oliver’s Two-nuts Chocolate Cake

A slice of apple cake resting on a rustic table, the inviting smell of sugar and butter warmed up by a ray of sunshine… Yeah, you would presume that this is the natural light of an arched window overlooking the hills in front of Casole, right? Well, no, this photo was taken during Dario Milano‘s food styling and food photography workshop, which was held last Saturday at the Verrocchio Art Centre. And I was using artificial lighting…

An illuminating day, it is appropriate to say. Dario’s professionalism, enthusiasm, generosity and curiosity of Darius have charmed our group of foodbloggers, foodies and photographers. We were completely in awe.

A few shots to describe emotionally a day of discovery, friendship and inspiration.

It was amazing to see through Dario’s eyes, to understand how to make real an image, working on the details, on the mathematical ratio between exposure, ISO, aperture and shutter speed. Thanks to all the participants, you made the day: Emiko, Sarah, Valeria, Jasmine, Elisa, Rossella, Cecilia, Lara, Fausto, Paola, Chiara, Roberta and Francesco.

And now the recipe for my Grandma’s apple cake: we spent the whole day looking at the apple cake slice from all the perspectives, with natural light and artificial lightning, I should at least give you the recipe!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

An apple cake for Dario’s Food styling and food photography workshop

You should be interested also in:

1. The Tuscan pine nut cake – a recipe with a story
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I have been admiring Kulsum’s blog for months, in love with her Indian recipes, with that Middle Eastern hint that makes her tasty dishes even more interesting and appealing. How have I been able to meet Kulsum, born and brought up an Indian Bohra household in Kuwait? Twitter is the answer, and the reason I’m here today with a guest post regarding the Italian breakfast!

As a grown-up, my daily breakfast is now a cup of jasmine green tea with two slices of toasted bread and a translucent spread of home made jam, but as a child I adored the ciambellone, our home made and rustic ring cake, a classic of many Italian family breakfasts.

This is not a fancy cake, you won’t see this golden brown ring cake in a patisserie window next to glossy macarons and deep chocolate masterpieces. Tough, I assure you that you can find it on a morning breakfast table in many Italian houses, lovingly sliced by the caring hands of mothers for their sleepy children, or generously spread with home made fruit jam by hungry students ready to face a new day.

Follow me at Kulsum’s Journey Kitchen to read the recipe!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

The Italian breakfast, spelt flour and cocoa ring cake. Guest post for Kulsum of Journey Kitchen

You should be interested also in:

1. Buckwheat flour breakfast muffins
2. Persimmon cake with whole spelt flour
3. Florentine panino al lampredotto and a guest post

I am fond of hedgerows, they have always had a powerful appeal on me. They grow patiently along the roads, or between the fields, every year they change colours according to the seasons and offer a shelter to small animals. They stand there, casting a mysterious spell on what lies beneath, hidden from the view of common people. They scents of wood, of fresh green, of ancient people.

I love the Tuscan hedgerows, so irregular, they draw the boundaries between fields of wheat, fields of sunflowers and fields at rest, they are made ​​of bushes and trees that stand out among the thorns. They represent home and safety, being the hedges that surround you and protect you, crowded with fireflies in the hot season.

(she’s my mum!)

I love the English hedgerows, unwinding along the country roads, shaded by leafy trees and revealing small cottages and green meadows where horses and cows graze. Those, to me, are the mysterious hedges that hide and give you hint on different stories and other possible endings.

The hedgerows always remind me of the late summer afternoon golden hours, when I usually go picking blackberries with my mum, as every year since I can remember, with the slanting warm light and and my smile that gets more black after every blackberry.

No jam for me this year, mum made preserves for all the family, packing the pantry with jars labeled and sorted by colour: orange apricot, purple plum, blue blackberry.

I used my berries to bake a tart I bookmarked months ago into Super natural every day, by Heidi Swanson, well known for her blog, 101 cookbooks. The cake is real and hearty, has an intense flavour enhanced by the whole wheat and the natural cane sugar and a soft macaroon filling, dotted by juicy blackberries.

Super natural every day. I only made a few recipes from the book so far but each and every recipe has fulfilled all my expectations: Heidi takes you by the hand and guides you throughout the steps. All the recipes I made have the same effect on me: they make me feel good, healthy, natural and full of energy.

1. The most classic: make a jam! what summer would it be without blackberry jam?
2. Blackberries for the winter: rinse them, pat them dry and freeze the best and juiciest berries for the cold season. You can store them in a plastic bag in your freezer and bring back summer to life in a few minutes, even during the long winter evenings.

So far, this is one of my favourite tart ever, due to my newly born love for wholesome food and fruity cakes, but obviously I’m not the first one to find it mouthwatering and a perfect treat during the day. You can find other versions of this tart:

• on Smitten Kitchen, another blog I read always with pleasure, mostly for their philosophy: I think food should be accessible, and are certain that you don’t need fussy foods and/or pretentious ingredients to cook fantastically.
• at Helene’s Sweet Tartelette, as always, masterfully made ​​with another recipe from the book, a salad of shaved fennel
• and how not to mention another macaroon tart baked by Heidi on her blog, 101 cookbooks, made with fresh cherries instead of blackberries (recipe to bookmark for the next cherry season, even though, what about sour cherries in syrup?)

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

About hedgerows and blackberries: Macaroon Tart

You should be interested also in:

1. White peach and lavender tart
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3. Melktert – Milk Tart from South Africa

And here we are, we’ve come to the last and sweet part of our menu, the dessert, the end of our midsummer night’s dinner. Thank you for following me till the very end, but remember that you still have time to organize a dinner with friends, summer is still long!

I now leave London to move to Stuttgart, to visit my sister, she’s eventually arrived at the end of her Erasmus semester. I’ll stay a few days, sightseeing around Stuttgart and the Black Forest, then I’ll be back home, leaving Claudia to her last week of Erasmus. On her return, I’ll be ready to welcome her home with a fanfare and an endless array of good things to eat! These six months have flown by, it seems only yesterday that I left her, crying like a silly girl at the Stuttgart airport!

But now let’s talk about the sweet things in life!

Everyone loves tiramisu, maybe because of its creamy texture, or maybe for its reassuring character. This is a version made ​​with vinsanto, the sweet wine that closes many lunches and dinners in Tuscany. as I have already told you, this is enough for 15 people, a crowded dinner with friends!

MASCARPONE CREAM WITH VINSANTO

Ingredients: 5 eggs, yolks and whites separated – 8 tablespoons OF sugar – 1 kg of mascarpone cheese – 250 ml of vinsanto – unsweetened cocoa powder to serve

Directions

1. Beat the egg yolks and the sugar with the electric mixer until they become white and fluffy and when you rub the cream between your fingers you no longer feel the grains of sugar.
2. Add the mascarpone cheese and pour in the vinsanto, then whip vigorously, until you get a smooth cream.
3. Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold them into the mascarpone cream.
4. Spoon the mascarpone cream into individual bowls and refrigerate. Dust with cocoa powder just before serving.
5. It can be served with biscuits, ladyfingers or cantuccini with dried figs.

I baked cantuccini with dried figs and cantuccini made ​​with chestnut flour, candied orange and chocolate chips to serve with the mascarpone cream. I wrote down the ingredient list on a small piece of paper, and of course I lost it. But they were good and very nice to see, so I’ll show you as they were supposed to be… you might get inspired and experiment this flavour match in another recipe!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

A midsummer night’s dinner. Mascarpone cream with vinsanto

You should be interested also in:

1. Chocolate, cream and mascarpone trifle
2. Strawberry and mascarpone pound cake
3. A midsummer night’s dinner. Fresh vegetarian lasagna

Today is my birthday. Today I am 30 years old! I told you last year, and I’ll repeat it: my birthday is one of my favorite days throughout the year, along with Christmas. Those blessed five minutes I spent under the sheets before getting up are full of expectations, of a rarefied happiness that makes me feel slightly different and special all day long. Today is special for another reason, too.

When I turned 28, more than one person told me, with a worried yet enthusiastic look, that I was entering into the Saturn Return. Astrologers believe that when Saturn returns to the point where it was when you were born, you cross a major threshold and enter the next stage of your life.

Since Saturn is the planet that represents the time, the responsibility, the inner strength that helps you achieve your goals, those ranging from 28 to 30 are two years in which you cut dead branches and leave behind heavy burdens, but in the meantime you reconfirm the values ​​you believe in and the important people in your life. These are the years when you have to make choices, and you finally realize that these choices, for the first time, depend only on you, not on your parents or on social conventions.

And so today I put ideally a full stop after two intense, sometimes tiring but always interesting and challenging years. From now on, I start a new journey, with a little more awareness of my goals, my dreams, who to consider a friend, who to rely on… and mostly who I am.

My birthday cake is affected by these changes as well. I sat at the kitchen table, with some trusted good books you know you can count on in the important moments, a squared notebook and a pencil, and I started thinking about what I wanted for my special day, because there is no doubt that my 30th birthday cake will be remembered for a long time.

I indulged in my last preference: I usually feel like a cake that is not too sugary, which has a rustic and natural flavour, made ​​with an interesting flour. I like simple cakes, simple to make and simple to taste, with no complications, something that makes you feel good, with seasonal fruit to give freshness. I believe this is a kind of cake very similar to me, now.

So, this is the recipe, described picture by picture …

… and now, the real recipe! Enjoy it!

POPPY SEED BUCKWHEAT CAKE WITH FRESH RED CURRANTS

My 30th birthday cake, recipe adapted from 1-2-3 poppy-seed cake, from Nicole’s Delicious days book.

Ingredients:

• 250 g soft butter (plus a bit more for the pan)
• 5 room temperature medium or large organic eggs
• 200 g of caster sugar
• 100 g of fresh cream
• grated zest of 1 organic lemon
• scraped seed of 1 vanilla pod
• 100 g of ground poppy seeds
• 200 g of buckwheat flour (plus a bit more for the pan)
• 2 tablespoons of baking powder

Ingredients to make the butter cream filling:

• 100 g of butter
• 175 g of icing sugar
• grated zest of 1/2 organic lemon
• a few tablespoons of cherry/strawberry/wild berries syrup

To decorate:

• icing sugar for dusting
• 200 g of fresh red currants

Directions

1. All the ingredients should be at room temperature for optimal baking results, so be sure to take the butter, eggs and cream out of the refrigerator ahead of time.
2. Preheat the oven to 180°C and brush a 18 cm round pan with butter and dust evenly with the flour.
3. Beat the butter and sugar until creamy with the whisk of the hand mixer.
4. Add gradually the eggs while mixing continuously.
5. Wash the lemon with hot water and grate the zest on a fine grater directly into the bowl. Add the scraped seeds of one vanilla pod.
6. Whisk in the fresh cream and the poppy seeds.
7. Stir in the buckwheat flour and the baking powder.
8. Scrape the batter into the pan and bake in the oven for 45 – 50 minutes.
9. Take the cake out of the oven and let cool for 10 minutes, then turn the pan onto a wire rack and remove it. Let it cool completely.
10. To make the filling, whip the butter at room temperature with the icing sugar, the grated zest of half of an organic lemon and a few tablespoons of your favourite berry syrup.
11. When the cake is completely cold, slice it horizontally and spread half of the cake it with the butter cream, sprinkle with half of the red currants and top it again with the second half of the cake.
12. Dust with icing sugar and decorate with fresh red currants. Let it set at least half an hour in the refrigerator before serving it.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Poppy seed buckwheat cake with fresh red currants for my 30th birthday

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Everytime a child says I don’t believe in fairies, there’s a a little fairy somewhere that falls down dead. Peter Pan.

When you stop believing in a dream, it happens the same thing. A fairy dies, a flower closes down, a star burns out, a smile fades away. That’s why you must keep on believing in your dreams, whatever happens, that’s why I keep on believing my dreams, no matter what.

I have many dreams, some are more realizable than others: likely I won’t end up on the stage of the Wembley stadium so that Robbie Williams could sing me a song, like, say… She’s the one, but there are other dreams that I feel here, close to me, so close that if I stretch out my hand I can almost graze them and tickle them.

And yet, there are days when even the more achievable dreams seem too far, wrapped in a thick cotton-like fog. Even though the dreams are made ​​of intangible breaths, the best way to reconnect to them is getting active, doing something concrete.

What can I do? I take a brisk walk, I walk so fast that my eyes almost weep for the wind and the sun. I reorder my cookbooks and put signs with a post-it on the recipes I want to make in the future. I make a cheese, from milk to curd in a very short time. You manage to affect reality with a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar, you change the material and I feel like I’m doing a magic … if I can do that, I will also realize my dreams, right?

Speaking technically, this is not a proper cheese, but a curd. But we know that in dreams a little magic and fantasy never hurt. I recently discovered goat milk and goat cheese, but as I have said, it has an unusual character, you hate or love it. I love it!

HOME MADE GOAT RICOTTA CHEESE

Ingredients:

• 500 ml goat milk
• 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar

Directions

1. Heat the milk in a saucepan, keeping an eye on the temperature.
2. When it reaches 80°C, pour in a tablespoon of vinegar and stir on low heat, preventing the milk from taking the boil.
3. When  it starts to curdle, that is the curdled milk starts to separated from the whey, remove the saucepan from the heat and let it cool at room temperature.
4. When completely cold, line a colander with the cheese cloth, place it on a bowl and pour the curdled milk into the colander.
5. Let it drain overnight in the fridge, and the day after the goat milk ricotta is ready!

And now, how can we serve our home made goat milk ricotta? I whipped it with a drizzle of wild flower honey to sweeten and soften it, then I baked a handful of sweet little plums with a tablespoon of lavender flowers, some tablespoons of honey and a split open vanilla pod, then I served them together.

You can also serve it as an appetizer, marinating the curdled goat milk with the spices I used here.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Home made goat ricotta cheese and roasted fruit

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There are many things that make me happy.

An evening spent in a cinema to watch a Hollywood movie, one of those you have been waiting for months and that gives you the shivers right from the opening credits, with a bag of caramel popcorn, your glasses to see clearly from the distance  and not miss a shot, your best friend in the chair beside you and two hours to spend in the dark, comments in a low voice and giggles included.

A windy day with turquoise sky and white clouds running high, the trees talking to each other in an ancient language, the branches caressing each others and intertwining. All your heavy thoughts are swept away by the wind and the air becomes lighter.

An unexpected free afternoon at home, four gifted hours, a to-do list that gets thinner and thinner, the time to put in order a shelf or the lazy books that lie on the bedside table, to make a long-waited phone call or simply to pet Kira, now old but even sweeter, with her soulful and grateful eyes.

The scent of lavender, that instantly takes me on holidays, being it in my garden or in a still village in a Provençal afternoon, with painted shutters, flowers on the windowsill, the ivy around the door and your steps that resonate in the stone back lanes.

Baking a fruit cake, using ripe peaches, organic eggs, flour and butter, just to feel a bit better, loved.

These momentary vivid thoughts often go through my head, sometimes overlap and give life to hybrid dreams that give you one of the most beautiful things in life, a moment of pure ecstasy and bliss.

The other day I inadvertently passed very close to the lavender bed and rubbed my hands through the flowers: the purple scent of lavender wrapped me and immediately made ​​me think of peaches, white and juicy. And then came the idea of this cake, born from a spontaneous association of ideas, happy, easy and instantaneous.

And now if you want to enjoy 5 minutes of  bliss, here’s the recipe (do not be scared by the length, it is very easy to do, I’ve just been very detailed!)

WHITE PEACH AND LAVENDER TART

Ingredients for the almond short crust:

• 100 g of almonds, peeled and roasted
• 150 g of sugar
• 200 g of plain flour
• 150 g of cold butter, diced
• 1 egg, lightly beaten

Ingredients for the pastry cream:

• 8 egg yolks
• 4 cups (1 l) of milk
• 8 tablespoons of sugar
• 2 tablespoons of cornstarch
• peel of 1 lemon

Ingredients to finish the tart:

• approx. 15 medium-sized white peaches, not too ripe
• a few sprigs of lavender
• a few tablespoons of sugar

Let’s make the almond short crust…

1. Blend the almonds, previously peeled and roasted, with a spoonful of sugar, with rapid and repeated pulses of the blender, so as not to heat them and let them release their oil.
2. Combine the flour with the ground almonds and the sugar, then add in the butter cubes and rub it with the flour until you obtain a crumbly dough.
3. Now add the lightly beaten egg, stir quickly until the dough comes together, form a ball, flatten it lightly and place it in the fridge for an hour, wrapped in waxed paper.

Let’s make the pastry cream…

1. Pour the milk into a saucepan with 6 tablespoons of sugar and the lemon peel (just the yellow part) and bring to a boil. As soon as it takes the boil, remove from the heat.
2. Beat the egg yolks with the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar. Stir in the cornstarch, mixing well to remove any lumps.
3. Filter the milk and pour it in a thin stream over the egg yolks, stirring constantly with a whisk to prevent scrambled eggs.
4. Cook the cream in a water bath on low heat, stirring constantly, until it veils the spoon, about 15 minutes.
5. Remove from the heat, cover with plastic wrap and allow to cool completely.

… and now let’s finish the tart!

1. Preheat oven to 180°C.
2. Remove the pastry from the fridge, roll it out with the help of a rolling pin and a some flour and line a 26 cm round pan or a rectangular mould (10×30 cm).
3. Prick the bottom of the tart.
4. Spread the pastry cream onto the bottom of the tart and top it with the peaches, previously peeled and cut into thin slices.
5. Sprinkle the peaches with a tablespoon of sugar and a crushed sprig of lavender.
6. Bake for about 30 minutes, until the surface becomes golden.
7. Let cool and serve with a generous dusting of the icing sugar.

This is my entry for Meeta and Sukaina Monthly Mingle, this time dedicated to Stone Fruit.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

White peach and lavender tart

You should be interested also in:

1. Peach and lavender jelly
2. About hedgerows and blackberries: Macaroon Tart
3. Dark Chocolate Meringue Tart