Orange Cake With Poppy Seeds

Yesterday my mom asked me if I can bake a cake with orange zest and juice. I replied, with a smile: ” yes, I will, and I’ll add to it some poppy seeds too” .

The cake was so delicious, very soft and tender. And the poppy seeds gave it a hint of nutty flavour with some crunchiness. Very easy to make. Enjoy.

Orange cake with poppy seeds

- 4 eggs

-1 tsp vanilla extract

- 1 cup sugar

- 1/2 cup canola oil

- juice of 1 orange

- 2 cups all-purpose flour

- 1/2 tsp salt

- 1 tsp baking soda

- 1 tsp baking powder

- 2 tbsp poppy seeds

- zest of 1 orange and 1 lemon

Preheat oven to 180C. Whisk the eggs, sugar, vanilla together then add the oil and orange juice and mix until combined. In another bowl, whisk the flour, zest, salt, baking powder, baking soda, poppy seeds. And stir in the dry ingredients to the wet ones. Combine.

Pour in a greased and floured baking pan and bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out dry. Let it cool abit before unmolding on a rack.

Enjoy.

Spaghetti Alle Verdure

Having a pasta dish for dinner is always a pleasure for me. Without following a recipe, mixing new ingredients is a nice culinary adventure for me. The other night, I told my husband, I’m thinking of throwing all these vegetables in one pan, served with some whole-wheat spaghetti… Carrots, cauliflower, mushrooms, black olives; I happen to have them in the fridge…

The result was so good, I loved our new spaghetti alle verdure, rich in flavours. What we did is that we heated -2 tbsp olive oil in a pan, added -1 chopped onion, stiring for a couple of minutes, then we added -2 thinly sliced carrots, leave it to cook for few minutes, to soften, then add a -handful of cauliflower buds, stiring all together for few minutes. Then pull aside the content to the back of the pan, add a drizzle of olive oil and add about -200 g sliced mushrooms, let them cook a little to browned then stir altogether with the other ingredients. -Season with salt and pepper. Pour over a -can of 400g plum tomatoes. Let simmer for a 10 minutes, sprinkle some -dried basil and season with salt and pepper to taste. Add about -50g halved black olives. In the meantime, cook the whole-wheat spaghetti to al dente. Serve the spaghetti with the sauce. And enjoy.

Chocolate Sweet Hearts

I just wanna wish you all a Happy Valentine. Those cookies are extremely delicious, rich and chocolatey. I love them tender and soft; how do you like your cookie, soft or crunchy?!

A great way to express your love...

Also, for this holiday, I love to offer sweets I have baked, as gifts to my beloved one.

 

Oat Cookies With Chocolate Chips

I like small treats. Treats to nibble. My sister & her family visit us on weekends, so I plan, every time, to bake something sweet for the kids, and for us. Mainly, the sweets are for us, the grown-ups, the kids would taste a small bite and the rest is ours. Actually, what I love about it is that, after lunch, we gather round for dessert and some coffee, and we chat, sitting all the evening chatting.

I love that time spent with family, those afternoons, rainy afternoons, where we gather for hours, munching sweets, staying warm and chatting.

The first thing that came to my mind is to bake some chocolate chip cookies. I know I made some two weeks ago, but this time I wanted to add some oatmeal and chocolate chips. And I do not need a reason to bake every week the same dessert, am I right?!

I was happy that day, because I baked different desserts. The cookies for me; my sister had people over dinner, so she asked if I could prepare something sweet for her, so I did the easy chocolate cake. And mom asked for sfouf, to bring to our sick neighbour. This made my day, baking three different kinds of sweets.

The cookies were delicious, they were crispy and soft. Perfect for breakfast, also, and they become chewier in time, which I like alot.

Mini Brioche Buns

Brioche with Tilleul Honey

Today, Fragole e Farfalle turns one. It’s been a very new, interesting blogging year; I was introduced to the world of blogging by my friend Confettina, a world that I liked alot. The fact of managing & mastering a website is quite good; many friends were impressed how I got to write a blog, manage the features, widgets and theme. In the begining, it was a complicated thing to do, even to search for the simplest thing; now, it is the easiest.

I was also introduced to the amazing world of food blogs. The chefs, the beautiful food pictures, the delicious recipes, the interesting posts and stories, which kept me more attached to my dream and project, more desireful, more ambitious. I got motivated to bake, and bake and bake. I was happy being in the kitchen baking, trying new recipes, fail and succeed. I learnt alot.

Getting a new professional camera will give me the opportunity to take and post more beautiful pictures, the way I see them, beautiful and delicious, and being able to make others enjoy them. Impatient for that day to come.

For this occasion, I decided to bake a new recipe; this no-knead brioche recipe. You won’t believe how yummi and nice the smell was in the whole house. A warm, cosy, buttery smell. Of course I tasted a warm brioche, the minute they got out of the oven, and I couldn’t not eat more than one. They were extremely delicious, still warm; soft, buttery. I drizzled on it some Tilleul honey, tried some apricot jam, all delicious.

And even delicious when, the following morning, I heated a piece of brioche ( actually two!), they were still so yummi; of course I didn’t miss the cup of black coffee, (am I right, hubby!!??:) )