Chocolate Orange Cheesecake

Few weeks ago I received my first Degustabox at home and since the moment I open the box I knew already I was going to do something with one of the two bars of the Lindt chocolate, the problem was to not eat them straight away! I love the black chocolate but I specially I love it with the orange touch, so I decided to use the Lindt Orange Intense and what better to make a cheesecake? If you have a look to my index recipe you will see I love cheesecakes and here is my chocolate orange version. This is specially for dark chocolate lovers and do not forget to make your cheescake in advance, a good cheescake is definitely better prepared one day in advance, let is set and cool down at least 6 hours before serving.

Chocolate Orange Cheesecake

for the crust:

180 g cookie

60 g melted butter

for the filling:

200 g Orange Intense Lindt Chocolate

100 ml orange juice and the zest of the orange

400 g cream cheese

125 g sour cream or also posible greek iogurt

75 g white sugar (I use caster sugar)

2 large eggs

20 g flour

cocoa powder for decorating

Preheat the oven to 160º and prepare a loose-bottomed tin of 20 cm.

Crush the cookies in a food processor or in a plastic bag, seal the bag and crush them with a rolling pin. Mix together with the melted butter with a fork until well incorporated. Place this mixture in the greased tin and press with the bag of a spoon. Keep it in the fridge to set while we do the filling.

Put the orange juice into a saucepan on a low heat and to the boil. Break up the chocolate and mix into the orange juice once starts boiling. Stir constantly until completly melted. Set aside and allow to cool down.

Mix the sugar,the cheese cream and the sour cream in a large bowl, using an spatula and a hand whisk, until smooth Add the chocolate mixture and the orange zest. Beat the egges in a small bowl apart, add them to the mixture and finally mix in the flour, do not overmix.

Pour filling into the tin. Bake for 40 minutes it should feel firm to the touch with a slight wobble in the center. Allow the cheesecake to cool down at room temperature in the tin and on a wire rack and place it in the fridge to set for at least 6 hours or preferably overnight.

Unmold before serving. Top with cocoa powder.

To prevent the top from cracking, be careful not to overmix the batter and do not open the oven during the baking. 

If you want to receive your box at home and have a monthly surprise do not hesitate to contact Degustabox and ask for your box, you will enjoy of a large selection or products and you can make such a nice recipes as this cheesecake.

Have a nice week  ♥

Cherry Tomato Tart

Fast and easy brunch, lunch or dinner. You know already how much I love salty tarts, and this one turned in one of my allied last months. Since I did this one I tried different options of fillings, but cherry tomato is specially delicious and looks so good on the table once baked, don't you think so? It’s amazing what a little Dijon mustard gives to the dishes, you can add as much or as less as you want, it depends of your taste, but preferably add at least a teaspoon.

Cherry Tomato Tart

makes a 22 cm round mold
For the pastry:

100 g butter cold and cubed
150 g all-purpouse flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
a pinch of black peper
1 large egg

For the filling:
1 large egg

4 tablespoons greek yogurt

30 ml whole milk

1 or 2 teaspoon Dijon mustard (I put 2)

salt and pepper

fresh thyme

500 g cherry tomato

For the instrucctions for the pastry you can check here.
Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
Beat the egg, add the milk, the yogurt and the mustard until smooth add the salt and the thyme and fill the tart with the mixture. Top with the cherry tomatoes.
Bake for 30 minutes or until golden en curd. Remove form the oven and let it cool few minutes before serving. You can serve warm or cold. You can top with some fresh basilicum and more thyme. 

Have a nice week  ♥

Peanut Butter and Nutella Chocolate Chip Cookies

Did you see already the new issue of the Sweet Magazine? This month I'm collaborating with an interview to the spanish famous blogger MJ and you will find out lots of recipes and tricks.

And now let's go with the recipe of today. It was quite several weeks I did not publish a cookie recipe. Last week a friend of mine asked me to make the peanut butter cookies I did few months ago, instead I thought to change the the recipe and also beacause I don't have peanut butter chips. So the result is a soft cookie, like a brownie inside and with the surprise of the peanut taste mixed with the amazing nutella. 

Peanut Butter and Nutella Chocolate Chip Cookies

makes 18 cookies
285 g plain flour
50 g cocoa

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

115 g unsalted butter, at room temperature

340 g light brown caster sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon whole milk

1 teaspoon vanilla paste

nutella and peanut butter for filling

100 g chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 170ºC.
Sift the flour, the cocoa, the baking powder and the salt in a bowl and set aside.
Cream the butter and the sugar in a large bowl with an electric whisk until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and the eggs and beat until smooth. Add the flour mixture and the milk and beat just until wel combined. Finally stir in the chocolate chips.
Shape the dough into a balls and place them on the baking tray. Make a hole using your finger in the center of the ball, fill it with a spoon of nutella and a spoon of peanut butter. Top with a flattened piece of dough and make sure to seal the edges.
Bake for 10-12 minutes.
Remove from the oven and let them on the tray for 2 minutes and  before transfering on a wire rack. Store in an airtight container. 

Have a nice week  ♥

Lemon Poppy Seed Cake

Hello, today I was expecting to show you my birthday cake I did last weekend. Yes! I've turned one year old! I invited some friends to home on saturday evening and I delighted them with some appetizers, quiches and a cake. I spent the whole day in the kitchen preparing everything, but it was worth and I had a lovely evening. With the rush I could not make properly pictures to the table I prepared, so no pictures.

So here I am with this yummy loaf cake with lemon and poppy seed and drizzled with a lemon glaze. The recipe is adapted from Lorraine Pascale. I still have poppy seeds which I've got on my last visit to my friend Fernanda in Edinburgh, she is the owner of the lovely blog of Fascinating Food. Hope you enjoy this cake!

Poppy Seed Cake

makes a 18 cm tin
125 g unsalted butter at room temperature
150 g white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 large eggs
150 g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
a pinch of salt 
2 lemons
2 tablespoons poppy seeds
icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
Sift the flour, the baking powder and the salt in a bowl and set aside.
Cream the butter and the sugar in a large bowl with an electric whisk until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and the eggs and beat until smooth. Add the flour mixture and the grate of the two lemons and beat just until wel combined. Finally add the poppy seeds, mix and pour into the greased loaf tin. Bake for 35 minutes or until you insert a skewer in the middle this comes clean. Remove from the oven and alow the cake to cool down for few minutes and place in a wire rack.
In the meanwhile make the drizzle mixing a tablespoon of the lemon juice and the icing sugar in a bowl until you get the desired consistency.
Drizzle the loaf and serve. 

If you like this combination do not miss these muffins.

Have a nice week  ♥

Mango, Mozzarella and Prosciutto Salad

Hello, today I decided to publish this salad since some people asked me about it when I uploaded a picture on instagram few days ago. So here you have it, an easy and healthy salad which I use to eat quite a lot. My favorite ingredient in this dish (of course, beside the ham) is the mango, it gives a very special taste. It is very important you use a very ripe mango, you can substitute it also for a peach or even orange or mandarin. Hope you enjoy it!

Mango, Mozzarella and Prosciutto Salad

ripe mango
fresh mozzarella
cherry tomatoes
serrano or prosciutto
rucola
mint and parmesan cheese for topping

Dressing: olive oil, balsamico vinegar, salt and peper

Place the rucola in a salad bowl and top with the mango pieces. Cut the mozzarella into bite size pieces and put them on the salad. Drizzle with the dressing. Finally place the prosciutto on top, the cherry tomatoes and top with few mint leaves and parmezan flakes. 

Hope you liked this salad and see you next week with a sweet recipe.

Have a nice week  ♥

Custard Pots

What happend if the oven gets broken? actually for me it's a big disaster! but there is always other alternatives, that's what I did during almost a week. Yes my lovely kitchen friend didn't want to work any longer, actually the door got broken and could not be repared. It was actually an old oven, but it was the one I used since I moved to the Netherlands, by the time I am writting this post, so one day before to publish it, the new oven has been already intstalled today. So I had no time to try how it works at all, it really looks perfect and I baked potatoes for dinner, let's see if it bakes as good as I hope! I will let you know next week.  

So in the meanwhile I've been without baking for a week, and last friday I had friends for a quick dinner and I did custard pots which was also a request of one of my guests. I decided to take some pictures just in case, and here they are. This is the recipe we used in my mum's home, this is a very traditional dessert in my country. You can have a look to this recipe as well if you like this kind of dessert. Hope you enjoy them as much as me, it makes me remember when I was a little one!

Custard Pots

Serves 6

500 ml milk
4 egg yolk large
1 cinnamon stick
90 g sugar
1 package vanilla sugar (8 g)
1 tablespoon cornstarch
cookies and ground cinnamon to decorate

Whisk the egg yolks, the sugars and the cornstarch in a bowl until smooth. 

Put the milk and the cinnamon stick in a saucepan and cook until just before start boiling. 

Remove from the heat, alow to rest for a while and gets the cinnamon flavour.

Pour the milk into the previous mixture bowl slowly and mixing at the same time.

Put everything back in the saucepan and cook over low heat whisking constantly until starts to thinken, remove remove from heat and pour the mixture in the moldes, let them cool completly and refrigerate at least 3 hours before serving.

Dust with cinnamon and you can top with a cookie before serving or put them at the bottom of the tin, just like I did, in my case I used my favorite cookie, Oreo.

Hope you liked and you try this easy recipe, do not forget to let me know if you do them!


Enjoy your week  ♥

Cheese, Bacon and Olive Bread

Hello how are you doing? One more year I do not surprise you with a velentine's recipe, that maybe would be the proper for this week. It is not caused cause I don't consider myself a cheesy person, yes I realize I am! but the time has caught up and no  But instead I hope you like this totally different type of recipe, a savory loaf bread, very easy and with a large variety of ingriendients. This is a simple loaf, no rise, no kneading just mix it well, put into the tin, bake and enjoy.
I like to enjoy this bread with a simple salad or also with a white risotto. You will see is a heavy crumb but very moist, perfect to bring to the job the lunch box.
.

Savory Bread source

Makes a 22 cm tin

250 g flour
1,5 teaspoon baking powder
175 g grated chesse (I used Old Amsterdam)
4 large eggs
50 ml olive oil
1 large onion
150 g bacon
75 g black olives
75 g green olives
50 g dried tomatoes in olive oil
fresh rosemary and parsley
salt and peper

Preheat the oven to 175º.

Sift the flour and the baking powder in a bowl.
Cook the chopped onion in a low heat with some salt, add the bacon, remove onces the bacon cooked, do not make it crunchy, just baked lightly, set aside.
Drain and chop the tomatoes. Slice the olives. Chop the parsley and the rosmary, I used about one tablespoon each.
In a separtate bowl beat the eggs with 20 cl olive oil, add the the olives, herbs, tomatoes, onion, bacon, grated cheese and add some salt and pepper at your taste.
Gently mix it with the flour mixture. You will see it will be a very thick dough, add some water to make it thinner.
Pour the batter into the greased tin, level with a spatula and bake for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to the cake to cool in the tin for 10 minutes and later transfer to a wire rack. Serve it cold. Keep it covered at room temperature up to 3 days.

If you like this kind of side dishes try this muffin recipe which is one of my favorite.

Enjoy your week ♥