LOVE FAMILY

These might not look like your regular lemon bars because we didn’t use white flour and white sugar but despite the colour being different they still taste delicious. Here’s how you make them.

In a bowl mix 260g of flour, 150g of butter and 30g of sugar until the dough looks crumbly. Press it down in an ungreased dish and bake for 20min at 180°C. In the meantime mix 60g of flour, 90g of sugar, 4 eggs, a tsp. of vanilla essence, the zest of two lemons and the juice of one. When your dough is done, pour the mixture over it and place back in the oven four 15min.

And they’re you have it, lemon bars full of flavour. If you want the lemon to be less prominent you can always use the zest of just one lemon. Or just add two drops of lemon essential oil.

Those bars you can also make with other citrus zest as orange or lime 🍊🍋

My granny has been making us plum dumplings using a traditional Hungarian recipe since I was little. It was quite common to eat potato soup and those dumplings for lunch. The used recipe was switched multiple times and here is the most recent one we’ve settled for, the best one yet in our opinion.

• 1kg of potatoes
• 300g of flour
• 1 egg yolk
• 100g of butter
• Tsp. of salt
• Tbsps. of semolina
• 10 plums
• Cinnamon and powdered sugar mixture
• 200g of bread crumbs

Peel the potatoes and boil them until soft. Mash them and leave them to cool (it’s important for them to be completely cold so that the butter won’t melt and make the dough sticky). Mix in the flour, butter, egg yolk, salt and semolina with your hands until you’ve got a ball of dough. Roll it out on a working surface and cut them into 5cmx5cm squares. Put aside the remaining dough for later use. Cut the plums in half and remove the seeds. Put a tsp. of the cinnamon and powdered sugar mixture in the remaining holes and place the plum half face down on the dough squares. Fold them, make nice balls and place on the floured surface. Let the water boil and cook the dumplings until they swim out to the surface. Fry the bread crumbs on butter and place the dumplings in the pan, roll them to be completely covered.

 Take the remaining dough and roll it into a sausage. Cut pieces about 1,5 cm wide and roll them out to form a fat worm shape. Boil them and cover them in bread crumbs just as you would with the dumplings. And there you have it, lovely plum dumplings without wasting any dough. Those little worms we used to eat with sour cream as a savoury dish, and then continue with fruit dumplings.

Those dumplings you can make with other fruits as well. The best ones are with apricots or sour cherries. The leftovers kids love to eat the next morning with a glass of milk for a breakfast.

Those dumplings on the photo were made by my dad and my daughter – my dream team ♥♥

Riz crémeux au lait de coco avec des myrtilles et du chocolat noir

Creamy coconut milk rice with blueberries and dark chocolate is one of my daughter’s brilliant healthy breakfast creations.

Put the coconut milk to boil, add a pinch of salt, cinnamon, and if you wish just a tsp. of sugar (I prefer healthy ones as birch sugar), and teaspoon of butter. Once boiled stir in the rice (1dcl of rice for 5dcl of liquid). Cook and keep stirring from time to time. When it is cooked, stir in fresh blueberries, spoon on the plate, put a dice of dark chocolate, spoon some more rice on top. Wait for minute just that chocolate starts melting. For extra pleasure put few roasted hazelnuts on top 🙂

Et Voilà !  Here is your nice, warm and mouth melting breakfast.

Do not hesitate to prepare this creamy coconut milk rice with blueberries and dark chocolate for your kids as well, you might be surprised -they would love it, too.

Now, one wonderful recipe for all dark chocolate lovers – chocolate brownies – salty edition.

My teenage daughter adapted the classical brownie recipe into delicately salted chocolate cubes. Matches perfectly with strawberries, or less healthy option with whipped cream.

So here we go. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F).  Melt 100gr of dark chocolate and cut into small pieces another 100gr. Then mix 125gr of melted butter and 100gr of brown sugar. Beat in 2 eggs and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract. Whisk in melted chocolate, then sift in the 100gr of flour of your choice (she put Half–white flour (TYPE 850) and 30gr of cocoa powder and 1 teaspoon of salt. Fold in finely cut chocolate and transfer the mixture on to prepared baking dish (lined with baking paper).

Bake 25 minutes and enjoy your lovely salty chocolate brownies. Do not forget to add some fresh fruits and do not hesitate to add some fresh cream.

At this time of the year you can find all kinds of zucchini on the market, so let’s make some stuffed yellow zucchini today.

Comparing to other kinds of zucchini the yellow ones are so much easier to stuff and they look very decorative. As you can see in the picture, my son eats them with tzatziki salad and lots of turmeric powder 😀

Start by pan-frying finely chopped onion on olive oil. Add salt and smoked sweet paprika. After a few minutes, add minced meat, squashed garlic and keep frying, stirring from time to time. In the meantime cut off the top of the zucchini and scoop out the centre. Chop the centres and add them to the meat mixture in the pan. Put some tomato paste or one roughly chopped tomato. Make sure the meat has started getting a nice colour before you add zucchinis. You do not want your meat to be cooked, It should be fried (believe me, it makes such a difference in taste). Add more spices according to your preferences (pepper, turmeric, chilly…) and chopped parsley. Optionally you can also add a cup of half-boiled rice in the mixture.

Stuff the zucchini and place them in a baking dish. Don’t worry if you have some filling left. You can always pour it in a small dish and bake it on the side.

Cook them in the preheated oven at 200°C for an hour, or until the zucchinis get soft (you can always check with a fork).

There is something magical about yellow food. It brings joy and warmth on the table. The same goes for yellow flowers. So, enjoy your stuffed yellow zucchini.

I read this years ago but somehow it remained in my mind. I’d love to share with you what a great writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez said about yellow flowers:

“Nothing awful can happen to me if there are yellow flowers around. To be absolutely safe, I need yellow flowers, preferably yellow roses, and to be surrounded by women”.

Gnocchi leftovers – boiled the day before. Well, it sometimes happens that I boil too much gnocchi. I then pan fry some of them on butter to get a golden colour. I keep the rest in the fridge until I find use for them. You can then add to your gnocchi whatever you have in the fridge ( fruits, vegetables, cheese…) and make a whole new meal. It’s even better if you have some gravy, but if not, the butter will do. 

Today I grilled some pineapple cubes on butter, seasoned them and added them to the gnocchi leftovers from the fridge. It turned up being really nice. I gave it to my son as a side dish to a burger and young peas.

For another quick and easy gnocchi recipe, click here 🙂

Kaiserschmarren – something what I call “quick version of pancakes”. This is traditionally Austrian dish, named by their Emperor Franc Joseph I. in translation it means Emperors crumbs. My son loves eating them for breakfast, with milk, as eating cereals.

Basically you should prepare same mixture as for the pancakes, just a little bit thicker. You can use any type of flour, this time my chose is chickpeas flour and I have replaced cow’s milk with rice milk. As this you get gluten and lactose free dish. The good thing is that you do not have to worry about tearing pancakes, this “mess like” dish is perfect solution for busy mornings.

In a bowl put flour (250gr), 3 eggs, pinch of salt, vanilla essence, 1 tbsp. of brown sugar and milk (250ml). Mix all well, and add the melted butter (30gr). For an extra taste you can add cinnamon and orange and lemon zest (or replace with a drop of orange or lemon essential oil).

Heat some butter in a large pan, pour in the mixture. When starts getting coloured on the bottom, start cutting, tearing and mixing the crumbs. You cannot fail, there is no specified shape of crumbs. Just keep mixing them, turning and cutting until all get nice golden-brown colour.

Make sure to use flat wooden spatula, to be able to cut the crumbs.

Serve Kaiserschmarren with milk, jam, compote, Greek yogurt or whatever your kids like.

Cseresznyés rétes

Strudels made with filo pastry and any kind of fruits are my dad’s speciality. His strudels are so crispy, tasty and luscious that there is rarely a piece left for tomorrow.

Today – Hungarian Cherry Strudel – in my kids’ opinion maybe the best one.

Depending on the country you live in, you should be able to buy the filo pastry in any bigger super market. So, you will need

500gr of filo pastry

300gr of pitted sour cherries

3tbs of brown sugar

1tbs of semolina

200gr of butter – melted

2 eggs

4dl of flour

2dl of brown sugar

2dl of yogurt

1dl of cold pressed oil

1sashet of baking powder (12gr)

Drain sour cherries and give the juice diluted with some water to your kids to drink it. Mix the cherries with 3tbs of sugar and 1tbs of semolina.

In a medium bowl mix the eggs, flour, sugar, yogurt, oil and baking powder.

Line the baking tray with baking paper, slightly brushed with oil. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

My advice is to count how many sheets of filo pastry you have and divide them into 4, just to get the idea how many strudels you will get. You will need 4 sheets for each strudel.

Place the first layer, grease it with butter, and then spread a very thin layer of an egg mixture. Repeat the process with the remaining 3 sheets. Now spoon the cherry filling in the middle leaving about a 5cm boarder of filo around. Fold the pastry over and roll towards the other end. Place it one the baking sheet.

When you’re done with rolling the strudels, brush them with remaining butter and bake them in the preheated oven for about 30minutes until the filo turns golden brown.

Let them cool for a while before you cut and serve. Dust them with icing sugar or you can serve them hot or cold with custard cream.

Enjoy your freshly baked Hungarian cherry strudel with your loved ones and I wish you no worries for the rest of the day 🙂

This apricot and marzipan pie is one of my family’s favourite pies. We can hardly wait apricots to appear on the market, so that we could bake a huge pie. As we are big family, baking the pie in a small round dish is never enough. So this time, here are the quantities for the tray 28x38cm – not that huge 🙂

300gr of flour

250gr of butter

200gr of brown sugar

4 eggs

1tsp of baking powder

1 sachet of vanilla sugar

100ml of milk

1kg of apricots

100ml of apricot jam

For the crumble:

160gr of marzipan

100gr of butter

100gr of brown sugar

1tsp of cinnamon

150gr of flour

Few drops of almond essence

50gr of almond flakes on the top

To make the pastry whisk the butter, sugar and vanilla sugar or vanilla extract. Add one egg at a time. Mix flour with baking powder and add it to the mixture. Stir in milk. Pour the mixture on the tray lined with baking paper.

Arrange the apricot halves on top and sprinkle with slightly warmed apricot jam.

Make the crumble by combining all the ingredients with hand, making crumbs with your fingers. Sprinkle the crumble over the apricots, and put the almond flakes on top all over the pie.

Bake in the preheated oven on 180°C for 45min or until is golden brown.

Now, one more thing, do not forget to share your apricot and marzipan pie with your loved ones.

Read more about apricots – how good they are 🙂

Almond flake cookies is another recipe from my “dad’s home bakery”. The first time he made them for us we all loved them because they are so crunchy. Now he makes them with roasted hazelnuts as well, so you can easily replace the almond with any kind of nut.

Beat 115gr of butter and 130gr of brown sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in vanilla extract and a few drops of almond extract and 1 tsp. of cinnamon. Add 80ml of water and gradually add 325gr of self-rising flour and beat until is combined. Stir in 90 gr of slightly roasted almond flakes.

Roll the cookie dough into a log (5cm diameter), wrap in a plastic wrap and chill for at least 2 hours. The dough can be frozen overnight or longer. Take it out and cut with a sharp knife (2-3mm thick slices). Place the cookies on the prepared baking sheet and bake them for 12-13 minutes in preheated oven at 180°C.

Pour a glass of milk for your kids and cup of coffee for yourself and enjoy those tasty almond flake cookies as a crunchy afternoon snack 🙂

My grannie use to have a neighbour called Maria. Each spring, when then first young carrots appeared, she made us lovely rolls as my sister adored them.

Aunty Maria is no longer with us, but we still make her rolls every spring.

It is so quick and easy, no sugar added, crunchy and juicy at the same time.

250 gr grated carrots         Vanilla essence

250 gr butter                       Apricot or plum jam

300 gr flour                           Icing sugar

You see, only a few ingredients. Mix the carrots with room temperature butter and vanilla essence. Add flour (you can easily make an gluten free option- choose the flour that you like).

Roll out the dough with on rolling pin until 5 mm thick. Cut round shapes using a glass or a cookie cutter. On one side put a teaspoon of jam and just fold it in half. Press the edges with a fork. Place them on the baking paper. Bake at 180°C for 15-20 minutes, until slightly brown. When cool, roll them in icing sugar.

I like to leave them without the sugar, as the jam is sweet enough, it’s up to you. However, enjoy Aunt Maria’s carrot rolls and have a nice day 🙂

Chocolate hazelnut sandwich cookies are traditionally called “paratroopers”, a cookie of my childhood, that literally melts in your mouth. Well, my dad loves baking and eating cookies, so here is his way of doing it.

Whisk 4 egg whites until firm. Add the 150gr of icing sugar and continue to whisk for a few minutes. If you want you can add some lemon juice or drop of lemon essential oil. Fold in 150gr of finely grounded roasted hazelnuts and a 1 tbsp of breadcrumbs.

Use two teaspoons to spoon the mixture onto trays covered with nonstick baking paper. Put in the preheated oven at 120°C. When they get brownish, lower the heat to 50°C and leave them to dry for an hour.

In the meantime make the filling. Mix 50gr of butter with 50gr of icing sugar. Add one whole egg and 50gr of melted dark chocolate.

Now stick the cooled cookies together with the chocolate filling.

Mind you, this is a traditional recipe, the original chocolate hazelnut sandwich cookies were made with raw eggs. In case you are not comfortable with it, use two egg yolks instead of a whole egg for the filling, and make sure to precook them.