Tea Party Tuesday: vintage tea treats

Autumn and winter come together with sickness for me since I catch any virus that's moves around school. I've been ill for the last days with all the hits: an ustoppable running nose, severe headache, a sore throat and a cough. As you can imagine I had a great weekend and what's more, I missed the national holiday yesterday. Today, first day at school I asked to get home from work earlier, since I wasn't feeling that great- no energy to confront my 8 year olds! However, to sweeten the pill a bit, because I'd rather deal with my energetic pupils than being ill, I stopped by the oldest pastry shop there is in town before getting back home. 

It was the first time I went there and regretted that I hadn't so far! The owner is a sweet smiley old man and his pastry shop, founded in the 60's, comes out straight from the past. 
 All the sweets are made and decorated the old way and the interior hasn't had any major rennovation. Just by looking at the shop windows and the cakes decorated in the old fashion, I remembered the cakes and sweet treats I used to have in my outings with my parents when I was a child. After I browsed  and  reminisced a bit a lot I got myself a couple of these vintage sweets and headed home for a generous cup of herb tea to feel better.

It's Tea Party Tuesday on Chantille Fleur today and it's been a while since I wanted to take part. Although this is not the TPT posting I meant for, my vintage sweet finds made me really happy and tea filled me with comfort and warmth today. So, I'm thinking, I'll finish off the box of my vintage sweets, complement them with more cups of tea and have my own tea party!!!!!!!

Bundt-a-Month: Mocha Fudge Cake with coffee icing

They say that one of the good things about blogging is that it's not just a diary, but a record of our current ideas, interests, hobbies and thoughts and that it's interesting to see the evolment of them all. Looking back at my postings I've come to the conclusion that I get obsessed with one thing from time to time and all my postings revolve around it. For example, in summer all my postings had to do with the sea and almost nothing else- not my crafting, not my travels, not my cooking, not my garden. This period of time, I'm into cooking and baking, hence I post only about them. Does this happen to you, or do your postings vary in theme? Have you noticed?

So, within this cooking obsession framework, I made the AWESOME Mocha Fudge Cake with coffee icing (see here for the recipe) for the weekend. It's taken from the best cookbook I own so far: BBC Good Food Magazine Book of Cakes and Bakes. It's a cake I used to make quite often in the past but it's been like forever since I last made it and I thought that it would be a great contribution to the Bundt-a-Month baking event, organized by Baker Street, a paradise-site for people who love baking. Thanks to Greenthumb, I heard about it and decided to take part. So....here it is!

The cake has a strong coffee flavour which is enhanced by the icing. I used a really old- I might even say vintage- bundt passed on to me by my mum. It's the tin my childhood cakes were made in! I haven't stopped using it ever since, and this blog event was the perfect opportunity to make it famous!!!!!!!

The cake is divine with a cup of coffee and I assure you, you will try really hard not to eat it at once when you make it!

Tiramisu Veloce Recipe

From the lovely comments you left on my last posting, I saw that many of you or your families are tiramisu lovers!Since it's a super easy recipe, why not make it yourselves this weekend? I made it with a few alterations and made only half of it (served 6).

Here's what you'll need:

15 sponge fingers
285ml good strong coffee
2 tbsp caster sugar
2 tbsp icing sugar
500 g mascarpone
2 vanilla pods
140ml vin santo (I used brandy and some of my mum's walnut liquer)
zest and juice of 1 orange (I skipped this! )
100 gr best-quality dark chocolate (I used cocoa)

Arrange the sponge fingers in a deep dish. 
Sweeten the coffee with the caster sugar and pour over the sponge fingers, covering them completely (they will suck it all up). Pour over them the orange juice as well.
Whisk the mascarpone with the icing sugar and the seeds of the vanilla pods. 
Add the vin santo.
Lay the mascarpone mixture over the sponge fingers.
Grate chocolate and orange zest on top or simply finish off with  a good layer of cocoa.

It won't take you more than 15' to make, I assure you!

Good luck!

PS The recipe is taken from Jamie Oliver's 'Jamie's Italy'

Velvet

Hi everyone!It's been a while since I've posted, but it's the beginning of schools and days go by really quickly! My mum's birthday gave me the opportunity to make a birthday cake and join in with Belleau Kitchen Random Recipes Challenge.
For the challenge, I randomly chose one of my cookbooks (I own only a few) and then I randomly chose a page and executed the recipe on that page. The book I chose was Jamie in Italy, a gift I got from my girlfriends some years ago, which is an absolute hit- everything I've tried is really nice.

The recipe I made was tiramisu .It was so easy that I wondered why I had never made it before. It turned out to be my mum's birthday cake, which due to the excitement of the occassion I forgot to photograph with the candles on, instead I managed to take a photo of the last piece! It was the perfect dessert  after a heavy lunch- airy and light- and everyone loved it!