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Chocolate chips and sweet wine cake

We opened a bottle of Banyuls a few weeks ago and somehow still haven’t got round to finishing it up. Well, it can’t – and shouldn’t – sit in the fridge forever, so after rooting around the kitchen, I decided to whip up a batch of chocolate chips and sweet wine cake. It didn’t came out quite right though, so a second batch was prepared along with some ingredient adjustments. Edible, getting there. Third time was a charm, and hey, no sweet wine left! (And not enough self-raising flour either so I improvised with plain flour and baking powder mix.)

Chocolate and wine cake

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Planting herbs

When we moved last year, I had a wee shopping spree chez Ikea and apart from the bookshelf and dining table and chairs, I dropped a couple of herb kits into the basket too. I discovered the kits sitting sadly in one corner of my kitchen, forgotten, so I guess now is as good a time as ever to rescue them and fulfill their destiny.

Herb garden

Herb garden

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Home-made soya milk

Growing up, buying and drinking soya milk is a simple thing. Soya milk is available fresh daily if anyone is inclined to drink it everyday, although we often ask the vendor to dial back on the amount of sugar syrup they add to the milk. Living abroad, it is no longer a staple for me because anything that I can find comes in a carton and lasts for months. These simply do not taste the same, and not for the better.

Home-made soya milk

Home-made soya milk

Even though I know making soya milk is not difficult, it can be rather time consuming. Because of the amount of effort required, it’ll end up being a big batch and then I’d run into the difficult of actually finishing everything within a short few days before they start to go off.

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Mini raspberry friands

In general, I’m not a fan of recipes that call for the use either only egg yolks or egg whites as it means I’ll be scrambling (no pun intended) to look for some way to use the remaining egg parts. Nonetheless, there are certain things that I do like to eat and make such situation unavoidable, so I’ve coupled some recipes with complementary use of eggs. On days when I make carbonara or lemon curd – calling for egg yolks – this friand recipe comes out to play.

Mini raspberry friands

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Banana and chocolate chip cake

Right, if you want to eat these bananas, you can. However, if they are left alone for a few days, I’ll whip up some banana cake for you.

Bananas don’t last long in our apartment. The few times I half-heartedly trying to get some ripen, they inevitably got gobbled up quickly. This time though, a simple request with an offer of a reward does the trick. The initial intention was to make a simple banana cake but since F asked so nicely to incorporate chocolate chips in it, he got it!

Banana cake

This good size loaf didn’t last very long either. I baked it late in the morning, so clearly we must have some as dessert during lunch. Two hours or so later, oh look – it’s tea time! With cake, of course. Always with cake. When dinner came round, there was just enough for another round of dessert. F also quipped that it would be unfair to the cake if some were kept overnight since it was best when truly fresh, therefore same day consumption made the most sense. What a logic ;)

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Guinness is better in a cake

Blasphemous as it sounds, I do not like the taste of Guinness. All the years living in Ireland didn’t help me personally in terms of taste acquirement. I admit to a twinge of jealousy when observing Erasmus students and other visitors – F included! – taking to it quickly and could declare the pint in Ireland as the best they’ve had.

Guinness cake

A clever idea came not so long ago. Like mothers who slyly hide peas and brussel sprouts so the kids would eat them, I thought using Guinness as a cake ingredient could be a neat trick in improving how I perceive the taste of Guinness. With St Patrick’s round the corner, I even have the perfect excuse to whip the cake up without the guilt (or the worry) of eating it all by myself.

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Coconut and lime cake

F grumbles that I don’t often bake for him. Sadly, that is quite true. Can I blame it on the equipment I have in our very little Parisian kitchen? Or actually, to be more accurate, the lack of equipment. Back in Dublin, I had a wonderful and spacious kitchen, with all kinds of tools and ingredients at my disposal; I kid you not when I say I used to stock 7-8 different types of sugar! Now, we have two: white or brown…

Coconut and lime cake

But the mood does strike from time to time, and my recent kitchen experiment had been met with reasonable success. F adores the moist yet zingy-fresh slices of cake (“perfect for afternoon tea”), and my friends who have tried it have been asking for the recipe too. Last I heard, even their friends are asking for the recipe. I guess that means it merits a blog post, in particular because it’ll make my life easier in event of future recipe sharing.

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