Ingredients for the crunchy cookies:
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, cooled to room temperature
90 grams (3 oz) of old-fashioned rolled oats
30 grams (1 oz) all purpose flour (or use any other flour of your choice)
50 grams (1,8 oz) shaved almonds
20 grams (0,70 oz) finely crushed almonds
A pinch of salt

Ingredients for the poached pears:
4 pears, cleaned and peeled, whole
500 grams (18 oz) sugar
1 liter (2 pints) water
A pinch of Saffron
A few Cardamom pods
1 vanilla pod

To make the cookies:
Preheat your oven to 180C. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl add honey, vanilla extract, melted butter and stir to completely combine. Add oats, flour, shaved and crushed almonds and a pinch of salt. Stir to combine.
Now, to shape dough into round cookies/pates you may use a round cookie cutter or a dessert ring. Place the ring on the cookie sheet and fill with a tablespoon or two of the dough. Use the spoon to press down the dough tightly into the ring. Remove the ring and repeat these steps until dough is up.
Bake cookies for about 15 minutes or until lightly browned on around the edges. Remove cookies out of the oven and let cool to room temperature. At first, cookies will be soft, but once they cool off they will harden and turn into these crisp, crunchy oat cookies.
You will make about 6-8 large cookies out of this dough. Keep left over cookies in the fridge.

To make the pears and saffron syrup:
In a large enough saucepan to fit 4 pears, combine water, sugar, saffron, cardamom and vanilla pods and bring to the boil. Add pears and cook for about 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the ripeness of your pears. Check them using a small knife to see if they are ready. If you are using a very ripe pears, they will cook quickly. Be careful not to overcook the pears. You want to have them soft, but still in perfect shape.
Once ready, remove them from the pot and set aside to cool to room temperature.
Continue to cook the syrup until it thickens – more or less, depending on your preferences.
Strain through a fine mesh and set aside to cool to room temperature.
To serve: arrange cookies on a plate then add one pear over each cookie and sprinkle them with a little bit of the saffron syrup.
***Keep left over syrup in the fridge. In case it hardens, just reheat to use for another serving or recipe.

Who doesn’t love pie, right? Strawberries and peaches is probably one of my favorite fruit combinations. When you wrap these juicy fruits in buttery sweet pastry you get this amazing pie, that no one could resist. Although strawberry season is long gone, there is no need to wait for next year to bake a pie. You can make this pie right away, using frozen strawberries. And if you are like me and stock up your freezer on delicious seasonal fruits, you will be able to make pie all year long, whenever you feel like it.

I always use my classic sweet pastry recipe when preparing pie, but in case you don’t feel like making the pie pastry yourself, just use a package of commercial pie pastry.

Don’t give this recipe a lot of thought, it’s amazing and I am sure you will love it!

Ingredients for the sweet pastry dough (makes 1x26cm round pie, top and bottom):
280 grams (10 oz) flour
60 grams (2 oz) powder sugar
1/3 tea spoon salt
130 grams (4,5 oz) butter, at room temperature
2 medium egg yolks
4 table spoons (20 ml.) cold water or milk

Ingredients for the filling:
400 grams (14 oz) fresh strawberries, washed & halved
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 peaches, chopped
1 tablespoon corn starch
2 tablespoons sugar (optional)
1 egg for brushing the top of the pie

To make the dough:
Combine flour, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Add the soften butter (chopped into small pieces) and start mixing with your fingers (or pulse briefly in a food processor) until coarse crumbs form (butter pieces should be about the size of a pea). Add the egg yolk and quickly knead until the dough comes together. If dough is too dry and doesn’t come together add one or two table spoons of water or milk, one by one, until dough is wet enough to form a ball, but not too sticky. Do NOT overwork the dough, just pulse a few times and then shape it using your hands. Shape dough into a ball, divide it into two parts and shape both parts into disks – 1/3rd (to use to cover the pie) and 2/3rd (to use for the bottom of the pie) and put in the fridge for 30 minutes.

**If you want to use the strawberry juices to make a sauce, just combine juices with a tablespoon cornstarch (add sugar if necessary) and cook over medium heat until it thickens, stirring constantly.

For the cherries:
700 grams (1,5 pints) cherries, pitted
100 grams (3,5 oz) sugar
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
Ingredients for the mascarpone creme:
5 egg yolks
90 grams (3 oz) sugar
300 grams (11 oz) mascarpone
150 ml. (5 fl. oz) heavy whipping cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Start by preparing the cherries:

Prepare the mascarpone:
In a medium saucepan whisk the egg yolks and sugar until pale. Start cooking the yolk mixture over medium / medium-low heat (depending on how strong your stove is). Whisk almost constantly until all sugar dissolves and the egg yolk mixture is hot to the touch. *Cook egg yolks on medium low heat until you temper them, then you can turn the heat up a bit until the mixture thickens. *Make sure to whisk often (even constantly) to avoid curdling the eggs.
Once the sugar dissolves and the mixture is thickened, remove from stove and set aside to cool completely as you stir once in a while. Once the mixture is cold to the touch (or at room temperature) whisk again by hand.
In a large bowl beat the cream until soft peaks form. Set aside.
In a large bowl add the mascarpone & vanilla and beat with an electric mixer until it loosens. Add yolk mixture to the mascarpone and whisk gently by hand to combine then gently fold in the whipped cream. Set aside.

To assemble the trifle:
The easiest way to fill your jars/serving glasses will be to use a piping bag. fill a big piping bag with the mascarpone and pipe a little bit  in every glass. On top, spread evenly one layer of the cherries, then another layer of the mascarpone mixture. Repeat steps until your dish is full up to the edge.
Cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge for a few hours.

Ingredients for the crust:
160 grams (5,6 oz) brown sugar
300 grams (10,5 oz) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
A pinch of salt
170 grams (6 oz) butter, melted, cooled to room temperature

Ingredients for the filling:
400 grams (14 oz) fresh strawberries, chopped into small pieces
30 grams (1 oz) sugar
275 grams (10 oz) sour cream
90 grams (3 oz) sugar
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
2 medium eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the crust:
Grease a 15/25cm (6″/10″) rectangular baking pan and line with parchment paper. Set aside.
Preheat your oven to 170C fan-forced (340 F fan-forced).
In a medium size bowl, stir together flour, brown sugar, soda, baking powder and salt. Add melted butter and mix to combine.
Add 2/3 of the mixture to the pan and press down to the bottom until flat and even. Save the rest of the crust mixture for the top.
For the filling:
In a small saucepan heat the strawberries and sugar over medium heat. Cook, stirring gently until sugar dissolves and strawberries release their juices (about 5 minutes). Set aside to cool off for a bit.
In the meantime, in another bowl, combine all the rest ingredients and mix well.
Pour the sour cream mixture over the crust, then distribute the strawberries over the sour cream.
Sprinkle the rest of the dough over the strawberry/sour cream mixture, using your fingers.
Bake for about 35 minutes or until the top is crisp and golden brown.

Ingredients for the cake:
130 grams butter, softened
130 grams sugar
2 large eggs
2 table spoons honey
100 ml. freshly brewed coffee, at room temperature
150 grams flour
1 tea spoon baking powder
50 grams cocoa powder
For the chocolate peanut butter frosting:
100 ml. sweetened heavy whipping cream, whipped to stiff peaks
100 grams dark cooking chocolate
80 ml. sweetened heavy whipping cream
400 grams peanut butter
3 table spoons honey or maple syrup
For the coffee syrup:
100 ml. freshly brewed coffee
1 table spoon honey

To make the cake layers:
Preheat your oven to 170C fan-forced (340F). Grease 2x6inch (16cm) springforms and line with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs and honey and beat to combine.
Add coffee and beat to incorporate.
In another bowl mix flour, baking powder and cocoa powder. Add flour mixture to the wet mixture and stir with a rubber spatula just to form a glossy and smooth batter, but don’t over-mix it.
Distribute the batter evenly between both springforms and bake 30 minutes.
Let both cake layers cool to room temperature (or pop in the fridge for quick cooling).
In the meantime prepare the frosting:
In a large bowl combine chocolate and 80ml. cream. Heat in a microwave oven until cream is hot and chocolate starts to melt. Stir until chocolate melts completely. Let it cool a bit and then add peanut butter and honey and beat with an electric mixer until nice and smooth.
Gently fold in the whipped cream.
To assemble the cake:
Combine coffee and honey and stir to dissolve. Let is cool to room temperature.
Place the first chocolate layer on a cake platter. Using a spoon, moisten the cake layer by gently pouring little bit of the coffee syrup all over the surface, letting it to absorb completely before you spread the frosting.
Spread one layer of the frosting, then place the second cake layer on top. Moisten that one with the coffee as well, and cover the cake with the rest of the frosting.

Ingredients for the Chocolate Pâte Sucrée Dough (sweet pastry dough):
80 grams (2,8 oz) unsalted butter, at room temperature
70 grams (2,5 oz) powder sugar
A pinch if salt
1 small egg
1/4 tea spoon vanilla extract
120 grams (4,2 oz) all-purpose flour
15 grams (0,5 oz) cocoa powder

Ingredients for choux (makes 25 profiteroles):
150 ml. (5 fl. oz) water
60 grams (2 oz) butter
1 table spoon white sugar
80 grams (2,8 oz) plain flour
A pinch of salt
2 medium eggs, beaten

Ingredients for the orange chocolate ganache:
100 ml. (3,5 fl. oz) freshly squeezed orange juice
210 grams (7,5 oz) dark chocolate, chopped
3 egg yolks
40 grams (1,4 oz) sugar
1 tea spoon orange extract
1/2 tea spoon orange extract
90 ml. (3 fl. oz) heavy whipping cream

Ingredients for the whipped cream:
150 grams (5 oz) sweetened heavy whipping cream
1/2 tea spoon vanilla extract

To make the dough:
Beat butter, sugar and a pinch of salt with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla and beat for another minute. In a small bowl combine cocoa and flour. Add flour mixture to the butter-sugar mixture and beat until a dough is formed. Remove dough from the bowl and knead with your hands for a minute or so to form a ball.
Shape dough into a disk, cover in plastic wrap and put in the fridge to firm up, about 2 hours (or overnight).
NOTE: Use your hands to form the dough if you don’t have an electric mixer with dough attachment.
NOTE: Place dough in the freezer for quicker firming in case you don’t have the time to wait for it to firm up in the fridge. Check it often in order to avoid actually freezing it.
To make profiteroles:
Preheat your oven to 200 C fan-forced.
Add water, sugar and butter into a medium sized saucepan and bring to the boil on medium high heat.
Add the flour into the saucepan all at once and start beating with a wooden spoon until the batter thickens and begins to pull away from sides of the pan.
Remove from the heat and add the eggs one at a time, mixing until batter is completely smooth.
Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
Put the batter into a piping bag and pipe it into medium size round balls, as you leave room between the profiteroles.
Assemble and bake profiteroles:
Remove pastry dough from the fridge, remove plastic wrap and place over a large piece of baking paper. Put another piece of baking paper over the dough and roll to 1/8th of an inch (3 mm) thickness.
Put the rolled dough in the freezer for about 10 minutes to firm up again.
Using a round cookie cutter (just a bit bigger than the size of piped profiteroles) cut out enough rings for all profiteroles. Gently place pastry rings on top of the profiteroles pressing gently just enough to stick to each other. Don’t press too hard (check this post for pictures of this process).
Immediately transfer the tray into the oven and cook profiteroles for about 20 minutes on 200 C. Decrease the temperature to 180C and cook for another 20 minutes.
Leave the door of the oven ajar and cook for another 10 minutes.
Turn off the oven and take profiteroles out to cool completely.
On the inside profiteroles should be dry, if the batter inside is still moist, bake for another few minutes then set aide to cool completely.
Prepare the chocolate mousse:
In a saucepan heat the orange juice. Remove it from the heat just right before it starts to boil. Strain through a fine mesh sieve and pour over the chocolate in a small bowl and stir until chocolate melts. Set aside until needed.
Prepare the egg yolk mixture: In a medium saucepan whisk the egg yolks and sugar until pale. Add vanilla and orange extracts and start cooking on medium / medium-low heat (depending on how strong your stove is). Whisk almost constantly until all sugar dissolves and the egg yolk mixture is hot to the touch. Cook egg yolks on medium low heat until you temper them, then you can turn the heat up a bit and continue cooking until the mixture thickens. Make sure to whisk often to avoid curdling the eggs.
Once the sugar dissolves and the mixture is thickened, remove from the heat and pour over the chocolate mixture. Set aside to cool completely to room temperature ans you stir occasionally.
In a large bowl whip the cream until soft peaks form. Add the whipped cream to the chocolate mixture and gently fold with rubber spatula.
Whip up the other whipping cream with the vanilla extract till stiff peaks form and fill a piping bag with it.
To assemble: Fill a piping bag with the chocolate mousse.
Cut profiteroles in two and pipe a little bit of the chocolate mousse over the bottom of each profiterole, top with the whipped cream, cover with the top of the profiteroles and serve immediately.
***Don’t fill up profiteroles in advance. If you want to have them for a dinner party or other occasion, prepare all in advance and just fill them up right before serving.

For the praline:
50 grams (1,8 oz) almonds
100 grams (3,5 oz) sugar
3-4 amaretti biscuits

For the millefeuille:
1 sheet of puff pastry
Powder sugar

For the mascarpone creme:
2 medium egg yolks
40 grams (1,40 oz) granulated sugar
A few drops of vanilla extract
250 grams (9 oz) mascarpone
50 grams (3,5 oz) powder sugar
To prepare praline:
Making the caramel for the praline is a very quick (takes about 6-7 minutes) but tricky business, so when you are ready to make it, stop doing whatever else you are doing and focus on the caramel, cause it could burn very quickly.
In a small heavy saucepan heat sugar over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally. Once sugar dissolves and starts simmering, continue cooking it without stirring until the caramel starts to darken. You want your caramel to have dark amber color, but keep in mind that once the caramel starts to darken, you will need to watch it closely, because it could burn very easy and quick.
Once caramel is dark amber color remove from the heat and immediately put the saucepan in a cold bath – I use my sink, filled with a little bit of cold water. This will stop the cooking process – a very important step, because otherwise, caramel will continue to cook, even if it’s not on the stove and will burn.
Once you put the saucepan in the water bath, add the almonds and stir to coat all almonds with caramel. Keep in the water bath for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a small dish lined with baking paper. Put in the fridge to harden and cool completely.
Once the praline is cold and hard, transfer to a chopper and finely chop it, add amaretti and chop all together to combine. You want to have it as finely chopped as possible. Set aside until needed.

To prepare pastry sheets:
Preheat your oven to 180C, fan-forced (350F).
Place the puff pastry sheet on a large piece of baking paper.
Roll extra thinly – you need the pastry rolled to 3mm thickness (1/8th inch), or as thinly as possible. Using round cookie cutters, cut as much circles as possible out of the puff pastry sheet. Lay them on a cookie sheet, lined with parchment paper and sprinkle with powder sugar. Now, this is the important part – put a large piece of baking paper on top of the puff pastry circles and cover them with another cookie sheet, bottom side down. You need to keep the puff pastry from “puffing”, so using a heavy tray (cookie sheet) to press it down while baking should keep pastry flat (or use a baking sheet weighed down with an empty ceramic oven dish if your cookie sheets aren’t heavy).
Bake for about 45 minutes to an hour, or until golden brown. About 20 minutes into the baking, remove puff pastry from the oven and sprinkle with powder sugar one more time. Then return to the oven.
I usually sprinkle them 2-3 times during baking, but this is up to whether you have time to do this as often. The more powder sugar the more caramelized your pastry circles will become. Believe me, they will be just irresistible! Bake until golden brown (about 45-60 min).
NOTE: you could prepare this dessert in any shape you like – you can cut it into rectangles, squares or whatever else you prefer.

Prepare mascarpone creme: In a small saucepan whisk the egg yolks and granulated sugar until pale. Add a few drops of vanilla extract and start cooking over medium / medium-low heat (depending on how strong your stove is). Whisk almost constantly until all sugar dissolves and the egg yolk mixture is hot to the touch. Cook egg yolks on medium low heat until you temper them, then you can turn the heat up a bit until the mixture thickens. Make sure to whisk often to avoid curdling the eggs.
Once the sugar dissolves and the mixture is thickened, remove from stove and set aside to cool completely as you stir the mixture once in a while. Once the mixture is cold to the touch (or at room temperature) whisk again by hand or with a mixer for a minute or so.
In a large bowl combine mascarpone and powder sugar and mix well with a rubber spatula or hand held mixer..
Pour the egg yolk mixture into the mascarpone mixture and stir with a rubber spatula to combine. Put mascarpone creme in the fridge for a bit to chill, then stir again and transfer to a piping bag.

Assemble mille-feuilles:
Place a circle of puff pastry on a plate. Pipe one layer of mascarpone over, sprinkle a little bit of the praline and cover with another piece of puff pastry. Repeat the steps, as it’s up to you how many layers to add. Finish with a piece of puff pastry, sprinkled with powder sugar. Serve immediately.

Ingredients фо 40 medium cookies:
400 grams all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

A pinch of salt

70 grams cream cheese

250 grams butter
280 grams brown sugar
3 medium eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
300 grams milk chocolate chips

Crushed nuts (optional)

In a large bowl sift the flour, salt and baking powder. Add the chocolate chips. Set aside.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix them with a rubber spatula or your hands until all products bled well.
Preheat your oven to 180 C (350 F).
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Using an ice-cream scoop or a spoon form equal by size small balls and line them on the baking sheet.
Make sure to leave enough space between each cookie, because they will expand a bit from the heat.
Bake 10-12 minutes.
Cook on a wire rack.

Ingredients:
500 grams (18 oz) heavy whipping cream
170 grams (6 oz) milk chocolate, chopped
2 table spoons cold water
1 tea spoon (10 grams) gelatin
2 egg yolks
2 table spoons granulated white sugar
150 ml milk
1 tea spoon pure vanilla extract

In a large bowl whip the heavy whipping cream until stiff peaks form. Cover with plastic wrap and store in the fridge until needed.
Place the cold water in a small bowl and sprinkle with the gelatin. Let it stand for a few minutes.
In the meantime, using a fork beat the egg yolks and sugar.
In a small saucepan heat up the milk over medium heat until it simmers.
Gently pour the hot milk over the egg yolks as you whisk constantly. Pour the milk-egg yolk mixture back to the saucepan and stir constantly over medium heat until the mixture thickens (2-3 minutes). I would recommend to use a non stick saucepan.

Add the small bowl of gelatin over a small pot of simmering water and let is dissolve, until it becomes a translucent mixture.
Then, add to the hot milk-egg yolk mixture and mix well.
Place the chocolate in a large bowl. Pour the hot milk mixture over the chocolate and stir until the chocolate melts. Let it cool to room temperature.
Once the chocolate is cool, gently fold the whipping cream to the chocolate mixture and mix with rubber spatula until well combined.
Spoon the mousse in your serving glasses. Place in the fridge for a few hours until it firms up.
Garnish with fresh fruits, grated chocolate, nuts or whipping cream.
Serve cooled.