Category: lactose free

QUARK CAKE WITH RASPBERRY-CHOCOLATE CHIPS

Summer is here these days and it calls from fresh, red fruits ❣️☀️ have you ever tried the combination chocolate + raspberries??

Check the recipe of this very simple QUARK CAKE WITH RASPBERRY-CHOCOLATE CHIPS below ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Ingredients
1,5 cups (1 cup = 125 gr) low-fat quark
3/4 cup sunflower oil
1 cups brown sugar
3 cups baking flour (00)
15 gr baking powder
2 eggs
100 gr dark chocolate with raspberries (I used the one from #lindt special collection)

For the chocolate glaze:
50 gr of dark chocolate
40 ml water
20 gr brown sugar

Procedure
First, mix the quark with the oil. Then, add sugar, flour, baking powder and the eggs, one at time. Last, chop the chocolate and add it to the batter. Spread the batter on a baking tin (remember to spray with non-stick cooking product or cover with greaseproof paper). Bake in preheated oven 175°C for 35/40 minutes.

For the chocolate glaze, chop the dark chocolate. Then, heat the water the sugar until it boils; add the chocolate and cook at low-heat until it melts. Let the glaze cool down for about 10 minutes. Pour the chocolate on the cake and let it cool down completed before serving.

Enjoy!

LINGUINE AI FRUTTI DI MARE

My non-Italian friends often question the fact that I am Italian because I rarely eat pasta. I prefer eating more various food tbh and, if I want to cook high quantities of carbs, I do prefer cheating with risotto. Yet, sometimes a nice “piatto di pasta”, like these delicious Linguine ai Frutti di Mare (linguine with seafood), is what everyone needs. Me included.

InstaRecipe

Ingredients (for 2 people)

160 gr linguine
200 gr frutti di mare (mixed-seafood)
1 garlic glove
100 gr cocktail tomatoes
olive oil
salt & parsley to taste

Procedure

In a big pot, heat the water for the linguine (and please, add the salt only after the water starts boiling🙏😉). Cook the linguine for about 10/11 minutes (or as long as indicated in the package).
In the meantime, in a pan roast the chopped garlic glove with some olive oil, while paying attention to not burn the garlic. Then, add the seafood and cook for about 10 minutes. Next, add the chopped cocktail tomatoes and cook until they release a bit of their juice and turn soft.
When ready, put the linguine in the pan with the seafood, add some fresh parsley and some olive oil if needed. Stir well for a couple of minutes. Serve these delicious linguine ai frutti di mare.

Buon appetito!

OVEN-BAKED MACKEREL FILLETS WITH LEMON AND ORANGE

What a better way to start the week with some healthy food rich source of omega-3 fatty acids? 🐟
Check the super easy #instarecipe of these delicious OVEN-BAKED MACKEREL FILLETS WITH LEMON AND ORANGE 🍋🍊

InstaRecipe

Ingredients (for 2 people)

300 gr mackerel fillets
1 small orange zest
1 lemon
1 tsp dill
Salt & pepper to taste

Procedure

Preheat the oven at 180°C.
Place the mackerel fillets on a baking tray, season with salt, pepper and dill, add the orange zest and a few lemon slices next to the fillets. Bake for 15 minutes.

Torta Max – Under construction!

Love baking to make a kid happy 💙 Can you guess what Max really likes??👷🏼 🚧

I prepared a Torta Margherita (margherita cake) filled with crema pasticcera (Vanilla Pastry cream), covered with marzipan and chocolate muffin crumbles.

TORTA MAX

Ingredients

For Torta Margherita (diameter 21 cm)

150 gr baking flour (00)
120 gr potato starch
16 gr baking powder
3 eggs
150 gr (brown) sugar
5 gr vanilla sugar (or equivalent of vanillina or vanilla extract)
100 gr margarine or butter (left out of the fridge to soften)
75 gr almond milk

For the crema pasticcera (Vanilla Pastry cream)

1 egg yolk 
110 gr almond milk
30 gr (brown) sugar
5 gr vanilla sugar
20 gr corn starch

In addition, you need:

some extra almond milk to brush the cake
250 gr whipped cream
400 gr marzipan (we used the one that is already rolled out)
food-coloring spray (brown)
chocolate letters
chocolate muffin crumbles
excavator toys

Prepare the cake

For this cake, you’ll do all steps using an electric mixer. Start with combining the butter cut into cubes and the sugars. Then, add one egg at a time (wait to add the next one until the previous one is well-incorporated) and next the milk. Last, add altogether the flour, potato starch and baking powder.
Pour the batter on a (round, diameter 21 cm) baking tin (remember to wrap the baking tin with greaseproof paper). Bake in preheated oven 175°C for 30/35 minutes. If the cake gets dark quickly on top, cover it with aluminum foil until the baking time is over.

Prepare the cream

Preparing the cream like I did here (you can skip the lemon zest).

Assembling the cake

Cut the cake horizontally in two parts and brush each part (in particular the sides and the top that could be a bit dry) with some almond milk to make it softer. Then, spread the cream on top of one layer and cover with the other layer. Cover the whole cake with a thin layer of whipped cream. Store the cake in the fridge for the night.

Decoration time!

Roll out the marzipan (2-3 cm thick), cover the cake with it and gently press it on the cake so it sticks well. Cut any extra marzipan at the bottom of the cake. Next, spray evenly the cake with the food color to make if brown. Then, you can use chocolate muffin crumbles to simulate the mud of a construction site and place some on the top and on the sides of the cake as you like. Last, finish your decorations with any chocolate letters (we used them to write ‘ 3 Max’) and have fun with the excavator toys.

Mimosa MUFFINS and 7th blog-anniversary

Some people say it’s wool, others it’s copper. Well, yesterday was the 7th anniversary of Aroma Di Cannella. Wow, I am getting old.

Over the years I have always tried to make a little celebration around this day by either baking or cooking something special to share with the readers. It’s funny because every year it’s sort of a double celebration. On one hand, there is the actual ‘birthday’ on March 7th, which is the date of the first blogpost published back in 2014. On the other hand, Fat Tuesday is the more symbolic or iconic ‘birthday’ as my first post was about what I baked on Fat Tuesday of that year, which happened a couple of days earlier than March 7th. The two dates (birthday and Fat Tuesday) rarely coincide as the same day because, as you probably know, Fat Tuesday changes every year according to the Catholic calendar.
Anyway, for some reasons, I tend to remember Fat Tuesday more than March 7th. In fact, over the years, it often turned out that I completely forgot about the real anniversary. The last time when I did remember about it was back in 2018, when I was living in LA during my #PhDlife. After that, I did forget for two years in a row. What can I say? 2019 and 2020 were very hectic around this time of the year. Apparently, the beginning of March has been a moment of big happenings.

Well, this year, for once, nothing big has happened. It’s been quite a few quiet days. Not that we can do much in these days, anyway. So, this time I did remember March 7th. Hence, yesterday I thought about a nice recipe to celebrate that could also fit well with today as the International Women’s Day.

I have to say, I’ve never celebrated much this occurrence. Yet, in Italy we have this tradition since the mid-40s to give women Mimosa flowers as a symbol of women’s contribution to society and a sign of respect and support. When I lived at my parents’, my dad used to give us (my mum, sis and I) Mimosas every year, until he decided to directly plant a tree in our garden.

Mimosa Tree in my family’s home garden (photo taken by mydad this morning).

Next to Mimosa flowers, Italians – obviously – also celebrate with typical food delicacies. All Mimosa-themed, of course. Among all, the Mimosa cake is one of the most common ways to revisit the flower into a (sponge) cake. The trick is baking some extra cake, turn it into crumbles and place them on the top of the cake so it looks like a yellow Mimosa flower.

As it was a few days that I really wanted to bake some lemon muffins, I thought: what a better way to turn them into lemon Mimosa muffins?

MIMOSA MUFFINS

Ingredients (for 12 muffins)

For the muffins

250 gr baking flour
30 gr almond flour
15 gr baking powder
2 egg
100 gr brown sugar
8 gr vanilla sugar (or 1 tbsp vanilla extract)
90 ml sunflower oil
1 lemon juice
100 gr almond milk

For the lemon cream (you might have a little extra left)

2 egg yolks
40 gr corn starch
60 gr sugar
5 gr vanilla sugar
220 ml almond milk
1 lemon zest

Prepare the lemon cream

Start with preparing the lemon cream like I did here. Once ready, pour the cream in a bowl and cover immediately with transparent film. Store in the fridge to cool down until it’s time for assembling the muffins.

Prepare the muffins

Prepare and bake the lemon muffins like I did here without adding the poppy seeds. Let them cool down completely.

Assembling the muffins

Cut the top of the muffins with a knife. Using a teaspoon, make a hole in the muffin by removing the dough so to make space for the cream (you might need to do the same also in the tops). Save all the muffin crumbles in a bowl and store aside. Pour 1 tsp of cream in each muffin and cover with the tops. Spread a thin layer of cream on the tops and sprinkle some of the crumble leftovers over the tops so that they stick on them.

Enjoy!

Enjoy these delicious and delicate-taste muffins with a nice cup of tea or coffee. Store them in the fridge for a couple of days if you don’t finish them all in one day…

QUARK BOWL WITH CLEMENTINES, RASPBERRIES AND ALMONDS

Those breakfast meals❣️ Right combination of #macros for a perfect beginning of the last working day of the week 😋

For this QUARK BOWL you need:

200gr lowfat lactose free quark
60 gr clementines
60 gr raspberries
10 gr almonds

Enjoy!