Knafeh Tart

I have been living in Jaffa for the last couple of weeks. To be honest, I don’t miss Jerusalem yet. In two-three weeks I’ll have to go back there anyway. Back to a renovated and improved pharmacy. In the meantime, I can enjoy the beauty of Jaffa at nights, during daylight and in rainy weather.

Pistachio Tartlet

One year ends, another begins. I used to get excited about it once. Now… a little bit less. Now I tell myself, hold on time, slow down… where are you off to? But time doesn’t listen and keeps going on its own hasty way, just like the white rabbit with his pocket watch. Oh well, I guess I’ll press on too. I’ll keep falling in this rabbit hole, or in my reality, this time hole, hoping that this year, just like Alice, I will also land safely.

Kinder Bueno Tart

Last weekend I celebrated my niece Yasmine’s 9th birthday with the family. She requested a Princess Jasmine cake, from Aladdin, just like I made her for her first birthday. Just like Yasmine, the cake has matured, and so have I.

Pistachio Cake with Lemon Cream

Mor’s pistachio cake strikes again, this time with a wonderful and tangy lemon cream. With all the love I’ve got for the nutty version, I just had to try it out with pistachios. I even added a lemon cream, the one I’ve already used in lemon berry tartlets. The inspiration for the square shaped cake is from Cyril Lignac’s book La Pâtisserie, where he uses a similar lemon cream, but surprisingly with less butter and sugar.

Peanut Butter Mousse Cubes (In Other Words: Snickers)

What do you do when all the pistachios are gone? You start seeing other nuts. The first to catch my eye was the hazelnut. A round nut with an elegant sharp tip. I made delicious financier cookies out of it. My second date was with the peanut. It turned out a little square. To spice things up, I added chocolate and got a wonderful peanut butter mousse cube.

Lime Meringue Cookies

Yup, limes! I know, you can only find limes here in Jerusalem around the last two weeks of August. But somehow I was lucky enough to get the last limes of the season. Come to think of it, this season is pretty nuts. It’s the end of September and yet the weather is warmer than August. So maybe I shouldn’t be astonished that limes are still here. I squeezed the limes to the last drop and made myself these wonderful lime meringue cookies.

Hazelnut Cake with Coffee Chantilly

Finally I have gotten my hands on a recipe from the Denon culinary school in Tel Aviv. And what a recipe it is! The original version is laden with pistachios and a touch of berries. Mor, my fellow green lover, graciously sent me her own twist on this recipe after I went crazy for her version on her Instagram. Now that it’s in front of me, I’m even more in love.

Island Cake

If there’s one good thing to come out of this horrible year, it’s these cakes. The loneliness (more like the isolation) and the inability to travel and relax this summer gave birth to a dream destination cake: a tropical island in the middle of an ocean. I too gave in to this year’s trend. I recommend setting aside three days to make this island cake. Don’t worry, it’s not intense, except for the second day. At least it’s something to do in our new lockdown here.

Pistachio Succès with Pistachio Praliné

I know, another post dedicated entirely to pistachios. I know, there are other ingredients in the world, as Oren likes to say. But you know, I have another 3 kg of emerald Sicilian Bronte pistachios in the pantry and this pandemic lockdown calls for using them all. Last week I made an out of this world pistachio tart (thanks Mor!), which led me to make this pistachio version of the hazelnut succès that I made somewhere at the beginning of this blog.

Chocolate Custard in Kinder Chocolate Eggs

I was in love with Milky pudding long before the famous Sandy Bar Milky commercial in Israel. Every day before school, I would have one Milky waiting for me in the fridge to sweeten my day. I know, I know, not the healthiest breakfast, but this was my childhood.

Pistachio Ferrero Rocher

I know, it’s kinda late now, but this homemade Ferrero Rocher was perfect as a Valentine’s Day gift. In the spirit of the holiday, Natalie from Lil’ Cookie and I made this Ferrero Rocher with pistachios instead of hazelnuts. Natalie suggested this genius idea a day before our date to make my mom’s basbousa. We decided to try it out. To be honest, we didn’t expect it to turn out so well.

Lemon Mint Meringue Pie

I got a postcard from New York. Well, a greeting card kind of postcard. Loren, a good friend, and Oscar, his adorable dog, sent it. They used to live here once. On the postcard there’s a beautiful drawing of a classic lemon meringue pie. On the back, there’s a recipe. I love postcards, but this one spoke to my heart.

Lemon Halva Tart

Not long ago I got a gift – a Lebanese baking book full of interesting recipes and cool ideas. One of the recipes that popped out at me was a classic lemon tart with a twist. What twist? Halva! How does it work? It works perfectly!

Mom’s Basbousa

I had the honor of baking with Lil’ Cookie a second time! Natalie, of the Lil’ Cookie blog, invited me to her house for a joint baking session. We baked wonderful confections, like a lemon halva tart and pistachio Ferrero Rochers.

Christmas Tree Chocolate Mousse

Last Christmas I prepared gingerbread cookies in the holiday spirit and decorated my plastic Christmas tree with them. That same week I traveled with the whole family to Turkey and celebrated Christmas there.

Gingerbread Hamsa Cookies

Merry Christmas! This year Hanukkah and Christmas fell on the same week. Although I don’t technically celebrate either of them, I made sufganiot (jelly doughnuts) and gingerbread cookies. Why settle for one holiday (or none at all) when you can celebrate all of them? As long as I have something to keep me distracted from the Jerusalem cold that’s starting to get on my nerves. At least winter here is just a transition season.

Lemon Pistachio Sufganiot

After spending an entire day deep in oil in search of the perfect sufganiot, I faced another dilemma: what cream to put inside? I was so sure I was going to make sufganiot filled with homemade pistachio spread. By the end of the day, I was struck with another idea; fill the sufganiot with lemon pistachio mousseline cream that I used once for filling éclairs. I got wonderful, tangy sufganiot.

Pistachio Sufganiot

Last week, Instagram reminded me of wonderful sufganiot I made a year ago. Pistachio sufganiot filled with homemade pistachio spread. At the time I was planning to upload a recipe, but I couldn’t finish it in time. This year I didn’t give up. Somehow, after a long day of experimenting with different combinations of ingredients — making dough, letting it rise, rolling it out and endless frying — I landed upon the perfect recipe.

Chocolate & Chestnut Pots de Crème

Last week I got a pretty awesome gift, a pastry cookbook from close, yet ever so far, Lebanon. In her book, Sweet Levantine, Lara Ariss writes about baking with an emphasis on local ingredients, like olive oil, halva and mastic, which she combines in both her Middle Eastern recipes and her classic European recipes.

Madeleines in Provence

A little more than a year ago, good friends of mine, Yuval and Elisha, packed their belongings, said goodbye to crowded Tel Aviv and moved to France to build a new home with their baby girl Akko. Since then, they host family and friends non-stop in their beautiful house in the village of Lauris in southern France. It was only a matter of time before I would find myself there, between lavender fields and endless vineyards, raising a glass to a simpler, more charming life.

Knafeh in Nablus

Until a few years ago, I never tasted knafeh. Something about that fluorescent orange color on top of the sweet cheese pastry didn’t pull me in. When I fell in love with baking I became more daring and decided to try anything sweet. And what’s sweeter than knafeh? (Well, other than the cup of tea full of sugar served alongside.)

Ruby Krembo

In the past few weeks I’ve been going through krembo fever like it’s the middle of winter. Since I started making krembo (crembo) from Swiss meringue instead of Italian meringue, it became more fun to make them and safely serve them to the people I love. Like my sister, who didn’t feel well last week and was stuck at home. I made her a ruby krembo from lemon and raspberry, so pink and sweet and fruity.

Mocha-Vanilla Krembo

Not every nephew or niece of mine gets an elaborate birthday cake. Sometimes there are constraints, and sometimes I’m just too tired. If I don’t make them a cake, their grandma usually does. But if I don’t make them a cake, I make them something else. This year for my eldest nephew’s birthday, I made mocha-vanilla krembo.

Swedish Donuts

Last month, Noam came to visit Jerusalem from San Francisco. On his way here he made a stop in Sweden for a quick family visit. While he was there, he wrote me the following word: “Kardemummabullar”. A Google search taught me it wasn’t a curse, but a yeast pastry baked and coated with cardamom. In fact, it’s the Swedish brother of the American cinnamon roll.

Blueberry Smoothie

Every weekend ends and every week starts, but not easily. Not for me at least. Sunday is my longest workday. My week starts with a boom. Recently I traveled to Provence where I discovered that their week starts differently, and not just because it starts on Monday.

Coffee / Peanut Butter & Chocolate / Cinnamon-Banana Smoothie

Last summer I got a new blender as a gift from my parents, and since then I use it non-stop. Although I already managed to drop it and nick a corner, I can still use it.  Until I get around to replacing the broken part, I had to post my favorite smoothie mixes inspired by Jerusalem’s Muffin Boutique, where I also happened to discover the yummiest pumpkin cream cheese muffin in town.

Oreo Mousse Cheesecake

In addition to the evil eye cookies I made for my dad’s birthday last month, I made him a small Oreo mousse cheesecake. Yup, small. It happens on every birthday. By the time we get to the cake, everyone is already full from the chocolates and sweets. So I made a small cake to fit our appetites. What a mistake. The cake was so delicious, it was gone in a matter of seconds.

Evil Eye Cookies

This week we celebrated my dad’s 68th birthday… almost 70! (tfu tfu tfu, against the evil eye). To celebrate it I made him a small birthday cake plus special cookies decorated with royal icing to keep away any bad luck from him this year: cookies against the evil eye, a concept deeply rooted in my family.

Milky Way Tartlets

Lately I’ve felt like I’ve opened a tartlet factory. I can’t stop making them and it’s very fun. Before I move on to other desserts, I decided to write one final tartlet post (for now) with a bang… a big bang! Many years ago, before I got involved in baking, I studied geophysics and planetary sciences at university. So I’ve wanted to create a galactic dessert for a while now. I decided to make a tartlet with a half sphere covered in a galaxy glaze. (and later on a solar version of them!)

Geode Cake

I haven’t uploaded a blog post for more than a month now, because I tried to be dairy free for a while and the only result of that experiment was a decrease in my baking desire. The damned experiment ended last week on my birthday with a very dairy tiramisu cake. To go back to normal, I made a geode cake for little Eliora and Archie who came to visit from the States.

How to Caramelize White Chocolate & Make Dulce Spread

White chocolate is the most problematic of them all. Simply because it doesn’t contain cocoa solids. But that doesn’t mean it’s not chocolate. It contains enough cocoa butter to be respected and considered as chocolate. However, from the moment I tried caramelized chocolate, I realized it would be hard to go back to just “plain” old white chocolate.

Alfajores Tartlets

Recently I discovered that the Argentinian cookies Alfajores have Middle Eastern roots with origins from an ancient cooking book from Baghdad of the Middle Ages, just a little over 1000 years ago. (I know, sounds like One Thousand and One Recipes.) The origin of the name in Arabic is al-fakher (الفَاخِر), which means “fine” or “quality” or maybe “praised”.

Ruby Berry Pralines

Tempering chocolate to make pralines on hot summer days is doomed to fail. I was naïve enough to think that the AC would solve the problem. I mean, it’s cool and nice enough in the house with it turned on… for me, not for the chocolate. Tempering chocolate requires a specific room temperature. 18-20 °C / 64-68 °F to be exact.

Chocolate Passion Fruit Pralines

A while back, I met friends from France and we talked about macarons. (What else would you talk about with French people?) We didn’t just talk about any macarons, we talked about Pierre Hermé’s macarons. We all agreed that his best is without a doubt the “Mogador”, a macaron filled with passion fruit and milk chocolate ganache.

Sicilian Cassatina

The pistachios I brought from Bronte in Sicily last summer are just about to end. I bought 4 kilograms that I used in a variety of desserts. I saved the very last pistachios for a special dessert that won my heart (and stomach) at the end of the trip: cassatina. A festive Sicilian cake filled with sweet ricotta cream, covered by green pistachio marzipan and decorated with candied fruits.

Persian Love Cake

Not long ago, I traveled to the US and came back with a lot of baking cookbooks, as usual after a trip abroad. Three of the cookbooks I acquired are full of gluten free recipes – vegan too. I looked for an interesting recipe to try, but the list of ingredients was too complicated. Then I started flipping through Yotam Ottolenghi & Helen Go’s Sweet, and found a few gluten free recipes fit to my taste. One recipe looked especially inviting, full of Persian love, whatever that may be.

Linzer Cookies with Maple Cream

A while ago, I stumbled upon a magical video that shows how to make maple cream from maple syrup. In one sentence, you heat the syrup, let it cool and then stir, for about an hour! That’s it. In the video, they take pride in stirring by hand using a wooden spoon. Not me. I take pride in my standing mixer, capable doing the same thing while I drink a cup of coffee and prepare the dough for the cookies.

Pistachio Tart with Poached Pears

I love tarts. I make them all the time and write about them here. Once I managed to figure out how to make the crust properly, I fell in love with them even more. For Betty and David’s goodbye party I made two tarts. One was an excellent lemon berry tart that I wrote about the day after. The second was a pistachio tart with poached pears that made me proud. I consider it a little win over a similar tart that I made with mediocre results for a semi-final exam at my pastry school.

Apple Tart for Daniella

A while ago, Daniella, a dear friend and former neighbor, sent me an image of a fancy apple tart. Below the image she wrote: “Please make this for me”. Daniella now lives in Washington D.C., so of course she was just joking. I took it a little more seriously.

Rainbow Cake

Emily celebrated her second birthday last month. She was visiting from the US with her parents, and her mom, Karen, asked me to make her a colorful birthday cake (= rainbow cake!). I met Karen about 15 years ago, when I was a kid myself. Well, not really a kid, but a college student straight out of high school. Her request made me nostalgic and led me to make a birthday cake for a cute little girl I hadn’t met yet. How did I know she’s cute? Karen sent me a picture of Emily with her whole face buried inside the cake. A girl after my own heart.

Banana Cake with Pecan Crumble

This banana cake is actually an upgraded version of my last birthday cake. True, it sounds a little strange that an English Cake would be considered an upgrade over a tall and festive birthday cake, but don’t judge a book by its cover.

Lemon Berry Tart

A couple of weeks ago we held a goodbye party for Betty and David, good friends. She’s American, he’s Israeli, and together they’re the perfect mix, just like this pink lemon berry tart combination. After about a decade living here, they decided to move to chilly Boston. They met and got married here, and I had the honor to make them their wedding cake. It was a three-tier tres leches cake, soaked in three different kinds of milk. One of them (evaporated milk) doesn’t exist here and so it had to make it all the way here from the States just for this divine cake. I have to recreate this recipe and put it up here one day.

Gianduja Chocolate Mousse Cake

Two years ago I had a little breakdown. Not that I actually had anything to complain about, but I felt like something in my life was missing. Something small to complete a smile at the end of the day. One day, on my way to visit the family in Jaffa, I was listening on repeat to Lane Boy by Twenty One Pilot. Suddenly it struck me why I love this song so much.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Mousse Cake

One of my cool aunts asked me to make a birthday cake for her daughter. When I asked her what kind of cake she was thinking about, she sent me a picture of a Reese’s cake decorated with the peanut butter cups themselves. I took the challenge under one condition: the family must act as my guinea pigs and provide me with constructive criticism. There was another tiny condition: that they would leave me a small piece of cake to try, but somehow all the evidence disappeared after the knife started cutting the cake.

Ruby Chocolate Plaisir Sucré

On September 5, 2017, I celebrated my 35th birthday. On the very same day, ruby chocolate was revealed to the world. Coincidence? I don’t think so. The universe gave me a pink gift – only it took a year and a half to reach me. Ruby chocolate is the fourth of its kind (after dark, milk and white). The color is pink and the taste is sweet and a bit sour, with no artificial flavors or food coloring. Thanks universe!

Coffee and Hazelnut Mille-feuille

This mille-feuille is an incarnation of another dessert I tried to make with Oren a few months ago. We tried to make a Bûche de Noël with coffee diplomat cream and a hazelnut nougat ripple. It turned out so delicious, but couldn’t hold its shape. Maybe ‘cause we tried to make a joconde from hazelnuts, maybe ‘cause the cream was too supple or maybe, just maybe, we didn’t have luck on our side. I didn’t want to let go of the flavors and started looking for another dessert that would work with them, until I reached the perfect one – mille-feuille.

Puff Pastry

It’s not too complicated to make puff pastry from scratch, as long as you use the right butter. The only downside: it takes a lot of time. A lot of time waiting, not working. From one turn to another, this dough needs to rest in the fridge for a while to cool down. I kinda like it. I use this “resting” time to do the dishes, water the plants, practice some Pilates or just rest up in front of the PlayStation. At the end of the process, you get a kilo of wonderful puff pastry, just like they taught me at pastry school. From here, the journey towards classic French pastries is much shorter. Hello there Mille-Feuille.

Caramelized Hazelnuts

I always wanted to make caramelized hazelnuts for fancy decoration on desserts, but I always feared that long sugary tail. This time I told myself, no more! I stepped into the kitchen, cooked sugar into caramel and dipped whole hazelnuts into it. Lo and behold, it worked. It wasn’t even that complicated. I even managed to do it on a rainy, gloomy day. I felt like Martha Stewart, who actually demonstrates the task elegantly alongside Fran Drescher from “The Nanny” (What nostalgia, her voice suddenly sounds like music to my ears).

Lavender Honey Macarons

Happy blogiversary to Cake Lab! My little blog is 2 years old. Two! It’s my favorite age. I mean, I don’t remember it myself, but my nephews and nieces are doing a great job showing me. I have so much fun with them at this age. It’s the age where they have already discovered how to walk and they start running. They already know how to talk and start asking questions non-stop. There are so curious, warm and full of life. And that’s what I wish for my blog this year. That it’ll behave just like my nephews and nieces at this age, just without all that crying.

Vanilla Cupcakes with Mascarpone Frosting

Cupcakes. That’s actually what we also call them in this part of the world. In Arabic, we call them “cupcakes.” In Hebrew, we call them “cupcakes.” However, recently, the Hebrew Language Academy came up with a Hebrew term for cupcakes, Oogonit, which sounds like the equivalent of “little cake”. That’s actually better than the other option they were considering, Moofin Mekushat, which simply means, “decorated muffin”. 

Pistachio Tiramisu Cake

I’m having an unlucky week. I have been waiting for it to end since it started. From terrible backaches that don’t go away, to yet another annoying virus, to a non-stop leak from the ceiling and to electrical appliances that die out on you in the middle of a cold and stormy day. But here comes the redemption at last. The sun is shining and the weekend is here. In a little while I’ll be on my way to my family in Jaffa. I’m going to carry this tiramisu cake with me to celebrate my little brother’s birthday. Apparently, he really likes pistachios, just like his big brother. I guess the pistachio doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Birthday Macarons

Last week I traveled with my family to Turkey. While having breakfast at the hotel, my niece Jasmine brought a cake with her to the table. It was a piece of mousse cake decorated with a macaron on top. Jasmine picked the macaron off the cake, put the cake aside, and looked at the macaron. “Can you make me this for my birthday?” she asked. I had waited for that moment a long time. Finally one of my nieces or nephews asks for macarons for their birthday! In my mind, I started imagining festive birthday macarons with a fun flavor. A flavor that my nephews would sacrifice my mom’s stuffed grape leaves for: Kinder chocolate.

Pistachio Cake with Mascarpone and Strawberries

Ever since I started my little blog, Natalie, blogger superstar, hasn’t stopped showing love and support. I discovered her wonderful blog, Lil’ Cookie, about 5 years ago when I started taking interest in the baking world. An intern at the pharmacy where I work noticed my sudden love of cakes. She asked if I knew the blog Lil’ Cookie. I didn’t. When I saw it, I was captivated by its charm.

Gingerbread Cookies with Pistachio Brittle

I’ve already written here about my Christmas obsession. True, it’s not a holiday I’m supposed to celebrate, but the grass is always greener on the other side, and the tree is so much more colorful. When I was a kid, I saved up my pocket money and bought a tiny Christmas tree. I was so in love with it that I left it standing on my bedside table all year round.

Christmas Tree Tartlets

I still remember how my siblings and I used to hear the bells approaching our neighborhood on Christmas Eve as kids. We would immediately run to the windows, hoping to get a glimpse of Santa Claus riding his reindeer-drawn sleigh his car with a huge inflatable reindeer on top. How we used to wish he’d stop by our house too, until mom got the idea eventually and invited him in!

Pistachio Muffins

What can I say about pistachios that I haven’t already said? Oh… you can also bake pistachio muffins! During my trip to Sicily, I came by these pistachio muffins in Bronte. The whole city idolizes pistachios, and grows them, but when I arrived to buy some, it seemed like the whole city was closed for the month of August. Then I stumbled upon a bakery and ordered these muffins. The muffins looked completely innocent at first, with a ground pistachio layer on top. After only one bite, a luscious green filling revealed itself at the muffin’s core and made me smile from ear to ear.

Disney Gingerbread Castle

For more than six months now, my niece, Najwa, has been dropping clues about her desired birthday gift. On Amal’s last birthday, another niece of mine, I gave her a 3D Disney castle puzzle that excited my nieces a lot and their mothers even more. So I started looking for a similar gift for Najwa’s upcoming birthday, and came across a crazy 4,080-piece LEGO Disney castle.

Chocolate Pistachio Tart

This post is inspired by the first tart I ever made. A chocolate pistachio tart from one of my favorite blogs “Metukim Sheli”, a blog that pretty much set my path into the baking world. Daniel was in love with this tart from the first bite. Many years have passed since then, but Daniel still hasn’t found any other dessert that has won over his heart as did this chocolate pistachio tart. Every dinner party, Daniel asks for the chocolate pistachio tart. Every birthday, Daniel asks for the chocolate pistachio tart. And, every Monday, well, you get the idea.

Pistachio Spread

When I traveled to Sicily this summer, I came back home with four jars of pistachio spread made by the residents of Bronte. The city takes pride in its green pistachios and every shop, bakery or café is proud of its own homemade pistachio spread. It wasn’t easy to choose which spread I should take back to the family. There were so many to choose from; smooth and creamy spreads that reminded me of Nutella, more textured spreads that contained tiny chunks of pistachios, milk based spreads,olive oil based spreads and so on…

Ferrero Rocher Tartlets

Last year, two friends of mine and I held a little pop-up event together. During the event, I sold 5 different kinds of tartlets. One of them was this Ferrero Rocher tartlet. It was made from a gianduja chocolate mousse with a hazelnut praliné core, covered in a chocolate glaze studded with caramelized pieces of hazelnuts and set on top of a shortcrust pastry, concealing a crunchy chocolaty biscuit with hazelnuts*. Is it complicated? Yeah, a little bit.. Is it tasty? No doubt about it!

Pistachio Tiramisu

Last summer (can’t believe it’s winter already) I traveled to Sicily and came back home with one goal in mind: to recreate all the greenish desserts I enjoyed during my trip. I did not schlep back 4 kilos of the finest pistachios in the world for nothing. Toward the end of the trip, after a day of wandering through the alleyways of the city of Syracuse, I decided to give up dinner and just dive right into a cup of pistachio and ricotta tiramisu. I found paradise in a small cup.

Chocolate Meringue Tartlets

Last year my American friends invited me to their Thanksgiving dinner. I baked these chocolate meringue tartlets for the event, in addition to a pistachio tart I brought as back-up. I’m pretty sure the other guests enjoyed these tartlets, you could see it on their faces. Literally, there were traces of meringue all over their beards and noses!

Pistachio Ginger Tart

This post was created for one reason only. I really wanted to try my hand at decorating the edge of a tart crust as seen in this YouTube video (although mute, it says a lot). In the video the chef explains how to do a perfect fonçage, which is important too, but then he continues to show how to make a nice decoration around the tart. I got excited.

Hazelnut Tartlets (from homemade Nutella)

I really wanted the headline to be Hashahar Tartlet. Hashahar is a classic local cocoa spread. I tried to make a tartlet version of Hashahar, but unfortunately it came out terribly sweet. Then I thought to maybe change it to Nutella tartlet, but it felt a little too branded. At the end, I decided to go for a tartlet with hazelnut cream (homemade Nutella) mixed with mascarpone cheese.  It came out wonderfully and very nutty.

Mozartkugel Cake

Not long ago, a couple of my dear sweet friends challenged me to recreate a candy almost as sweet as them, the Mozartkugel. The candy contains pistachio marzipan at its core, covered in a layer of nougat and then coated with a layer of dark chocolate. The MozartKugel was first created in the city of Salzburg in Austria. It brought a lot of good to the world, but also some major legal disputes over its name.

Chestnut Crembo

Crembo season is here. I’m not sure what’s more exciting, the smell of the first rain or the bite from the first crembo, a classic local treat. When I eat a crembo, I personally like to start from the top and when I reach the cookie, I eat it too. Sometimes I feel like peeling all the chocolate off and eat the meringue separately. Indeed, there are many ways to eat a crembo, but why crembo in a pita is one of them I will never understand.

Pirate Ship Cake (And Everything I Know About Fondant)

In the summer of 2011, my friend Merav went for a hike with friends in the Golan. Right at the beginning of the trip, she fell and broke her leg. After emergency evacuation, surgery and treatment, she had to stay at home and keep off her feet to recuperate. So she asked me to help her bake cupcakes for her birthday. Back then, I didn’t even know how to turn on an oven, but I was happy to help a friend in need. She gave me a detailed list and sent me to “Mana Ahrona,” a bake shop in Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market. I entered the store, looked around and felt lost. Shlomit, the owner, approached me with a smile and asked if my wife sent me with a shopping list. “Yes!” I answered immediately. I gave her the list with one thought in mind: what in the world is fondant!?

Chocolate Covered Banana Marshmallow

Ever since I wrote about the chocolate banana brownies, I can’t stop thinking about those yellow banana marshmallows, coated with a thin layer of chocolate. How I used to love this crap as a child and would easily finish an entire box by myself. However, I always wished the bite would be more marshmallow-y than chocolaty.

Chocolate Cake with Oreo Buttercream

This week I fell into a trap. During my weekly family visit, my niece Amal came and sat on my lap, as she usually does when I’m there. Out of the blue, she asked me to make her a birthday cake. I immediately said yes. On one hand, it’s hard to say no to those beautiful big brown eyes. On the other hand, her birthday is in July, so there’s a lot of time till then. “You remember that your birthday is not so soon, right?” I asked. “Right, but I’m celebrating my birthday at school this week!” She said. With all the other kids whose birthdays fell during the summer break. And it turns out my sister was in charge of bringing a birthday cake for the whole class. There was no way out of it. I looked at Amal and promised her a beautiful birthday cake.

S’mores Tart v2.0

According to some of my American friends, s’mores are made of vanilla marshmallow, Hershey’s milk chocolate and Graham crackers. A classic camping snack. Roast the marshmallow on a campfire, put it on a piece of chocolate and sandwich it between two crackers. The heat of the marshmallow melts the chocolate and you get one big gooey party in your mouth. It’s a little difficult to obtain these ingredients where I live. Every time I try to replace them with similar alternatives, I get disapproving looks from my friends. Yet, I keep trying.

Chocolate Banana Brownies

Recently I realized I’m not familiar enough with brownies. Not only that I’ve never baked brownies, but I also haven’t tried the wide variety that brownies have to offer. On my trip to london I stumbled upon a book called “Brownies, blondies and other traybakes” that’s devoted to everything brownie.

Coffee Gianduja Chocolate Mousse Cake v2.0

Last year, I made a coffee gianduja chocolate mousse cake for Sumaya’s birthday (and not Somalia, as customers sometimes call her.. innocently of course). Sumaya is a colleague of mine. We work at the pharmacy and terrorize our customers together. Well, only those who are impatient enough to cross the red line marked on the floor they’re supposed to wait behind (or the line we can put up with).  For them the red line is probably an imaginary one.. Part of the décor in the pharmacy. But I guess that’s how things work in this part of the world.

Pistachio Lemon Cake with Mascarpone Frosting

Lately I’ve baked a lot of different variations of pistachio cakes. The kitchen was filled with a wonderful aroma of roasted pistachio (and also an endless amount of dishes). I baked and I baked, and then I baked a little bit more… until finally, I came upon the perfect recipe. I gave my mom a piece to taste and she gave me her most sincere opinion, that it was almost perfect. Thanks mom, but “almost” perfect isn’t good enough for a wedding cake.

Apple & Honey Tart

This is one of my favorite tarts that I leaned to make at baking school. They did not give us the pleasure of baking it on our own during class, so I started baking it annually at this time of year. However, I replaced the layer of jam with honey, to better fit the holiday tradition. Although I do eat apples in honey all year long. Apples in salt too, that’s delicious. What can I say, I’m an apple boy. (Although I hate anything made by Apple.)

Blueberry Chiffon Cake

I didn’t imagine I would write another post about berries so soon (particularly blueberries), but I did. A few days ago, I discovered that my youngest niece, Aline, would be celebrating her 3rd birthday this week. True, I should remember my nieces and nephews’ birthdays, but after the sixth one I just stopped trying (Thank God for Google Calendar). So I made her a light chiffon cake with blueberry frosting.

Ilana & Romy’s Wedding Cake

When my friends Ilana and Romy asked me to make the cake for their wedding on the Italian island of Sicily, I hesitated. Traveling overseas to make a cake in an unknown kitchen is not easy. When Ilana told me her vision, a naked cake with classic Sicilian flavors like pistachio, lemons and figs – wait, pistachio? Of course I’m going to make this wedding cake. And so I traveled to Sicily last week and made a pistachio and lemon mascarpone cream wedding cake.

Coffee Gianduja Chocolate Mousse Cake

** The post was updated and revised in a new post with a more pronounced coffee flavor, an espresso brownies base and a better preparation method. You can find the update in this link ** It’s not every day you celebrate a birthday. It’s not every day you eat a birthday cake. A festive event calls for a festive cake. And what’s more festive than brownies with hazelnuts, topped with a layer of dark chocolate & coffee mousse, topped with a second layer of gianduja chocolate mousse. Three layers of pure joy.

Lemon Berry Tartlets

Sometimes I like to combine elements from previous posts to create something new. For this post, I used the crust I baked for the lemon-lime pistachio tartlets. I filled the crust with the lemon cream I prepared for the Crembo’s lemon core. I decorated the top with leftover raspberries and blueberries from the mousse cheesecake. And here’s what I came up with, a lemon berry tartlet.

Lemon Crembo

Last week, Lauren & her family came to visit Jerusalem. They used to be very close neighbors once upon a time. When we met I asked Dekel, one of the kids, if he’s enjoying his trip. He said he’s having a lot of fun here, but is bummed that Crembo isn’t sold here during summer. An idea came to my mind. I went straight back home to the kitchen and started making Crembo as a little surprise for his visit the next day. He was happy, and so was I.

Mousse Cheesecake with Berries

Last weekend, my sister-in-law, Iman, celebrated her birthday. When I asked her what cake would she like me to make for the occasion, she refused to say so as not to bother me. I asked her again and she refused kindly yet again. So I asked her what kinds of cake she liked and finally she answered me. That’s how it works in my family. We don’t hear “No”. We only hear the “Yes” hiding somewhere between “No thanks” and “Absolutely not”.

Flower Cookies

Not too long ago, my friend Nurit challenged me to bake a special kind of cookie. I find it difficult to refuse a challenge, and even more so to say no to Nurit. I went out to the garden, picked a flower, small and beautiful and red. This time, I didn’t give the flower to Nurit. I went back to the kitchen and baked a cookie with it.

Lemon-Lime Pistachio Tartlets

Lime season is almost here and I’m going to take full advantage of it. After all, it only lasts for about two weeks here (at best). You can actually extend this period significantly using a cool trick I learned from Sharon, a dear of mine. Buy a lot of limes, go bankrupt, squeeze them all, pour into ice molds and freeze. This way, you can enjoy lime even during winter, without the heat and sweat that usually accompany it.

Jean’s Zucchini Bread

Last June I traveled to the United States. Yup, for almost a whole month. I ran away from work, chores and baking and tried to enjoy a month without worries. I returned back home two days ago, but my head is still there. Still enjoying another piece of this cake, which now is going to be a regular guest in my house.

Lemon-Lime Cake

What I like about the last two weeks of August (except the fact that summer is coming to an end) is the lime that suddenly pops up everywhere. Hands down, lime is so much cooler than its big brother, the lemon. It’s not as sour as lemon and has a mature taste of tender bitterness. That’s why you can often find it in alcoholic drinks.

Coffee Mascarpone Macarons

It’s been a while since I last posted anything, and probably will not post anything else for a little while. It might be summertime that’s not pulling me into the kitchen to bake. Perhaps it’s the fact that I just moved into a new apartment, with a new kitchen, that probably threw me off my element. In order to get back to business I decided to tackle something familiar and close to my heart, macarons.

Chocolate Cake with Mascarpone and Coffee Chantilly

Mom’s Google’s chocolate cake! My love for baking started with fondant and decorating cakes. To be able to do that, I had to learn how to bake properly. I wanted the cake to taste as good inside as it looked outside. The first thing I did was run to my mom and ask about the secrets to her chocolate cake, which always comes out so heavenly and delicious.. a classic “mom’s chocolate cake”.

Three Chocolate Plaisir Sucré

The blog is still so young and I’m already writing another post about another brilliant creation by the French chef Pierre Hermé. This time it’s not about macarons. This time it’s about a cake that carries the name plaisir sucré, which means “sweet pleasure”. The chef couldn’t have chosen a more accurate name for this delicacy.

How to Temper Chocolate & Make Pralines

I always had a big love for chocolate, of any kind. Unfortunately, chocolate didn’t return the same love, and like almost every other failed love story, somehow you end up with a psychologist who tries to patch you up, but in my case, it was a dentist.

S’mores Tartelettes

I don’t think S’mores need any introduction, but in case you’ve been living under a rock, S’mores is an American snack that was invented to improve camping. It’s actually the only reason I would even consider camping.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

In the center of Jerusalem, down Ben Yehuda Street, there’s a small coffee shop called “Muffin Boutique“. Every time I walk in there I feel as if I have crossed continents and entered an Anglo-Saxon café, and not just because everyone is talking mostly in English over there.

Pistachio and Cherry Macaron Cake

It’s almost cherry season! What I love so much about cherries is that they go great with macarons. So I did a bit of research and finally came by an interesting recipe for a macaron cake in “Le Grand Manuel du Pâtissier”.

Ferrero Rocher Profiteroles

In the year 1982, two wonderful events happened to my mom. After ten years of constant efforts to bring a child to the world, and after five failed pregnancies, my mom had finally delivered a healthy baby boy (me!). In the same year, unknowingly to her, another sweet little thing was born, and that was the Ferrero Rocher. Shortly after she discovered it, it became one of her favorite candies. Since then it has been a regular guest of honor in our chocolate kitchen drawer.

Hazelnut Succès

I never really liked hazelnuts. Whenever my mother brought back home a bag of mixed nuts from my uncle’s roasting house “King Hussein” that’s a little south of Gan-Tamar (Tamar’s Garden) in Jaffa, I would always separate the hazelnuts from the rest of the nuts and set them aside, just like an American kid separating his least favorite M&M color from the rest.

How To Peel Hazelnuts & Make Nutella Spread

I come across a lot of recipes that require peeled hazelnuts. Unlike pistachios, it’s hard to find peeled hazelnuts in the store. At least here in Jerusalem where I live. So I asked Mr. Google and discovered two different methods to peel them yourself.

Goat Milk Malabi

Canker sores can really ruin my week. For those of you who don’t know what those are (I’m jealous) – they’re little white sores that show up inside your mouth. They are the modern version of medieval torture.

Pistachio Lemon Éclairs

I’m good friends with this one couple. He goes crazy for pistachios, she loves anything that involves lemon. To make both of them happy, sometimes I mix the two ingredients together. I think it’s an excellent match – just like the couple.

Yuzu Macaron

I recently had the good fortune of taking a trip to Paris, where I discovered Pierre Hermé’s macaron store. He’s a genius when it comes to macarons. Entering his store is like entering a jewelry shop. Instead of engagement rings studded with expensive diamonds, behind glass are colorful macarons, as tempting as they are expensive.

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