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.
