I'm quite experienced when it comes to working with similar ingredients in different countries. Even standard ingredients like flour, sugar, butter and milk can vary in quality, taste and many other properties from one place to another. So you always have to adapt to what you have available. During Christmas this year, I made my favorite walnut cake for dinner and since it calls for dulce de leche in the filling, I just bought any brand I saw at the supermarket when going from groceries ...
Recipes
Raspberry Passion Fruit Mousse Tart
A couple days ago, I went to a lovely french-speaking meetup here in Toronto in a great pastry shop to talk about life and eat a few Galette des Rois slices. In a certain part of the conversation, one of the ladies mentioned that she was going to make a roadtrip from Nova Scotia to British Columbia in the weeks to come. I don't expect you to know geography pretty well, but that basically means that she would cross Canada from west to east. If you happened to look at the maps recently, this is ...
Cornmeal Choux Pastry (aka Broa de Fuba)
Every time I go back to Brazil to visit my family, there are a few foods I must eat at least once before leaving. That is actually a problem if I'm having a short stay, because I really mean when I have to eat it all. Specially when I was living in Russia, where the supply of some ingredients were nonexistent, my stays in Brazil meant basically eating-drinking-eating, with some short periods of sleeping in the middle. I always tell my friends that Brazilian food is completely underestimated. ...
Lemon Mousse Tart
Happy New Year everyone! How was your holiday season? I wasn't particularly excited with holidays this year, but I have to admit I was really excited with the whole baking and cooking involved in it. For Christmas I made my favorite walnut cake in the whole world, a roasted duck and the tastiest Beef Wellington I've ever had (which was gone in about 15 minutes, so you could tell...). New Years Eve featured a gorgeous croquembouche, and one of my favorite band's comeback in Berlin (please ...
Red Velvet Cupcakes with Meringue Frosting
Today is officially the first day of winter. Well, much to my luck there's been almost no winter here in Toronto. Apart from a day or two where you could see a couple flurries flying by, the weather is pretty mild. I don't know if I'm happy about that or not, given that over these couple days where the temperature was hitting minus something, I was honestly wishing I was living back in Russia. -4°C here feels way worse than -15°C there, way worse. Well, it looks like I'll need to get used to ...
Kouign Amann
There are many things I miss from France. Places, lifestyle, friends, smells... but most of all I miss the food. Even though I can make at home most of the recipes, it usually takes me a few sessions of trial and error before achieving something close to the original. Last week I had a successful trial with the Merveilleux. Now I'm back to my beloved Kouign Amann. In case you're wondering what the hell it is (to be honest, I did it when I heard about it the first time), kouign amann is a ...
White Chocolate Speculoos Merveilleux
Now that I'm back in Toronto after my oh-so-exciting trip to Panama last week, I'm starting to get back to the kitchen again. This time, I'm trying to make some of the things I miss from Paris the most. Apparently it will take a while until I realize that croissants for breakfast everyday are not a reality anymore... which is good, because it gets me cooking and baking more :) The first place where I was living in Paris was in a lovely street at the 16th Arrondissement, more specifically, in ...
Tonka-Coconut Millefeuille with Creamy Pineapple
I thought I would be ready to the Canadian winter, but apparently it looks like I'm not. While living in Russia, I experienced temperatures going all the way down to the -35°C and, well, it wasn't pleasant but it was fine. But there are two different things between Toronto and Moscow. Moscow has drier weather (despite of having a fairly big river crossing most of the city) and it is not windy at all. So I could easily go on with my life when it was -15, -17°C. No big deal. However, last ...
Spiced Pear Cake with Maple Buttercream and Salted Caramel Sauce
It's impressive how time flies by. It didn't feel like a long time ago since I've packed my things and moved from Moscow to Paris, then to Brazil/Panama/Colombia, then to Canada and again to Paris. What felt like would take forever is finally over, and now I'm finally settling between the CN Tower and some chilly winds coming from Lake Ontario. As hard as it was to leave Paris and all the amazing people I met there, it's good to feel like you have a place to stay, and it's even better to ...
Pastries, heat and the joy of living in Paris
Living in Paris is pure joy. It means seeing worldwide known monuments each time I leave to school or go out at night, eating the best food possible, or even losing weight due to long and intentional walks to savour every single bit of this amazing city. But recently, it also meant being melted by the heat wave that approached central Europe last week. From one side, it was impossible to sleep, especially considering that my bed is very close to the roof -- which makes it much hotter or ...