Coffee Date No. 14: Why there are so many Latin American Recipes on my Blog

Today I am inviting you to a special coffee. I am going to explain why there are so many Latin American recipes on my blog. So grab a coffee or a tea and let me get started. You will see a traditional Colombian breakfast in the featured picture. These are tamales, which is food steamed in banana leaves accompanied by hot chocolate. Yes, this is something you will eat for breakfast in Colombia, I am not kidding. So just as this may be a very unusal coffee, I am also inviting you to grab something out of the ordinary for your “coffee”. The short answer to the original question is because I was born in Uruguay and because my husband is Colombian. Obviously both of us are interested in eating food we ate as a child. So there definitely is a nostalgic factor, for sure. But apart from the very simple and egoistic “I want to eat food I am familiar with”, I started this blog because I wanted to

A nostalgic recipe: Peach cake from my birth city Paysandú, Uruguay

04/07/2023

Donuts from Argentina, bolas de fraile

Today is national Donut Day or Doughnut Day and I am going to celebrate it with donuts from Argentina or Uruguay. They are called bolas de fraile or berlinesas. In Germany donuts are called Berliner, Berliner Pfannkuchen, Kreppl, or Krapfen as this probably already explains where “berlinesas” are from. Apparently, German immigrants took this delicious donut to Argentina. However, one main difference is the filling. Whereas German Berliner are filled with strawberry jam or jelly traditionally, Argentinians will rely on their beloved dulce de leche, which is a caramel made from sweetened milk. A small difference is also how these are dusted with sugar, in Germany you will traditionall dust only the top part with icing sugar whereas in Argentinia regular sugar is used to roll the entire ball in it. Be it as it may, I hope you will enjoy these sweet little yeast treats, which are fried, filled with dulce de leche and rolled in sugar. Regardless of whether Germans brought them or not (another name is bolas de fraile, which literally translates as “balls from Monchs”), these little donuts will for sure sweeten your day.

02/06/2023

Strawberry Tiramisu with no Raw Egg or Alcohol

Strawberry tiramisu with no raw egg or alcohol, who would be interested in a piece? It probably comes as no surprise that I am a huge fan of tiramisu as it contains my beloved sponge cake. I love tiramisu with a fruity flavor. For that reason you can already find a strawberry tiramisu cake on my blog as well as the Brazilian version with peaches. Today I wanted to introduce the “classic” version. But I am using the word classic lightly as we will make the ladyfingers ourselves and will simply make one full layer instead of single ladyfingers and we use the fruit strawberry. Try to imagine a tiramisu sweetened with elderflower cordial, a slightly lighter cream with mascarpone and farmer’s cheese with no raw egg and strawberries sandwiched in between, once as puree and once fresh. I did enjoy this dessert a lot!

05/05/2023

Brazo de Reina from Chile

Today I am taking part in the German blogger event called kulinarische Weltreise (culinary travels troughout the world). Today’s stop: Chile. I knew immediately what I wanted to make. Brazo de reina! This literally translates as a “queen’s arm”. More commonly known as a Swiss roll or sponge roll. What distinguishes the Chilean roll from others is the filling. Manjar, or often known as dulce de leche, is a caramel made from sweetened milk. I do understand why you would think of a queen when you prepare this, this caramel definitely has some royal characteristics. So be pepared for a light and fluffy roll filled with sweet and delicious caramel spread.

24/03/2023

Festive Yule Log or Tree Trunk Cake

The good thing when you get married to somebody from another country is that you can start your own traditions. I got married to a Colombian 12 years ago, but we have been living in Germany since the start. Christmas is traditionally something we have discussed extensively. I have explained the difference between Colombian and German Christmas in this blog post. Man, we have discussed so many things, should it be the traditional bird as is common in Germany or should we go for the many snacks Colombians like to serve for Christmas? Should we make tamales, which is corn, veggies and meat steamed in banana leaves and which require a lot of work? Should we focus on the gifts instead or spend hours on the food? One thing we have learned over the years is that what works best for us is to create new traditions. Traditions that are neither German nor Colombian, but just us. New traditions we like and enjoy.

17/12/2022

Coffee Date No. 8

Shame on me, I haven’t drunk a virtual coffee with you in such a long time. It is already the last quarter of 2020 and here I am, no coffee date as of yet. Shame on me. The only excuse I have is that due to the Corona virus my full-time job changed quite a bit with an extremely busy workload. But regardless, I should have taken the time to tell you a bit, shouldn’t I?

07/10/2020

Third Blog Birthday and Strawberry Elderflower Cake

Where is the champagne? Where are the streamers and glitter? You are invited to a nice helping of this strawberry and elderflower cake! Why, you ask? I am celebrating my third year of blogging. The first recipe that went online on my blog was this lemon tart, which I still love to make. I honestly never thought I would be blogging for three years. I have always been a person who just learns things by doing them. Instead of figuring everything out beforehand, I just give it a go and see what happens. The reason I started this blog was because I got tired of having to pass on recipes I was asked to provide to my friends and family. I also wanted to have some kind of organization so I thought a blog may come in handy. I would have never believed that I would enjoy taking pictures as much as baking. Mind you, I once was a professional pianist, I always thought my visual ability was not as good. However, I am still enjoying my blog immensely, be it baking, food photography or anything else, and for that reason I hope there are many more blog years to come. How about a slice of this delicious strawberry elderberry cake for this special occasion?

15/02/2020

Mushroom Meringue

I have to admit, I love fall, especially if you check the ground of a dark forest, you will find mushrooms, just like the ones I am presenting today. No, I am kidding, you won’t find these mushrooms in the forest, they are actually made from meringue. However, I do find that they do look very much like their original, don’t you think? I am sure these mushrooms are going to be a show-stopper. And the best thing is, they are basically made from two ingredients. You beat egg whites with sugar, which you then pipe into mushroom caps and stems, you glue it all together with chocolate, and then dust them off with cocoa powder, voilá! Continue Reading…

09/11/2018

Let’s Have a Coffee

I have decided to introduce a new category here. Don’t worry, of course I will continue posting recipes, a mix of very simple and easy ones, such as these quick and chocolaty cupcakes, but also more complicated cakes, like this cream cheese cake with apples and salted caramel, which we even had for Christmas.

Käsekuchen mit Apfelkompott und Karamell

Reason for starting this new category is pretty simple, I have realized that I enjoy reading about more personal matters from other bloggers. I have also found out that people seem to enjoy learning more about me, at least whenever I get more personal, the response rate is high. You will find 35 fun facts about me in this blog post. I often get feedback that these facts are interesting and that I should talk more about myself. For that reason I am inviting you to a virtual coffee with me. I don’t know yet how often I am going to do this, I also don’t yet what exactly it will contain. But regardless, I would also like to talk about other things. For sure baking and recipes will also play a role in this category, but not necessarily the dominant role.

I decided to open the category with one of the questions I get most often and which I have had to answer many times over:

Who eats all the things you bake?

09/10/2018

Strawberry Mojito Cocktail

I wanted a strawberry mojito cocktail. I asked for this cocktail when I picked strawberries with my husband. I really love picking strawberries, there is nothing nicer than to pick them from the field straight into your mouth. I am married to a Colombian, so strawberry picking was something he had never done. I requested we go and even though we live in a big city in Germany, the next strawberry field was surprisingly close. Nothing comes close to plicking fruits and enjoying them right there and then.

Well, and then we had tons of strawberries. I have already some strawberry recipes on this blog. For example this strawberry rhubarb waffle cake, strawberry sponge roll, or this no bake strawberry cake, this strawberry chocolate cake, or these fluffy strawberry pancakes for breakfast. But I wanted something else. I wanted to celebrate. Celebrate that I am fully recovered after my horrible bike accident. For that reason we had a giant cookie monster cake a few days ago. But I wanted to celebrate with a drink. I love mojitos and I love strawberry mojitos. So I asked my husband to make me a strawberry mojito. One with fresh strawberries.

02/06/2018

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