Rose Carrarini's Rhubarb and Orange

Obviously I should give up the idea of a whole Menu in Pink and go instead for  easier things like photographing pink walls and pink glasses or simply a pink dessert..

Rose Carrarini's Rhubarb and Orange is prepared in a moment,  looks beautiful and has been so delicious that tomorrow I'll go and buy more of those lovely sticks. Why not give it a try with lemon as well?

Rose Carrarini's  Rhubarb and Orange
5 sticks rhubarb, trimmed and cut into 7cm pieces
grated zest of 1 orange
about 150g sugar

Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F

Place the rhubarb in a baking dish and mix in the orange zest and sugar according to taste. You will need to add a fair amount of sugar as this will lift the flavour of the fruit and provide a little syrup.

Cover with foil and bake in the oven between 15 and 25 minutes, depending on the quality of the rhubarb. As soon as  a knife slips easily into the fruit it is ready.

Chill.

The longer the rhubarb reposes in the syrup, the nicer the colour.  Enjoy!

Rose Carrarini's Pistachio Cakes

One of my most loved cookbooks at the moment is Breakfast, Lunch, Tea from Rose Bakery in Paris.
Rose Bakery offers a modern, simple and healthy cuisine, using first quality, organic ingredients from regional suppliers. Just what I'm  trying to do here in my everyday kitchen for my family and friends.

One of Rose's recipes I tried out lately is the pistachio cake. I was looking for a nut cake, because I had some leftover roasted ground almonds waiting to be used. Hm, only 60g... well , in the drawer I still stored some hazelnuts,  pistachios and pine nuts from my last Almwiesenmuesli. I ground them all in the little Zyliss drum grater (highly recommendable: my best kitchen tool!) and tadaaa:  the required 200g!

The original cake and the original recipe look like this:

 And here is my variation:

250g butter
200g sugar ( I took 25g less than in the original)
grated zest of one lemon
2 tablespoons rosewater (yes, it gives a very subtle and delicious flavour!)
4 eggs
200g ground almonds, pistachios, pine nuts and hazelnuts
50g flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 180° C.

Butter  a 25cm cake tin or the cake tins you decide to use.

Beat the butter and sugar until light and creamy. Mix in the lemon zest and the rosewater. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Now fold in the ground almonds, ground pistachios, flour, baking powder and salt.
Pout the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for about 40 minutes. 30 minutes if you take smaller baking tins.

I made no topping, because I liked the little Gugelhupfs just like that. Otherwise heat in a saucepan:

50g pistachios , whole or chopped
50g caster sugar
grated zest and juice of on lemon
and pour  the mixture over the cake.

a sweet surprise: homemade meringue with yoghurt and morello cherries

Mother's Day and no capuccino in bed?  served by my loving children?

The yoghurt breakfast they later surprised me with was actually a much better treat than the expected capuccino! In one of my cookbooks they had looked up how to prepare meringue. (We were talking about meringue on the occasion of our last-Friday-late-night-Creme Brulée, more exactly about what you can do with remaining egg whites...).

Once cooled down they mixed it with plain yoghurt and with the morello cherries, they had found in the freezer. Ah, and even they thought about TAKING PHOTOS before offering it to me!!  Simply adorable....

I warmly recommend to try the recipe (from Rose Bakery):

Meringue

4 egg whites
200g superfine sugar
1 ts natural  vanilla
1 ts vinegar
1 ts cream of tartar

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F.
Beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks, then slowly add the sugar. Beat constantly until the meringe is thick and glossy. Add the vanilla, vinegar and cream of tartar and fold in well.

Bake for about 20-25 minutes until the meringue starts to turn slightly brown and crisp.

Once cooled down, my children spooned it in small pieces over  the creamy plain yoghurt and topped it with defrosted morello cherries.
Enjoy!