I love grained photos in winter!

Today, I have a very interesting and very impromptu recipe to share. So, I knew I had to bake something, so I looked at the fruit bowl and saw that we have some tangerines, apples, pears, a quince and some oranges. I decided to make apple and pear cake by using my beloved Carrot Cake recipe as the base. And since I came by this deliciousness today, I decided to lay some pears on the bottom of the cake mold.

Then, I decided to double my carrot cake recipe, since I know that it doesn’t yield much. But, doubling came with pain..

If you follow this blog, then you probably know about my “famous” carrot cake, my all-time favorite cake! But, the fact is that this cake is not so healthy to eat every time. So, I tried to came up with a healthier one, using honey instead of processed sugar. But the result was not as I wanted to get. The unique taste of my “famous” carrot cake was gone.

Finally, I found my lost brownie recipe! I actually found it by chance in my wallet and I don’t know how it got in there.

Anyway, this recipe is originally from my recent favorite book, and after some modifications, I came up with my own.

WARNING: Don’t be fooled by the photo. These brownies my not look appealing to you, but they are extremely chewy! To make them even more chewy, I used some whole-wheat cereals instead of walnuts. So, if you don’t want to be on the high-chewiness side, just use some walnuts, hazelnuts, or simply nothing.

Woaaa! Long time, no see my dear blog. I don’t know what happened to me, I just want to sleep all the time. I actually made this recipe about a week ago, but I was so lazy to post it. But that’s enough. From now on, I’m focusing on my blog. So, I’ve promised to make some savory recipes, and this is one of them.

For the New Year, I bought myself a lot of cookbooks, and one of them is called “Cooking Light Way to Cook”, and it’s really an interesting one. It’s just the book I’ve ever wanted. All kinds of recipes (from salads to desserts) in a healthier way! And I found the pizza dough recipe from that book.

OK, I know I’ve made a lot of muffins recently, but I love to make them. I am experiencing the results of adding honey to my muffins. Well, as far as I noticed, honey makes the muffins look smoother and the edges brown as if you brushed it with egg yolks. Even though my mom claims that the vitamins in honey are vanished when heated, I think it’s still better than processed sugar, which makes these muffins healthier than my carrot cakes. You obviously cannot get the same taste, but you save calories (6 tablespoons of sugar is about 400 calories, while 3/4 cup sugar required for the carrot cake recipe is 600 calories) And this lighter version tastes “acceptable”. In fact, my aunt thinks these taste better than my regular carrot cakes.

This is another impromptu cake I just made up and it didn’t disappoint me. I came by some ripe bananas in the kitchen the other day, and decided to use them in what I do best: muffins! I also added the chocolate chips I’ve recently bought from the coffee shop (I usually use chopped chocolate instead of chocolate-chips, but the girl in the coffee shop insisted me to buy them and I gave it a try). I didn’t want to add sugar to the cake, so I used honey. I don’t usually use honey in my cakes, but this time it really worked and the muffins were neither too sweet nor vapid. This has become one my favorite muffin recipes.

It was another boring night with nothing to do, and apples on the kitchen table. So, it was a “must” to take a risk and make something totally improvisational. I mixed everything that comes into my mind to make a cake, and this is the result. Try!

I spent my whole Friday trying to make some flavored white-chocolate ganache. I made chocolate macarons using David Lebovitz’s recipe, and used fig and orange flavored white ganache to assemble the macarons (I simply added 1 orange’s zest orange flavored one, and 2 mashed fresh figs for the fig flavored one).

It was only three years ago when I first started cooking. I started with simple vegetable dishes, and moved to desserts as I gained some confidence. And the very first cake I made was from a carrot cake recipe I found in AllRecipes. However, my first carrot cake was very sweet, greasy and topped with an ugly cream cheese frosting  that I couldn’t make properly.