Easter Brioche Buns

Easter Brioche or Tsoureki Oriental in Greece is a traditional sweet bread, which is prepared throughout the year and especially during the Easter holidays. It needs yeast and good kneading to inflate and create beautiful fibers inside that will keep it fresh and fluffy for days. Also aromatic spices and citrus zest, such as lemon and orange, flavor it wonderfully. It is often decorated with red eggs and has different shapes and sizes.
This year we made small brioche buns to accompany our coffee for days.
Try them!
※※※※※We wish you Happy Easter 2021!※※※※※

work: 1h:00′

time: 4h:00′

medium:

Honey Banana Upside-Down Cake

We know the traditional version of the upside-down cake in which he wants to star in the pineapple, which is always particularly impressive even when cooked & cut. Bananas, on the contrary, do not have such a "shine", but cutting them down and placing them in a row on the base of a refractory pot in honey can become just as attractive and beautiful. My opinion? Another taste, with the presence of honey!
Finally, after the inversion, where things get upside down, the thick honey syrup bathes the entire cake. Let the cake cool completely so the honey caramel can set up enough. Don't be impatient like we were. Yours! Yours!

work: 20′

time: 1h:10′

easy:

Traditional Greek Easter Bread-Tsoureki

If we close our eyes and think of Greek Easter, Orthodox Easter, the image to be formed in our mind is a delicious well done, braided super-soft, fluffy and moist brioche with a red egg. This is the view of our Greek Easter!
Sometimes easy with simple procedures and sometimes complicated and demanding the Tsoureki remains the favorite flavored sweet bread large and small. It has primacy in our Easter & Easter table with red eggs and bagels. Customs that blend and reconcile families and friends.
Yours!
Have a pleasant and enjoyable Easter of 2018!

work: 1h:00′

time: 4h:00′

medium:

Vasilopita Brioche 2018

It is always an excellent idea to welcome the New Year with delicious homemade savory and sweet dishes. As for the more traditional sweet, Vassilopita, it can be made in various shapes and ingredients for all tastes. Everything is just as delicious and they belong to the Christmas period of Greece. Prepare your Vassilopita sweet or savory - because there is this version in many of our areas - and bake it to beautify the house "feast!". Regardless of the taste you prefer best, do not forget to hide a coin inside!
Vassilopita without coin is not done.
This beloved version of Vassilopita Tsoureki is an easy and light-to-mouth version of traditional brioche. Our own was made with the new olive oil from our own olives, which just arrived at our house from the olive press. He was kneaded in Vassilopita and the satisfaction was great.

Happy New Year 2018!
Health, Love, Happiness to Everyone

work: 45′

time: 4h:45′

difficult:

Melomakarona - Greek Christmas Honey Cookies

Melomakarona the Greek!
Melomakarona is a famous Greek delicacy to enjoy the Christmas season. They are made with flour, semolina, beer, olive oil and fresh butter from sheep and goat of unique flavor, stuffed with nut and dipped in syrup of honey, sugar and mandarin with extra grated nut with spices to sprinkle them on top.
Oriental spices, honey and citrus aromas to smell our homes during Christmas, this beautiful and hopeful celebration of Christianity!

Happy Christmas!
Happy Holidays!

work: 1h:00′

time: 2h:00′

easy:

Strawberry Spoon Sweet with Sangria

Strawberries are a very delicious fruit and, of course, as it has often been said here, it is not needed to cook for a long time, it do not benefit in any way and ends up having a rather useless dish. The long-term preparations make it lose some good nutrition and have a lot of time sprinkled with a lot of sugar, it's dehydrated because sugar acts as a catalyst for its dehydration and ends the strawberry dry without juice and taste.
Today we recommend short procedures with a reduced amount of sugar for a 10-minute Spoon Strawberry Sweet. Limit time for this sweet, which is flavored with cloves, honey and sweet Sangria wine.
Yours!

work: 5′

time: 10′

very easy:

Loukoumades: Fried Greek Honey Puffs

A traditional sweet, tasty, easy & simple, very popular in Greece but also elsewhere. A bloated and fried dough shaped into small balls, drizzled with honey or syrup and sprinkled with fragrant cinnamon.
These are the fluffy dumplings of the grandmother, a delicious confection solution that children and adults like…
Now that the day is cold and rainy, you can make them. They do not require many ingredients or complex preparations, they are made in half a shake and as quickly disappear!
Yours!

work: 30′

time: 1h:00′

easy:

Melomakarona-Honey Cookies with Mavrodaphne

Melomakarona, the cousin of Kourambiethes, traditional Christmas sweets have their technique to get soaped in a delicious honey syrup properly, to be tasty and soft inside. The dough should be soft and fluffy to not become hard during baking and syrup to be viscous with a lot of honey and flavored with exquisite essential oils of orange but also the individual flavors of cinnamon and cloves.
The Mavrodaphne, this wonderful Greek product, gives tasty heady tones in melomakarona and as a final complement of all this comes the crushed walnuts to meet all of the above.
Yours!

work: 30′

time: 1h:15′

easy:

Gingerbread Men

Gingerbread Cookies usually in the form of a stylized human figure, although other shapes or forms, especially seasonal themes (Christmas, Halloween, Easter, etc.) are common.
The history of these cookies, one of the most famous cookies in the world, starting in the 15th century and the various forms and shapes in the 16th century. Since arriving the expensive and rare spices from the East to Europe and was for use on rich households, nobles and crowned.
The first documented case of human figure shaped gingerbread cookie was in the court of Elizabeth I of England. They had the form and showed similarity with some of the most important visitors.
This typical Christmas cookies, which are made in Northern and Central Europe and across the Atlantic, with ginger, cinnamon, cloves and honey or molasses and decorated with white, chocolate or colored glaze.
Yours!

work: 40′

time: 1h:10′

easy:

Chilled Chocolate Parfait Torte

This frosted torte parfait chocolate is a perfect choice for those who love the taste and intensity of dark chocolate. With great taste, with chocolate drops inside and bathed in rich sauce dark couverture. Frozen so as to be cut by the blade of the knife. Serve with extra sauce on filling pieces.
Yours!

work: 45′

time: 9h:00′

medium:

Stuffed Apricot with Ricotta Cheese

Greek Summer for most natives or travelers means sea, vacation, walking, cool drink in hand and fresh fruit, lots of raw fruit, and in other forms, such as juices, ice cream, smoothies, granites, etc.
We now enjoy fresh apricots stuffed with ricotta cheese, bathed in honey, and sprinkled with crushed walnuts. So simple, with a few ingredients but so a special dessert. Without ovens and baking with straightforward procedures on our table a delicious, healthy, and impressive sweet.
Yours!

work: 15′

time: 15′

very easy:

Yoghurt Panna Cotta & Cherry Jelly

Heat and mini heat wave in many parts of Greece in mid-June. Although unexpected and premature let us welcome it relaxed and refreshing. Follow the instructions given by the means of information for air-conditioned spaces or a dip in the sea at the nearby beach, with refreshing drinks in hand, it is a very good choice!
I would suggest a super icy, very light, and tasty dessert if you stay home. The only condition is to prepare the previous day to enjoy iced the next day.
Fresh cherries are sweet, delicious & nutritious, one of the most valuable summer fruits, beautiful, full of antioxidants, and healthy. Immersed in a light gel and combined with flavored panna cotta yogurt! This exquisite dessert requires very little and gives us the most pleasure.
Yours!

work: 1h:00′

time: 5h:00′

easy:

Cretan Sweet Cheese Mini Pies/ Kalitsounia-DIY

Doing these Cretan Sweet Cheese Mini Pies today I recalled in my memory stories of my childhood. I remembered our grandmother doing these in her Kitchen. Cheese Pies are made with a thin sheet of dough filled with cheese (traditionally filled with myzithra or anthotyro), and then fried. They become light and fluffy like a soft pillow!
Classic, traditional and popular sweet mizithropitakia, popular delicacy for rural but also urban Crete, which the housewives made and make in many aspects of social life, and especially in the Easter celebrations with the Cretan Cheese Pies savory and sweet.
A simple dough rolled out in a phyllo machine -for an easier process- fresh local mizithra cheese and served with thyme honey or powdered sugar and cinnamon.
Yours!

work: 1h:30′

time: 2h:00′

medium:

Mulled Wine

Aromatic mulled wine with European origin.
Hot Wine, Mulled Wine or Glühwein, as it is called in German-speaking countries. It is a traditional drink which warms people for centuries and is offered during Christmas or Carnival. The Mulled Wine is a very popular traditional drink in the UK for Christmas, and less often during the winter.
Typically made with red wine, cider, and many spices. It is a delicious drink for cold winter evenings and very suitable for friends and family gatherings on festive winter days.
Cheers!

work: 10′

time: 30′

very easy:

Baklava

Traditional Baklava, with 40 thin phyllo pastry sheets, with the fragrant and tasty stuffing of roasted walnuts and almonds. Butter gives an excellent aroma and the phyllo pastry sheets creaks the crust in every bite. The syrup is completely absorbed by the baked Baklava and fine semolina swells and gives it volume.
For that baklava, I can write more, particularly praise…
Yours!

Merry Christmas!

work: 1h:00′

time: 8h:30′

difficult:

Melomakarona Honey Cookies with Dark Chocolate

Two delicious sweets are the stars of the Christmas holidays, the Kourabiethes and Melomakarona. For some it is melomakarona the most beloved Christmas Cookie for others Kourabiethes.
Melomakarona are sweet Cookies with bright aromas of cinnamon, ground cloves, essential oils of orange, and syrupy with genuine Greek honey sprinkled with crushed walnut does unequaled.
The current proposal has two more extra ingredients that differentiate them making them tastier and very very special. They are kneaded with walnuts and dark chocolate.
They have a versatile procedure, not at all difficult but quite time-consuming.
Yours!

work: 1h:00′

time: 2h:00′

medium:

M'Hanncha - Almond Filo Pastry

M'Hanncha is a traditional Moroccan dessert very popular and internationally known, made with crusty phyllo pastry sheets and marzipan filling. Wrapped in spiral and soaked with hot honey syrup flavored with orange zest, and rosewater.
Wonderful flavors and aromas of buttered, crunching phyllo sheets, essential oils of citrus, cinnamon and gentle sweetness of honey.
It is the Moroccan version of Greek Baklava.
M'Hanncha in Arabic means «snake» because of its shape.
Yours!

work: 30′

time: 1h:00′

medium:

Fresh Fig & Feta Cheese Pizza

Sweet but simultaneously savory pizza with our favorite fresh figs in an excellent combination with feta cheese and honey.
We tried it for first time in the place of origin of the pizza and the taste has won us from the first bite. Influenced then by this remembrance we used our greek tastes and we propose it to you. Despite intense feta cheese, the presence of taste of figs is paramount.
Sweet pizza with salty tones. In the «Kitchen Stories» our summers relish and with this pizza since the fresh figs, black and white, are many and delicious.
Yours!

work: 25′

time: 45′

very easy:

Sweet Semolina Halva with Honey

An aromatic semolina halva so apropos due to fasting and specific, due to the addition of honey.
The honey gives the halva a more soft sweetness compared with sugar, and so it becomes -let's say- somewhat more healthy. The orange gives it extra wonderful aroma. All the rest do the spices. Lots of cinnamon, asteroid anise and cloves. Do not forget the crushed hazelnuts on top that blends perfectly with halva. Try this lenten dessert and I'm sure you will enjoy it!
Yours!

work: 30′

time: 1h:00′

easy:

Cream Cheese & Apricot Pancakes

Delicious Pancakes with cream cheese, reinforced with fresh, fragrant apricots and desiccated coconut.
They are easy and simple to make, served with honey, so we enjoy a very tasty, filling, and why not, festive & family breakfast. A special comfort food/dessert for our day's most beautiful, relaxing moments.
Yours!

work: 15′

time: 40′

easy: