All posts tagged: dessert

semolina cake

Healthy Semolina Coconut Revani with Grapefruit Syrup – Tricks for Moist No-Sugar Cake

Yes, the title is correct. If you love the classic Revani soaked in a pool of syrup, it’s great! Otherwise, you’d be pleased to learn that you can replicate the decadent dessert without sugar yet as delicious as the original, which can be also healthy. You don’t believe me? Then, read on. I say healthy because semolina is indeed more nutritious and tastier than normal flour. But the problem of baking with semolina is the gritty and dry texture it creates. So syrup is crucial in making it moist but the dense and heavy taste isn’t for my palate. After several trials and errors, this is the best version that everyone loved. You might consider adding this to your Easter table if you want something traditional but with a modern twist. It’s light and moist without compromising the taste, though Revani would turn in his grave seeing his favourite quintessential Middle Eastern dessert being adulterated. Who is Revani? It’s said to be named after the 16th century Ottoman poet, Revani, who was the governor of …

nutella bread

Boozy Naughty Nutella Flower Brioche

Belated Happy New Year to all my readers! Another year has rolled in silently, and my first post in the new year is a sunflower Nutella brioche. My mind has been racing with many thoughts and some new plans to simplify my life are brewing slowly, which explains the silence. 2017 was a very volatile year in terms of relationship and work, which involved two-city life. It has finally come to an end and we will start 2018 with more stability. Fingers crossed xx What it would mean, though, that I won’t be able to eat with you in Istanbul as much as I’d like to. It’s already happened, I know, since I took a semi-permanent séjour at the winery. Having said that, my winery posts are among the most popular posts on my blog! Anyway, I’ll continue to inspire with delicious stories, travels, more adventures as a cellar rat and a WSET Dip student, and the stories of living in Canakkale. Nutella… Mr.O has a weakness for it.  Hey, who isn’t? But not for …

Orange Poppy Seed Muffins That Stole MIL’s Heart

April, spring has officially arrived. Istanbul will be again adorned with colourful tulip. Also, Adana, the south-east city, will host Orange Blossom Carnival. I wish I could go but I’ll give it a pass and wait for next year. I have this tub of dried orange blossoms, a gift from an Iranian guest. I smell it whenever I need a pick me up or relaxation or as part of olfactory stimulation along with my other aroma kit. Mediterranean cities in Turkey are famous for citrus fruits and people make jam with their peel. This is the most common ‘bitter orange’ jam called ‘turunc‘, whose appearance I adore. Then there’s another citrus called ‘agac kavunu‘, which means ‘tree melon’. No, it’s not bergamot, but an entirely different ancient variety specific to Antalya. When I went to the weekly market, I bought some oranges and blood oranges but too many of them! So I whipped up orange muffins with a slight twist, to make it worth to post about. These muffins were so delicious and the fact …

bilberry tart

Bilberry Almond Cream Tart (yaban mersini tart)

As the weather is getting cold quite quickly by day, people are resorting indoors these days. So I came up with an idea to bring some liveliness and it was a Korean Pop-up event, which has attracted quite a big crowd. I’ll be busy shopping and preparing for the event from tomorrow and this is my post till I’m free again after the event. Today I wanted to share my trip to Canakkale in the beginning of October. I went there by myself on impulse to give my in-laws a nice surprise. I turned up unannounced and rang the bell. Though my appearance didn’t go as I’d imagined on my way there, – the mixed expressions on their face of being surprised, puzzled and delighted, – when mum rushed home from the pilates class, face flushed and the plastic shoe covers still on, I could sense she was surprised and excited. And she hugged me, saying “What a lovely surprise!” I stayed for 5 days eating, cooking, drinking with them every day and came back with homemade winter preserves, jam and dried pasta and …

Bread Butter Pudding with Plums and Yogurt

Now that Ramadan is over, it’s easier to get my regular sourdough bread, yippee! One day when Mr.O failed his morning mission of getting bread and came home with normal bread, I couldn’t eat more than one slice and left the rest on the kitchen top to go stale on purpose. It sometimes amazes how cooks’ mind scans the foods in the fridge and pantry mentally and synchronize their actions according to what they are going to make without hard thinking. Upon seeing a leftover loaf and pide bread sitting around, Mr.O bugged me to throw them away and he did the pide bread secretly. I even save the whey liquid after yogurt has been eaten, and he doesn’t understand why I keep all that little things. Everything comes in handy for cooks, and that’s why! Two bags of damson plums picked from Mr.O’s parents’ garden were clogging up the fridge because Mr.O doesn’t like plums. He prefers peaches, which have started to come out, giving these plums no chance to be eaten as we …

Pumpkin Orange Aphrodisiac Muffins

Ok, it’s still drizzling outside and so cold! I wish I had posted this earlier. I’ve noticed many people sniffling around as the temperature fluctuates at unexpected degrees during the day and the night, let alone the surprisingly cold weather last week. So I did some baking to warm up the house as well as the body. But maybe it was too late that I did it! So what did I bake? Pumpkin! I don’t see why I can’t indulge in pumpkin outside its season , especially if you’ve got fresh cut pumpkins stored in the freezer from the last winter. I was also given a whole fresh Japanese pumpkin recently so I had to get rid of the old ones. I freeze many things for survival; I even started to freeze cheese, I mean French cheese, which I used to consider as a crime, killing the goodness in it. But hey, we adapt or we die, and  it’s been feeding my craving for French cheese every now and then. There was a small dinner …