Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Bites

TÜRKÇE İÇİN TIKLAYIN
PER ITALIANO

Today we will be making some sweet, healthy chocolate bites without compromising yumminess.

They are so incredibly easy to prepare you won't believe how good they are. You can have one or two when you crave for something sweet, you can give them to children as an healthier sweet-snack alternative, or you can serve them in your house parties.

We need only 3 things for this recipe. Banana, peanut butter and dark chocolate. Yes, that's all really!

Let me share with you a few tips:

It is very very important to have enough ripe bananas to have the right sweetness and flavor. The bananas with some dark spots are usually ideal for this. They shouldn't be neither green nor overripe.

I am using my own homemade sugar-free oil-free peanut butter, made with 100% of peanuts. I shared the recipe with you guys some time ago. I highly recommend it.

It is possible to prepare peanut butter with raw or toasted peanuts. As raw peanuts are preferable health-wise, using toasted peanuts instead will enhance the flavor of your butter.  So, it is up to you. The peanuts in the photos of my peanut butter recipe are toasted. In my recent peanut butter instead I used very lightly, almost barely toasted peanuts. This is to explain where the difference of color between two butters comes from.

I used dark chocolate with %72 cacao.

With the given ingredients and having my bananas sliced about 0.7 cm thick, I've got 22 Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Bites.


Ingredients:
2 enough ripe bananas (I weighed mine to be precise. They came 350 g unpeeled, 225 g peeled in total)
Peanut Butter
150 g dark chocolate (70% cacao)


Preparation:

Halloween Cemetery Cake

TÜRKÇE İÇİN TIKLAYIN
PER ITALIANO

Halloween is very near.

If you are planning to make a cake but haven't decided which one yet this post could give you some idea..

I prepared Cemetery Cake like 3 years ago but for some reason I couldn't manage to share it until now! 
It is, in fact, a combination of various recipes that I had already posted in the blog.

For more Halloween ideas you can visit the blog posts under this label.

Ingredients:

- Cake dough, syrup and filling cream from Chocolate Mimosa Cake recipe.
- Chocolate sauce for the top
- Biscuits for tombstone decoration
- Melted chocolate for tombstone decoration
- Ground Oreo biscuits for soil decoration
- Chocolate shards as in Devil's Food cake recipe for the edges of our cemetery cake


Preparation:

Persimmon Marmalade, Dried Persimmon Rolls with Chocolate and other ideas...

TÜRKÇE İÇİN TIKLAYIN
PER ITALIANO

Hello Friends,

This is going to be a post full of pictures and ideas.

Golden, delicious persimmons are in season these days so I don't want to lose any more time to share this post with you.  

1) Our first recipe is Persimmon Marmalade.

We prepare this recipe with only 3 ingredients: Persimmons, lemon and chia seeds. It doesn't contain any added sugar on the contrary to the traditional marmalade recipes.

Persimmons, which to me look like some kind of golden tomatoes, are very sweet when they are mature. They are packed with vitamins, antioxidants and fiber.
Our marmalade has also chia seeds which are an excellent source of Omega 3, protein and fiber.

The trick here is that it is absolutely essential to have very ripe persimmons in order to obtain the taste and the texture we desire.

Under-ripe persimmon fruits are astringent and unpalatable to most of the people because of their high tannin content. As they mature the tannin gradually disappears and the fruit gets sweeter and more aromatic. 
If you have immature fruits you need to allow them to ripe before to use. When they are ready the flesh will become completely soft, almost liquid.

Ingredients:
500 g very ripe persimmons
20 g fresh lemon juice
50 g chia seeds

Preparation:

Chocolate Hazelnut Torrone

TÜRKÇE İÇİN TIKLAYIN
PER ITALIANO

The number of Thermomix Tarif Defterim's followers on Facebook are now over 1.000!
I was aware that the number had been recently growing however I honestly didn't expect that it would go over 1.000 before 2015. This has been a nice surprise and wonderful Christmas gift to me.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of you, those who follow the blog via Facebook, Forum Thermomix, Pinterest, Google+, Bloglovin, or directly on the web or through email subscription...

As promised, here comes the recipe for Chocolate Hazelnut Torrone.
It could make a delightful Christmas gift.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I hope 2015 turns to be one of your happiest years.


Ingredients:

300 g dark chocolate, roughly broken into pieces
200 g Gianduja chocolate or milk chocolate, roughly broken into pieces
200 g Nutella
500 g toasted hazelnuts

Preparation:

White Torrone with Nuts and Fruits

TÜRKÇE İÇİN TIKLAYIN
PER ITALIANO

If many colorful "Panettone" and "Torrone" packages have started taking their place in Italian shops you understand that Christmas is around the corner.

Panettone, although its look recalls more of a cake, is in fact a sweet kind of bread loaf.  It has many versions such as those with raisins, dried fruits or chocolate. As soon as I find a satisfying panettone recipe I am going to share it with you guys. 
Below you will see our two store-bought panettone, one is with pineapple and the other instead is with chocolate.

Well.. let's come back to our main topic here, which is Torrone.

When we talk about Torrone or Nougat, we can mention mainly two types: White and Chocolate.
They also have many hard or softer subtypes made with varying nuts and dried fruits.

Your delicious homemade Torrone confections, with the help of a simple transparent packaging and ribbon, could make some great and also very pretty Christmas gifts.

Today I am sharing the recipe for White Torrone with nuts. The chocolate version, which you see in the photos, will be the next recipe to share. 

With the ingredients below I prepared 3 Torrone, each was 6 x 25 cm about.


Ingredients:
1 egg white
400 g honey

Contents of Torrone:
200 g toasted nuts and dried fruits of your choice*(1)
Optional: 50 g white chocolate*(2)

Top:
Confectionary rice paper or "host" sheets aka ostia in Italian, or 100 g white chocolate*(3) 

(1) To be precise, I used 60 g of almonds, 60 g of pistachios, 60 g of peanuts and 30 g of dried cranberry & blueberry mixture.

(2) We prefer soft torrone so I added 50 g of white chocolate together with nuts to make it chewy.

(3) I couldn't find any rice paper around here. I had to order online and I didn't have time to wait for to be delivered. You need rice paper or ostia for such confectionery recipes so that it wouldn't stick to your hands while eating. Domenico, my brother in law, gave me the greatest idea. Thanks to his suggestion I coated my white torrone with a thin layer of melted white chocolate. This way I prevented stickiness issue and added also a delicate chocolate touch to the formula.


Preparation:

Pineapple Coconut Cheesecake

TÜRKÇE İÇİN TIKLAYIN
PER ITALIANO

Today Thermomix Tarif Defterim is turning 5...

When it comes to anniversaries, for some reason, the multiples of 5 outshine the others. Since I couldn't believe that I've arrived at one of those milestone moments, I had to redo some calculations to convince myself by extracting 2009 from 2014 ! ;)

When I stepped into the blog universe I didn't have an action plan, nor I have it now. In the course of time I've tried to improve myself and the blog constantly, nevertheless everything I've done was with an amateur spirit.

Palate of people may change from one to another. The important thing for me was only to include doable, repeatable, hassle free recipes which I was satisfied with. I tried to explain them in detail and took as many pictures as possible. Certainly Thermomix's working principle, which enables a recipe system that formulates everything almost like an scientific experiment, made my job very easy.

Thanks to blogging my path crossed with many people from all around the world. I hope I was able to spice your lives even if just a pinch.

2 weeks ago, when I remembered that the blog's anniversary was around the corner, I started thinking what cake I should make to celebrate the day. Since I adore cheesecakes I felt like preparing a fruity one and Pineapple Coconut Cheesecake was just what I was after. 

I hope you enjoy ...

Ingredients:
Base:
130 g butter, roughly chopped
250 g Digestive biscuits

Cheesecake:
500 g Philadelphia, roughly chopped, at room temperature
150 g caster sugar
3 eggs (60 g each)
125 g coconut milk
1 can crushed pineapple, drained (1 can brut 440g)

Top:
Shredded Coconut


Preparation:

Chocolate Mimosa Cake

TÜRKÇE İÇİN TIKLAYIN
PER ITALIANO

This is the chocolate version of classical yellow mimosa cake. 
We obviously love them both ;) 

Ingredients:

Cake:
250g flour
20g unsweetened cocoa powder
1 sachet of baking powder (15g)
1 sachet of vanillin or 1 tbsp vanilla sugar
200g peanut oil
5 eggs (each 60g)
250g sugar
A pinch of salt

Syrup:
100g water
50g sugar
50g Rum

Filling Cream:
250g fresh milk cream (35% fat)
250g mascarpone
250g Nutella, at room temperature


Preparation:

Our Valentine's Day Cakewith Almond, Carrot and Cream Cheese Frosting

TÜRKÇE İÇİN TIKLAYIN 
PER ITALIANO

I had been searching for an heart shaped Valentine's Day cake recipe when I met this one on Pinterest last year. The link took me to a web site, Forum Thermomix, which I was quite familiar with. JulieO, one of the forum's hero members, found this splendid recipe on UK Thermomix web page and served it decorated with a delicious cream cheese frosting.

As a matter of fact, what I had in mind was more like a red or pink coloured cake but I fell in love with the looks of this one. It kind of reminds me wedding cakes. This could be a nice recipe to serve in anniversaries as well.

I would recommend you though not to wait too long to bake it if you miss out Valentine's Day opportunity. It is beautiful, delicious, impressive. I prepared it countless other times since last year.

The recipe is originally intended for a 26cm diameter cake pan. Julie is using a 26cm pan too. My heart shaped pan instead, is a smaller one as you can see from the pictures. This being the case I needed make a few modifications on the original recipe. I basically reduced all the ingredients by 1/3. I believe it would be good for a 20cm pan.
(Note: The pictures that show the pan size are from another recipe so here is the explanation for the brown colored base in the photo)

While reading the ingredients, on the left you can see the original amounts which are intended for a 26cm pan. On the right instead you'll see the amount I used for my pan.


Ingredients:

Cake:
300g 200g blanched almonds
300g 200g sugar
Peel of 1 lemon (without the white)
300g 200g carrot, roughly chopped
4    3 eggs
80g  60g flour
2 1 tsp baking powder
A pinch of salt

Frosting:
250g 170g Philadelphia
210g 140g sugar
2 1 tsp fresh lemon juice
Toasted almond flakes
Kavrulmuş file badem
Candy decorations as you wish


Preparation:

Apple Tart with Mascarpone Cream

TÜRKÇE İÇİN TIKLAYIN "Mascarponeli Elmalı Tart"
PER ITALIANO "Crostata di Mele alla Crema di Mascarpone"

Thermomix Tarif Defterim is 4 years old !

Years fly indeed. It feels like yesterday when I decided to become a blogger.
I tried many recipes since then. There have been times where I was very active, posting something new almost every day. There also have been very quiet periods where I couldn't find time to take care of anything. Nevertheless I never gave up on my blog even at times I seemed distant. And here I am today.. celebrating its 4th birthday.

I happily see that the number of blog's followers, who are connecting from all around the world, has been increasing despite the unfortunate fact that Thermomix is still not sold in Turkish market.

I would like to take advantage of this special day and thank you all guys for following Thermomix Tarif Defterim via Blogger, Facebook and Pinterest, and everybody who contribute with mails, messages and comments.

For blog's 4th year celebration I decided to prepare this Apple Tart with Mascarpone Cream.

I hope you enjoy it...

Ingredients:

Tart:
Peel of a lemon or an orange, cut into pieces (without the white)
80g brown sugar
300g flour
1 egg (60g)
1 egg yolk
130g cold butter, chopped into small pieces
1 tsp baking powder

Cream:
3 eggs (60g each)
60g sugar
20g vanilla sugar
500g mascarpone
40g flour

To decorate:
3 Golden apples, peeled, thinly sliced (my apples weighed around 200g each)*
3 tbsps brown sugar
10g melted butter

*You can take this video as reference while slicing your apples.

Preparation:

Mint Chocolate Cake

TÜRKÇE İÇİN TIKLAYIN "Naneli Çikolatalı Kek"
PER ITALIANO "Torta Menta e Cioccolato"

When I published Ricotta and Sour Cherry Jam Tart's recipe, I had this dark brown - greenish beauty lying in the background in some of the pictures. As promised, the stage is hers today! 

I met this marvellous cake in last Christmas. An acquaintance of Stefano, Simona, gave us this cake as a Christmas present. When I sliced it, we were surprised by its green look, we hadn't seen a cake quite similar before. As for the taste... I wouldn't be wrong to say it was love at first bite. Stefano told me that Simona made it with Bimby (Thermomix's name in Italy) so I didn't lose time to ask for the recipe.

The mint syrup that is used in this recipe is a non-alcoholic syrup which is basically made of mint aroma, water and sugar. 
It is often used to prepare alcoholic or non-alcoholic drinks, as salsa over ice-cream or as ingredient while preparing cakes as we will do today.

I bought my mint syrup from supermarket. 
I saw several recipes to prepare it at home, however I didn't try them myself. Some day I intend to try to do my mint syrup at home.
I let you know in case it works well.




Ingredients:
200g sugar
Thinly peeled skin of 1 lemon (without the white)
3 eggs (60g each)
150g butter, softened, cut roughly into pieces
200g milk
1 tsp vanilla extract or 1 tbsp vanilla sugar
400g flour
A pinch of salt
200g mint syrup (non-alcoholic)
1 tsp baking powder
75g chocolate chips

Topping:
200g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
30g butter


Preparation:

Ricotta and Sour Cherry Jam Tart

TÜRKÇE İÇİN TIKLAYIN "Ricotta and Vişne Reçelli Tart"
PER ITALIANO "Crostata di Ricotta e Amarene"

I got the recipe of this tart from our friend Romina. We were all invited to a lunch at her parents' home and she brought this beautiful tart. As soon as I heard she prepared it with our precious "Bimby" (this is how Thermomix is called in Italy) I asked for the recipe so that I could share it in the  blog. 

Romina is subscribed to the official magazine of Thermomix Italy which is called as Voi... Noi... Bimby. She is collecting the magazine itself and also the recipe cards which were given as a gift with every issue. This delicious recipe comes from one of those cards.

Ingredients for tart pastry:
Thinly peeled skin of 1 lemon (without the white)
80g sugar
300g flour
1 egg (60g)
1 egg yolk
130g butter, softened
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanillin sugar

Filling:
400g ricotta
100g sugar
2 egg yolks
70g Rum
100g strong espresso, room temperature
12 savoiardi (ladyfingers) biscuits
150g amarena cherry jam (sour cherry jam)

Additionally 50g sugar (to prepare icing sugar)


Preparation:

Devil's Food Cake

TÜRKÇE İÇİN TIKLAYIN "Devil's Food Cake - Şeytan Çikolata Giyer"
PER ITALIANO "Torta del Diavolo"

As soon as I saw the breathtaking Devil's Food Cake of Cafe Fernando I knew I was in love! This seducing cake, which Cenk prepared for Design Sponge, appeals to the taste buds as well as the eyes.

There were basically two things that I'd been waiting for to make the cake: 
1. A special occasion, 2. Biscoff Spread (or Speculoos Cream)
I finally decided that the special occasion would be my own birthday. 
However I was not able to find Biscoff Spread in Italy. If someday I happen to see some Lotus biscuits on the shelves I intend to make the cream myself.

Considering Cenk's advises and replies to those like myself who were not able to find the Biscoff spread, I decided to go with a combination of Milk & Hazelnut Spread and Peanut Butter. I don't know how the Biscoff addition tastes exactly but the mixture that I used turned out splendidly. Everyone asked me what that background flavour was.

As an additional note, I am not very fond of buttercream. I know it works wonderfully while decorating cakes, I occasionally used it too, however the taste of it just doesn't work for me. I believe this cream could be good alternative to buttercream unless there is a particular colour you need for your cake obviously.

I would like to thank Cenk very much for his exquisite recipe, incredibly detailed instructions and his patience... It took me a while to read all the comments.. I was patient as well to read them all in both English and Turkish ;)

Before I proceed to the recipe let me mention briefly of my modest birthday.

Every holiday in Italy, every feast and celebration, every special day no matter how big or small is an unmissable opportunity to eat altogether and .. a lot! ;)

We decided to have an appetizing and rather light birthday supper based on seafood. (We as in my mother in law and I. I remember mentioning about her in several posts, Lucia is a great cook indeed and I have so much to learn from her)

As you can see in the pictures above, Lucia prepared:

Cuttlefish, Shrimp and Squid Salad with Oven Baked Cherry Tomatoes and Pickles
Cuttlefish and Potato Salad with Olives
Scampi (Norway Lobster)
Smoked Swordfish with Orange Slices
Stuffed Squid
Puff Pastry Wrapped Prawns and
Roasted Peppers

I prepared:

Sweet Potato Frittata, which is one of my recent favourites (so I finally used up all the sweet potatoes I had at home) 
Bread Wreath with Smoked Salmon, Spinach and Walnuts 
Smoked Tuna with Pineapple, Pear, Rocket,Cream Cheese (Philadelphia) and Balsamic Dressing
Fennel and Orange Salad with Olives and Walnuts dressed with Balsamic Vinaigrette

And of course all accompanied by a nice bottle of white wine ;)

Now let's talk about the ingredients you'll need for the cake...

As I said before, I substituted Biscoff Spread with a mixture of Milk & Hazelnut Cream and Peanut Butter. If you are able to get Biscoff, use that one instead. Or you can do it my way if you wish so.

For chocolate shards:
120g dark chocolate (70% cacao), broken into pieces


For cake:
70g water
80g milk
50g unsweetened cocoa powder (some more for pans)

210g flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
150g butter, softened (some more for pans)
300g sugar
3 large eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract

Ganache Cream:
150g dark chocolate (70% cacao), broken into pieces
150g milk chocolate, broken into pieces
330g hazelnut cream
70g peanut butter
400g heavy cream, cold


Preparation:

Chocolate Salami

TÜRKÇE İÇİN TIKLAYIN "Çikolata Salamı"
PER ITALIANO "Salame di Cioccolato"

Here comes a recipe where we can use yesterday's Sweetened Condensed Milk recipe.

The one gave me the idea of preparing Chocolate Salami was a colleague of Stefano. 
Often Stefano's colleagues bring cakes and snacks to the office to celebrate birthdays, holidays...etc. I contributed too with cakes, tarts and cheesecakes for several occasions. So when Nicola asked Ste if I knew how to make chocolate salami, I started my research upon such request ;)

I first saw the recipe I'd been looking for in Helene's blog Super Kitchen Machine. Helene herself got it from Madelene's blog The British Larder. I also added Valerie's experiences which she mentioned in her blog A Canadian Foodie. I made a few changes myself and ended up with the recipe below. It's been a very collective work as you see. I would like to thank everyone who took a part.

This recipe received so much appreciation and compliments that I made it again and again and again in a short period of time.
It surely does have the looks and also stores very well in the fridge.
Additionally, it makes a very nice gift when you go to visit some friends.


Ingredients:
50g sugar
200g Digestive biscuits
70g pistachios, shelled
70g nuts
70g almonds
70-80g Rum
80g butter, roughly chopped
200g dark chocolate, broken into small pieces (70% cocoa)
2 egg yolks
80g sweetened condensed milk
A pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

For dusting
Graham crumbs, icing sugar, cocoa powder

Preparation:

Chocolate Espresso Cake

TÜRKÇE İÇİN TIKLAYIN "Çikolatalı Kahveli Pasta"
PER ITALIANO "Torta al Cioccolato e Caffè"

As of 7 Dec 2012 it has been 3 years since Thermomix Tarif Defterim published its very first post!
In the beginning the posts were only in Turkish. Later on I started publishing first in English and finally in Italian. 

This has been quite an exclusive blog which publishes Thermomix recipes only, on the other hand we wanted to reach as many people as possible by writing in there different languages. 

I would like to thank my dear husband Stefano who always supported me and gave me a huge help with my Italian posts. It was him at the first place who encouraged me to start blogging when we found out there weren't any Turkish recipes all around the web. 

So, I wanted to make a special cake for this very special day. 

Here are the ingredients...

Cake Ingredients:
280g flour
400g sugar
80g unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsps baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
250g buttermilk
100g sunflower oil
2 large eggs
2 tsps vanilla extract
250g freshly made espresso

Frosting Ingredients:
200g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
220g butter, at room temperature
2 tsps vanilla extract
300g icing sugar (or sugar)
1 tbsp instant coffee powder

To decorate:
Candy & Chocolate Sprinkles, pearls

Preparation:

Spider-web Pumpkin Cheesecake

TÜRKÇE İÇİN TIKLAYIN "Balkabaklı Örümcek Ağlı Cheesecake"
PER ITALIANO "Cheesecake alla Zucca con Ragnatela"

Here I am giving the last recipe of this year's Halloween. Now we can go on with our lives! :)
This is a revised cheesecake recipe. You can simply do it any time of the year by changing the decoration on the top. Do not eliminate the chocolate though, just decorate it differently if you should, because chocolate really gives a nice touch to this cake.

Before proceeding to the recipe, I'd like to mention about a web site which I've been visiting very often recent days. Have you ever heard of Pinterest? You probably did. It is me who was very late to be informed about but once you get to know it, you can't let it go:)

Actually I heard some mentioning "Pinterest" but I didn't know what it was all about until recently. So.. What is this Pinterest? Pinterest is a visual pinboard where users visually share the things their interests and whatever they like by simply pinning them into their boards. It is said the vast majority of its users are women (Some say even like 90%). Once you are hooked you see right away the female impact in Pinterest is extremely high :)

It easier used than said but let me explain to you generally.
First thing you need to do is to subscribe it, it is a free and open board.

After subscription you can see and visit many Pinterest categories such as Women Fashion, Men Fashion, Food & Drink, Hair & Beauty, Home Decor, Travel, Photography, Animal, Architecture, Art...etc. You can "pin" the stuff you like onto your own boards. For example you can create a Hairstyle Board and pin a bun you like onto your board. You can pin a Thermomix recipe onto your Thermomix Recipes Board. I, for example, created a Board with my blogs posts as you can see partially below

As you can follow the boards created by other users or repin their pins, this does not mean that your Pinterest experience has to be limited to the sources in Pinterest only!  By adding "pin it" button to your browsers, you can simply hit the button and pin stuff that interests you while surfing on internet. For example, you are planning for a trip to Paris for next month or even for some unknown future day. While surfing, you came across some very nice photos and an article which talk about a spectacular museum in Paris. Normally we say ourselves "let me remember this for when I go to Paris" or we try to note it down some place that later we forget about it. Thanks to Pinterest now we can create a "Paris" board and pin that picture (consequently also the link to that article) there. We can go back reading it whenever we want.

Let me give a simple example from my own experience. One of the things Stefano and I are very passionate about is movies. We love watching good examples of any genre, from drama to comedy, from thriller to horror, from action to documentaries, from fantasy to animation.. We are quite certain of ourselves that the best buying that we ever did is lying in our lounge now: our precious our DLP projector and the big screen:)
Recently we've decided to make a small addition to our home decoration considering this passion of ours. We were attracted by the idea of hanging framed posters of some movies we love. On one hand we wanted it to reflect us, ourselves; on the other hand we didn't want to have an end result such as a youngsters room. This was the first time I referred to Pinterest seriously. To get some ideas and inspiration I pinned several frames, framing & hanging combinations and original or alternative movie posters to my related boards. It was a huge help I must say. We haven't completed our project yet, I post a picture of it when it is done. The below picture shows partially my "Frames" board in Pinterest.

Let me note one last thing.
Recently Pinterest started to allow its users to have some "secret" boards. Let's say you want to buy a present for your spouse, friend..etc, or you want to plan a surprise trip, you can pin the ideas and inspirations you find onto your secret board. Apart from the secret boards, everything else is open to share. Pinterest users can not reach your account but follow your boards, see your pins and repin them.
If this Pinterest thing has attracted your interest and would like to see my humble boards just to get an impression, my user name is Sinemadc.

And now... Let's come to the last Halloween recipe of the year...



Ingredients:

Base:
250g Digestive biscuits
150g butter, chopped
40g brown sugar

To steam pumpkin
250g pumpkin, chopped
400g water
1 heaped tbsp brown sugar

Cheesecake mixture:
Steamed pumpkin
500g Philadelphia
200g sugar
20g fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
A pinch of salt
200g fresh cream
2 eggs + 2 egg yolks

To decorate:
100g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
10g butter
10g fresh cream


Preparation:

Cockroaches :)

TÜRKÇE İÇİN TIKLAYIN "Hamamböcekleri"
PER ITALIANO "Scarafaggi"

I know, Halloween is way over! It is taking me some time to prepare all the Halloween 2012 recipes to post. These "disgustingly" delicious cockroaches are going to be the third recipe I publish from this year's party. There is only the fourth recipe left.

Among other things I noticed I haven't published our costumed pictures yet. With this post let me make a record of them for history's sake then! :)

As you know, I was the Witch :) The mask I was using was quite authentic. Let me share one fact though, not even one minute passed after I wore the mask, all my face and inside the mask was completely wet only by breathing! As I told you in my previous posts, I needed to have long chats with every group of guests and also guide them throughout the Horror Tunnel where we used two smoke machines, so try to imagine my own horror! But no matter what "The show must go on", right? :)

Stefano wore Joker make up for the evening. As his make up artist :) the cosmetics I used on him were: white foundation, dark grey eye shadow, red lipstick and Uhu stick. You may wonder what the uhu was for. I used it to make Joker's scarred cheeks. I benefited from this video which I found on Youtube.

As for Andrea, he had Uncle Fester make up from the Addams Family. It was not a complicated one. I used only two things: 1.white foundation all over the face and head, 2.grey eye shadow

Fortunately I was to continue the evening without the mask so I had additionally witch make up under the mask. I benefited from this video for my own make up.

And finally here are the future witches and vampires :)

OK, let's get down to the business ;)

Today I will explain how I made these cockroaches. Well... This may be more of an art project really rather than an traditional recipe ;)

Here are the ingredients:

- Dates; for the sake of the authenticity, beauty (!) and of course the taste of your cockroaches, it is important to have some large, succulent and sweet dates with thin and shiny skin. Some have very dry and thick skin which wouldn't be good for our case.

- Mascarpone

- Sugar

- Liquorice wheels


Preparation:

Bloodshot Eyeballs

TÜRKÇE İÇİN TIKLAYIN "Kanlı Gözler"
PER ITALIANO "Occhi Insanguinati"

Ok... Where did we leave off?
Well... I talked about our Horror Tunnel in my previous post and gave the recipe for Hedgehogs.
So let me talk about our supper in the cabin today and give you the recipe for those bloody eyes!

Andrea and I took care of the ornaments and interior decoration of the cabin three days prior to the supper. Come rain or shine, it didn't matter. It was indoors anyway. This way we would have one less thing to do on the last day. So we managed to make a cute Halloween decoration with no rush, which satisfied us both. Since Andrea's father needed to go there every day to feed the animals, we left the decoration of our two very "special" boards to the last day so that he wouldn't see them before.

The first board was "Missing Persons Board". I had prepared the photos on the board many days ago. There were some "manipulated" pictures of each guest. This way we had created something fun, special and exclusive to us all.

Second board was called as "Adopt a Zombie Board". ;)
I had prepared also this one long ago by using some special photo effects on the guests' photos. Additionally, we framed some of the zombie pictures and enriched the decoration by placing them over one of the cabinets in the cabin.  
At the end of the night we gave them to the guests as a souvenir of this special day.

As for buying and preparing the food and the beverages, everybody contributed.

When Lucia, my mother in law, heard that we'd been planning to make Halloween themed cakes also for this year, she wanted to prepare at least a few Halloween themed food as well and asked my advice two weeks prior to the supper. I had already several ideas which I had previously seen on internet and noted. I made some more research and shared with Lucia the ideas and pictures I found. One evening we tried some of them, also with Serenella's contribution, and we enjoyed the result so Lucia decided to make them for our Halloween supper.

I didn't prepare them myself so I won't be able to give you the exact recipe for the moment, but maybe in future.. Let me tell you at least what they are made of. 
- The mini mummies on the top of the collage are puff pastry wrapped sausages. 
- The mummies on the bottom left of the collage are mini pizzas, decorated with Sottilette cheese stripes and olive slices.
- The mices on the bottom right of the picture are made of crackers at the bottom, cheese wedges as body (like those from the Laughing Cow), mini sausage slices as ears, quartered olives as nose, nigella seeds (as eyes) and cucumber or carrot peel as tail. 

Of course what we had on our Halloween dinner table wasn't limited to these three only. Everyone prepared and brought something different. There was enough food to feed maybe another 20 people. As a matter of fact we ate the leftovers the following day.

 

Eventually it was time to serve the cakes but for that to happen Stefano and I had to make a short trip back home to get them because they needed to be stored in the fridge and the one in the cabin was not large enough to fit them all! As you can see below, three shelves from the top in our fridge were all dedicated to the cakes.

After the cakes having served, we revealed a very special "the most wanted fugitives" folder which included 160 very dangerous career criminals! :) There were plastic coated mug shots of the fugitives inside. We had planned to play a little fun game so we had black taped over the names. On the bottom right of the collage below, you can see one of plastic coated black taped sheets in Giuliano"'s hands. As you can guess, there were never ending guesses :)

In addition to our souvenir zombie frames, we distributed all the pictures to their owners.

At the end of the evening we were exhausted, worn out but happy.

Let's proceed to the recipe, what do you say? :)

I found this recipe in Giallo Zafferano. It is so delicious that it would be shame to wait for the next Halloween to make it again. This could be very practical for party menus.
Yes, maybe you'd better leave out the bloody part except Halloween time:) You can serve them as plain eyes. Good news is.. you would work considerably less this way since you won't need to prepare and pipe royal icing around the eyeballs.
Or you simply serve them as balls decorated with dessicated coconut, candy sprinkles...etc. You won't even need to make eyes and pupils.


Ingredients:
100g Graham biscuits
300g Ricotta
400g white chocolate

Decorate with:
M&M's or Smarties 
60g dark chocolate
1 egg white
200g sugar
1 tsp lemon juice
Red food coloring


Preparation:

Occhi Insanguinati

TÜRKÇE İÇİN TIKLAYIN "Kanlı Gözler"
CLICK FOR ENGLISH "Bloodshot Eyeballs"

Ok.. dove eravamo rimasti? 
Beh.. ho parlato del tunnel degli orrori e della ricotta dei ricci nel post precedente. Ora vorrei raccontarvi della nostra cena e della ricetta degli occhi insanguinati! 

Io e Andrea ci concentrammo sugli addobbi e le decorazioni all’interno della “casetta” tre giorni prima della cena. Essendo al chiuso, pioggia o no non c’era nessuna differenza, quindi decidemmo di iniziare i preparativi in anticipo, con la calma che porta a fare le cose nel modo giusto. Infatti riuscimmo a ricreare un ambientazione di Halloween decisamente di “effetto”. Giuliano, il padre di Andrea, viene ogni giorno per accudire alcuni animali, allora decidemmo di aspettare l’ultimo giorno per l’affissione delle nostre “bacheche speciali”. 

La prima bacheca era “Persone scomparse”. Preparai le foto diversi giorni prima,modificando delle foto di ogni ospite, così da creare qualcosa di spiritoso, decisamente speciale e a suo modo  esclusivo. 

La seconda bacheca era “adotta uno zombie” ;) 
Anche queste le preparai divresi giorni prima usando alcuni effetti speciali, e siccome volevamo lasciare un piccolo ricordo della serata, comprammo dei quadretti, uno per famiglia, incorniciando la foto più... “carina” di ognuno di loro:) e arricchimmo le decorazioni posizionandole sopra un mobile, in bella mostra. 
Alla fine della serata le consegnammo, insieme alle foto delle bacheche che ognuno degli ospiti decise di prendere con se.

Per l’acquisto e la preparazione del cibo e delle bevande, ognuno contribuì, chi più chi meno. 

Quando Lucia, mia suocera, seppe che anche quest’anno avrei preparato i dolci per Halloween, decise di preparare almeno qualche piatto in tema Halloween. Mi chiese alcune idee, un paio di settimane prima, così da aver tempo di fare qualche prova. Avevo già qualche idea, trovate su internet. A quel punto decisi di fare altre ricerche condividendole con Lucia. Una sera, con l’aiuto di Serenella, provammo alcune ricette e vedendo i buoni risultati, Lucia decise di farle per la cena di Halloween.

Non li preparai io perciò non riuscirò a darvi la ricetta esatta per ora, forse in futuro.. ma almeno lasciatemi spiegarvi di cosa sono fatti. 
- Le mummie  in alto sono fatto di pasta sfoglia e al loro interno dei wurstel. 
- Le mummie in basso sono pizzettine decorate con striscie di sottilette e olive a fette. 
- I topolini in basso a destra sono fatti con una base di cracker, formaggini per il corpo, fettine fini di wurstel per le orecchie, un quarto di oliva come naso,semi di nigella come occhi e cetriolo o buccia di carota come coda. 

Ovviamente le cena di Halloween non si limitava solo a questi tre piatti. Ognuno preparò qualcosa.Come sempre in queste occasioni, il cibo era per altrettante persone di quelle presenti, e gli avanzi furono divisi tra tutti i partecipanti.

 

Dopo aver mangiato tutte queste squisitezze fu ora di servire I dolci. Siccome erano dolci “sorpresa” dovemmo andare a casa a prenderli dal nostro frigo. Oltretutto non c’era posto in quello della casetta, come potete vedere i dolci presero tre scomparti del nostro piuttosto spazioso frigorifero (70cm di larghezza per 450l di capienza).

Dopo aver servito i dolci (devo dire che gli occhi sono proprio andati a ruba… ) c’era l’ultima sorpresa in serbo. Non essendo soddisfatta delle decine e decine di foto delle due bacheche di cui ho parlato in precedenza, preparai un archivio molto speciale contenente circa 160 foto dei “più ricercati del mondo”:) ,  foto segnaletiche di criminali molto pericolosi. Nell’organizzare la festa, volevamo trovare qualcosa di simpatico e scherzoso da fare durante la cena, e devo dire che tutti ne erano entusiasti. Su ogni foto c’era il nome della persona, nascosto da un nastro nero, come potete vedere tra le mani di Giuliano nella foto qui di seguito, così da lasciare la suspance su chi era realmente la persona fotografata. Data la difficoltà nell’indovinare, molti presi dall’impazienza toglievano il nastro per vedere il nome della persona ritratta :)

Eravamo in vena di regali, perciò oltre ai quadretti delle foto degli zombie, e quelle delle bacheche, distribuimmo anche le foto segnaletiche a chi fosse stato interessato. 

Alla fine della serata eravamo completamente esausti ma contenti della buona riuscita della serata.

Passiamo alla ricetta, che ne dite? :) 

Ho trovato questa ricetta in Giallo Zafferano. E’ così deliziosa che è un peccato aspettare il prossimo Halloween per provarla. Potrebbe essere molto pratica per menu di feste. 
Si, forse potreste evitare la parte “insanguinata” per altre occasioni:) 
Potete servirli come occhi semplici. La buona notizia è che il lavoro è decisamente minore, in quanto non dovrete preparare la glassa reale per creare le venature dell’occhio. 
O potete servirle semplicemente come palline decorate con cocco essiccato, praline...ecc. Non avrete la necessità di preparare la forma dell’occhio e la pupilla.


Ingredienti:
100g di Oro Saiwa
300g Ricotta
400g cioccolato bianco


Per decorare:
M&M's oppure Smarties
60g di cioccolato fondente
1 albume
200g di zucchero
1 cucchiaino di succo di limone
Colorante alimentare rosso


Esecuzione: