This is the pizza dough recipe of Eric Kayser. I made so many breads from his book, it worth to give it a try for his pizza dough. Here it is ...

I bought so many bananas that I didn't know what to do with them. The solution to this problem arrived quite quickly considering my last trend in eating ice pops. When you blend bananas you'll obtain a thick composition. To make it more light, add some oranges. This will add a bit of sourness in the sweetness of bananas. Then, add some spice like ginger, to increase the taste flavor.

We love chocolate and especially my daughter. We love also natural yogurt. What better combination then? And what about adding to this a nutty flavor? Add some nuts in the yogurt and you'll give it a better taste.

Last week I made the Overnight country blonde. This week I switched to the brown one. I've learned my lesson with the differences between the European and American flour so this time I have prepared the recipe increasing a the quantity of flour I used (European type).
The dough turned out quite nicely... not extremely wet but not so dry either. I also reduced a bit the time of the proofing as the temperature outside was higher than needed.

This bread is absolutely fantastic. I've got nice wholes inside and the crumb got chewy. The flavor? The taste? Just incredible. This is for sure one of the best breads I ever made.

EXCELLENT BREAD !!!!

Traveling one day with my daughter in the train I've realized that I've forgot at home her favorite snack banana and bread. No, this is not banana bread but 2 different things :) that she loves. Lucky me, a good friend of mine joined the short train trip when the big cry of my daughter was about to start. What to eat, what to give... my friend had some chocolate cake with her and she proposed to my daughter. She ate the piece and asked for 2 more. Uh, that was a lesson for me.... not that I have forgotten her food at home (because sometimes just happen when you are in a hurry ;) ) but to make a chocolate cake as it has been quite a long time since I did the last one.
So, next weekend, operation chocolate cake was ongoing and this is the recipe I've picked.
I've replaced one of the ingredient Nutella with pure black chocolate grated. The cakes nicely raised but gave me some emotions when I have removed the first one out of the pan. It simply fall when turned over. Too much chocolate inside? No. Too early removed from the pan. Yes, you need to keep this cake in the pan for 15 min after taken out from the oven. I did this with the second one and turned out well.

It is useless to say that this cake "disappeared" very quickly in the mouths of my family.

A pancake recipe in which to throw away your extra sourdough. No sourdough available? Replace it then with 150g of water and 150g of all purpose flour.

Sour dough, sour cherry but in fact this recipe is a sweet one. Oh these sour cherries, how much I was ignoring them when I was in Romania because they were more sour than the normal cherries and how much I miss them here in Belgium where they are not so much known. However, I find them sometimes in July in the Saturday fruit market in my village. I remember once, I bough a sour cherry crate (~6kg) and the seller wanted to be sure that I knew what I was buying. He told me that they are cheaper because they are sour and they are not to be eaten like that.He continued explaining me that they were dedicated to jams and compotes. The truth is that me and my husband we just love them fresh. The jam I had for these pancakes is from my mother in law otherwise I would not dare to destroy the freshness of sour cherries.

Ice cream, popsicles, sorbets ... these are deserts for summer. In fact you can puree whatever fruits and make popsicles. You can take any smoothie recipe and make popsicles... it's so easy.

Red currants are sour, so combine them with the sweetness of banana. Give the ice cream a sense of spice by adding fresh ginger. Make the composition more liquid by adding some orange juice. Freeze and just eat it. Cannot be more simple than this ...

Lately I have created some extra sourdough and instead of discard it, I have used it. If you do not have sourdough, replace the 200g of sourdough with 100g of flour and 100g of water. But if you are a sourdough bread baker, you know what I am talking about.
The resulting composition is not liquid, if this is what you are expecting, but it turns out to be like a dough. This is why, the shape of these waffles is round or oval and not rectangular, because the composition do not spread over the entire mold of the waffle maker.
They are not very sweet and you can combine them with whatever you like: fresh fruits with cheese cream, or jam, or caramel sauce.

It is summer, it is hot outside and this is amazing for the Belgium weather. What desert could work better now? Of course, ice cream.  I had a special request for chocolate popsicles so it the perfect recipe to try. This is a creamy icecream due to the increased quantity of mascarpone. It taste like a ganache for a sofisticated cake.

Yes, this is my bread, Denisa's bread. My first recipe really invented by me. And is for sure just the begging of long series of Denisa's bread even if they will be called differently. How I arrived to it? Well, for ingredients, I picked some to empty my pantry and some to give the bread some support and flavor. For the method, just experience and intuition.
With so many ingredients, the bread turned out to be enough aerated, heavy due to all seeds inside and with a mixed flavor from flours and seeds. It is a kind of country bread enriched with seeds.
I personally liked it and I proudly call it my bread! :)

This recipe is one that I wanted to do for a long time. It is just that I was not finding the perfect weekend for it as it spreads over 2 days to make it. It is my first recipe I try from Ken Forkish book.

Uhhh... and what an experience ... I was almost about to fail this bread but finally I saved it. This recipe is called by the author Overnight Country Blonde. Mine arrived to be more brown than blonde as I had to add extra 200g of flour (half white wheat flour and half whole wheat flour). The problem was of course the type of flour I had. There is a difference between the American type of flour and the European one. The first one get a higher percent of gluten and following exactly the recipe with the European flour made my dough to become extremely liquid. In fact, the texture of my dough was more looking like a sour cream than a sourdough. Even after 4 stretch and folds, the dough didn't get any shape. The next day was even worse, so the only option I had to save the dough was to add more flour when shaping.

The resulting bread was not bad at all. It had a more than normal sour taste due to the long bulk fermentation over night at room temperature but not extremely. I've got some wholes in the bread but less than I was expecting. In the Dutch oven the bread got some acceptable oven spring considering the fact that I tried to keep the dough to a high hydration but in the same time to give it a shape to at least be able to remove it from the table and throw it in the Dutch oven.

Finally, I was satisfied with the result but for sure next time I will add more flour from the start or I might use a trick to add gluten powder in the dough so I can keep the same hydration as indicated in the recipe.

Could you make icecream with 5 minutes of work? Yes, it is possible. This recipe is one of the most simple I know. In fact it looks like a frozen smoothie. For kids, the presentation of food is everything. Show a popsicle to a kid and you'll become a magnet. And if icecream is his/her preferred dessert why not to give something healthy, something homemade. More simple than just blend some fruits and let them freeze cannot exist, so try at home and your family will love it.

Hamelman would call this bread "Harvest bread". For me is a sweet bread with a country taste and great aroma.

I was on holidays in the last weeks and so my baking skills. I have returned home full of energy, of new ideas, of new horizons to chase and of new experience to get. But my mind was not on holidays and during my free time I was reading some bread books that for sure will be my next ones to try. However, when the weekend to make bread arrived, it was impossible for me to match with the schedules indicated in those books. So, I took back my old good bread book of Hamelman and stopped to one recipe with sourdough that I have skipped to try before.My experience with baking bread lead me to a slight modification of the recipe by removing completely the yeast and using only sourdough. Everything went well with the exception that I forgot one of the ingredient ... the temperature. Last weekend was so hot and so unusual for Belgium and tricked my senses for raising correctly the dough. I ended up with an over proofed bread but not extremely. The dough lost its shape when put on the hot stone and gain it back, only partially, during the bake. Nevertheless, the resulting bread was not destroyed and even if it was not that nicely raised bread, the taste was incredible. Can you imagine combining cranberries, walnuts and dried raisins? Can you imagine combining this into a bread? For some this looks like a cake. For me, it look like a perfect bread for breakfast. Oh, what a nutty, sweet and bread flavor. Even if I was not a big fan of sweet breads, this one made made me reconsider my tastes.
When I will do this recipe again I would consider changing only one thing: a colder day. This means, that I would do this bread when in the house would be something like 21ºC so that my breads won't get over proofed. I won't change a thing in the rest.

When fruity yogurts were out on the market I remember myself saying, oh, what a great invention. Of course, I am talking about those little pots of white plastic that now you can find in any market. In time, these became so popular that I get used even with their classic taste. But it is not the taste of a yogurt, but a taste of something fake: flour, colorants, additives, artificial aromas and so on. Does it really have to be this way? Could not exist something more natural, something that taste natural, something creamy, sweet and fruity?
I was on the search of a good recipe of fruit yogurt with all these characteristics. I can proudly say that I have found it! And here I post it.