dessert - Choice of Magic

Easy and Crispy Peach Crostata

August 26, 2024

Summer´s almost over and so I thought it’s about time I share this super easy peach crostata recipe on here. It’s been my go to summer dessert every time we were invited to a dinner party or I felt like just making us something sweet at home. It’s also particularly easy to make especially if you like me buy your dough from the supermarket, and I promise you everyone will love it. And while the MO reminds me a bit of this super easy elderberry pie recipe I posted a few years back, this one is even easier to make! So here we go!

Vegetarian Romanian Dessert Food

My Grandma´s Easiest Strawberry Cake

May 31, 2021

Perhaps one of my most prized family possessions is this old cooking book which 40 years ago must have been present in every single Romanian household – Silvia Jurcovan´s Carte de Bucate. It was initially my grandma´s, then my mom´s and when I turned 27 my mom gave it to me. Inside its yellow pages, I found more yellow pages, with short and simple dessert recipes, hand written by my grandma and collected from her various friends and relative. That gave me the idea to make my grandma this month´s honorary #guestchef. In her honour I made a simple strawberry cake and improved on it with a cocoa cream and some decorative strawberries. It is so simple to make, tasted deliciously and looked so great, my grandma would have surely loved it. I hope you do too.

American Vegetarian Dessert Food

Hollie´s Perfect Banana Bread

February 22, 2021

I know what you must be thinking – not another banana bread, hasn´t this pandemic had enough of them? I realise I´m a bit late to the game and you might not want to read yet another banana bread recipe, but I absolutely swear by my friend Hollie´s being the best one you´ll every try. Even Nonna, my adoptive grandma, who does not like bananas at all, absolutely loved it. It has just the right intensity of banana flavour and the perfect degree of softness and moisture. So let this #guestchefseries guide you through the perfect banana bread recipe.

Christmas International Dessert Food

André´s Festive Carrot Cake

December 28, 2020

This #homemadeMonday should come just in time for you to get inspired for a NYE dessert. I´ve been holding off on publishing André´s carrot cake recipe for over a year – a year of iterations and testing, and gaining weight slice by slice. But it´s now finally here, for this #guestchefseries and it will blow your socks off. To quote Nonna “I absolutely adored it, it is perhaps the best cake I have ever eaten”. So put on your aprons, and let´s cook the best cake ever to end what was to many, the crappiest year ever.

American Christmas Dessert Food

An American Christmas Cookie Recipe

December 14, 2020

Years ago, my friend Will shared with me a cookie recipe that, coming Christmas, I have done over and over again (just last week I did three rounds of it). Will got this recipe from Carol, one of his friends´ mom and I think I would kiss her if I ever met her. As someone that sucks at baking sweets, I am just so grateful that this recipe has few ingredients, is ready in 10 minutes and there´s pretty much nothing (except for overbaking) that you can do to mess it up. My secret add-on? Sea salt. I use a pinch of chunky sea salt and every single cookie that retains a grain of salt has this delicious salt – chocolate flavour that will knock your socks off. Oh and did I mention these cookies are the perfect Christmas present? #biscuChallenge accepted!

International Dessert Food

Oreo, Chocolate Ganache and Raspberry Tart

November 30, 2020

For someone that doesn´t bake, or prepare many sweets herself, it might seem like I chose a quite complicate one this time. The word ganache alone makes it sound like I´m aspiring to be the next Julia Child. But fear not, this recipe is fairly easy to nail, even for the most inexperienced bakers out there (possibly because it does not involve baking). I first learned about it from my friend Violeta (yes, the same Violeta with the udon noodle soup) and I thought that with the holidays coming up, you might love it as much as I did. So, prepare for the most decadent #homemadeMonday yet, an Oreo base, chocolate ganache and raspberry tart. With a delicious Lindt chocolate addendum.

Romanian Dessert Food

Flavia and Nana´s Plum Dumplings

September 28, 2020

I truly believe that no food, no matter how many Michelin stars on it, quite compares to our grandmas´ recipes. So when my best friend, Flavia, discovered her grandmother Nana´s plum dumpling recipe, written on a yellowing piece of paper in the back of her recipe book, we decided she just had to try it out and if we were going to be happy with the result, we´d share it with you. Flavia slightly tweaked the recipe and as such we can no longer call it Nana´s Plum Dumplings. It has become, even if she´s no longer here to taste it, Flavia and Nana´s Plum Dumplings recipe. And while we´re quite big in Romania on plum dumplings (my Instagram is full of them lately!) – these are no doubt, the best I have ever had. My friend Flavia is a master baker and runs a super colourful food account with her friend Sabina where she also posted the recipe in Romanian there, find them on Instagram at @povesti.aromate . So without further ado, this #homemadeMonday ´s #guestchefseries brings you the most phenomenal Romanian dessert of all.