Recipe- Mushroom and Pesto puffs

pesto-mushroom in puff pastry

Who doesn’t like fresh pastry in the morning? nowadays we are spoiled with varieties of pies and deliciously filled puff pastries in the mornings on the street or at train stations or at our local deli shop. Also we don’t have to spend hours in the kitchen rolling our own puff pastry even if it’s a very rewarding excercise, and can just easily grab a ready rolled one in the supermarket. We can take it home and fill it with anything we got or desire.

I used to make these ones to my ex-boyfriend, he loved them..i had to keep baking and baking and once I stopped and we broke up. Hahah ok I’m only joking but he and our guest just loved them. I also havent made these for a while, the apartment I was renting for a while in Birmingham wasn`t really chef-friendly meaning it was impossible to cook in it! I moved home and I realised im missing something, yes the MUSHROOM PUFFS!!! It is a  crowd pleaser, also they are easy to make.  They are a bit tricky cos, you can easily finish a whole tray while just having a chat with someone.

Ingredients (12-15 pcs)

frozen or fresh sheets of puff pastry from supermarket (or your own rolled one)

2 handful of mushrooms-sliced (if you mix mushrooms it’s even better for a nicer look and taste)

1 egg

half of an onion-diced

3 spoons of basil pesto

a bit of parmesan cheese

• Over medium heat cook the onions for 2 minutes, add the mushroom, cook until ready.
• Mix the mushrooms with the pesto
• roll out the puff pastry, slice about  5-6 cm squares, place a small spoon of mushroom mix in the middle
• brush with egg mix
• put it in 190C pre-heated oven for 15-20 minutes, or untill golden brown.
• When ready, sprinkle the top with fresh parmesan.
  
• Enjoy!

Tips: Always put baking paper under the pastry. Leave space between the squares as they going to double their size while baking!

Related Articles

• Learn to Cook: Simple Pesto (wholefoodsmarket.com)
• Mini Mushroom Quiches (notecook.com)
• Puff the Magic Pastry (confectionsofamasterbaker.blogspot.com)
• The Guilty, Pleasured Vegetarian (teachstreet.com)

Recipe: Mango and Passionfruit cheesecake.

Now as a self-confident cheesecake-baker, which means 3 successful cakes in a row, I started to experiment. Sometimes I read the “Cheesecake Factory`s” menu as in inspiration, trying to not to look at the pictures as my heart would break. Cheesecakes are pretty much good with anything of course fruit wise, and when you know what you are doing, they are also rewarding and easy! Baking is fun, and the results are getting better and better with some practice. So when I had a few mangoes in my fridge, I thought why not? Mango cheesecake here I come!

But I thought mangoes by themself are not enough, I wanted something special, and also something sour. When in my cocktail cabinet I found an old bottle of Monin passionfruit cocktail base. The 2 fruits are just great together. If you don’t have any passionfruit, you could also try some blackberry or cranberry cordial, they work good as well!

ingredients

• 2 hand-full of plain small biscuits broken into small pieces
• 150g of melted butter
• 600g of PHILADELPHIA creme cheese:)
• 2 eggs
• 2 ripe mangoes
  
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• vanilla extract
• 1 lemon
• 2 tbsp of sour creme
• cold whipcreme
• 1 fresh passionfruit or passionfruit pulp..like Monin.

Preheat the oven for 18cC. Mix the melted butter with the biscuit, 2 tbsp of sugar, vanilla, and juice of half a lemon in a bowl. Mix it well together, until it becomes soft. Lay it down equally on your cake base and put it in the oven for about 10 minutes.

In a bowl mix the creme cheese, with the sugar, and sour creme. Add the egg yolks 1 at a time, mix it well. Whip the egg whites until it becomes a nice white foam, and fold it in the creme cheese mix carefully with a plastic spatula. Add some vanilla extract, the other half of the lemon juice and the whipped creme.

Take the biscuit base out of the oven. Lay down the fruits, and pour over the cheese mix. Bake for about 20 minutes. Let it set and cool before u take it out of the base. Serve cold!

Mango and passionfruit cheesecake

Budapest: Sugar! review

Sugar! Shop Paulay Ede street 48 District VI, Budapest

If you are hungarian or live in Hungary you must have read about this place in some fashion magazine, or design page, or watched a program on the local culinary channel. Sugar! was a big hit among Budapest cake lovers a few years ago.  Even when it was hidden a IV. district residential area, which was hard to reach by public transport. Children, and adults went crazy when they saw the places design with M&M`s filled tables and colourful pies, heart-shaped mousse and even more magical wedding and birthday cakes. Even Sarah Jessica Parker received a custom-made Sex and the City gift from them. Oh and theres the shop, from wasabi tasting lip gloss to fluffy telephones and tones of jelly belly its a crowd pleaser. No wonder they were going to open a new shop somewhere in the city center, because nobody understood why it has to be so far-far away? The reason for its first location was the actual Hortvath cake shop and patisserie, which had a very nice name among the districts residents, and the owner and founder of sugar is a lucky member of this sweet loving family.

So, now in the heart of Budapest, on Paulay E. street just a few minutes away from the Opera House, or Octogon or Andrassy street, for a bout a year now, we can enjoy the Sugar! cakes.  So if you visiting, moving, studying in this beautiful city and you like your cakes, you should really check it out! Of course there are some things ou should know before you enter and you order.

Just as everything, Sugar! isn’t too perfect as well. My problem is sometimes that in the cakes they put more effort on the design then on the actual taste. So, this why please don`t buy cupcakes there..those are horrible! But, I do recommend the pies and the cheesecakes, pretty much all of them! especially the sour-cherry and the deluxe pie, or the strawberry and banana..or you know..any of them!:) If you are in for something special try any of the milk rice combinations..my favourite is the vanilla based rice with sour strawberry topping! Most of the mousse look good, but we found them tasteless..such like the chocolate-chilli and the lavender mousse were good looking but empty inside..like a bad date! If you around maybe you can still taste some from their Tokyo collection monsters. They look so cute you don’t even want to eat them, but the treat you’ll find inside is really worth to destroy some of these blue or red japanese monsters. Of course there are shakes and lemonades, and yes, they are all fabulous. My problems with the lemonades are that there’s a bit too many things in them and not enough liquid.. so you can’t really enjoy it, not to mention when the fruit gets sucked in the straw and you can’t drink from the glass as you get hit in the face by falling mints and ice. So yes there are ways I can criticise Sugar! but there is a reason I go back from time to time. It`s good, it`s fun and tasty!