FLORENTiNES

This recipe is based on Ottolenghi's florentine recipe. It is incredibly easy and goes perfecly with chocolate mousse or any ice cream or sorbet. It's perfect if you don't have the time to make a complicated dessert but still want to bake something. You can prepare them a few days in advance and store them in a airtight container. Plus, it's very light, the orange zest gives a great flavor and you can even try to convince yourself it's pretty healthy!

iNGREDiENTS:

• 2 egg whites
• 100 gr icing sugar
• 250 gr flaked almonds
• grated zest of 1 orange

RECiPE:

• Preheat your oven at 150°C (300°F).
• Stir all your ingredients in a bowl: egg whites + icing sugar + almonds + zest.
• Dip you hand in a bowl of water and pick up portions of the mix to make little mounds on a pre-oil parchment paper. Be sure to spaced them apart (like for cookies).
• Dip a fork in water and flatten each biscuit very thinly. Make them as thin as possible without creating too many gaps. (about 8cm in diameter)
• Bake for 12 minutes or until the biscuit are golden brown.
• Allow to cool and remove biscuits gently with a palette knife. 
• ET VOiLA !

AVOCADO, CARROT & ORANGE SALAD

This recipe is based on April Bloomfield's recipe. I was looking at her book (A girl and her pig) at a friend's house the other day and this salad recipe started screaming at me: "try me! try me!" Yes, sometimes books can talk. You should listen more carefully.

The lightly warm roasted carrots combine with orange, avocado and cilantro is perfect ! What a great way to eat something healthy yet tasty after a food feast made of caramel cookies and chocolate fondant, eh?

iNGREDiENTS:
-serve 3-

• 15 young carrots, unpeeled, half of the green tops left on
• 1 big orange
• 2 small avocados
• 2 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
• 1/2 tsp cumin seeds, toasted and ground
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 tbs pumpkin seeds
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• juice of half a lemon
• Cilantro
• Salt

RECiPE:

• Preheat oven at 200°C (400°F)
• Clean and cut your carrots (like you would a lemon) leaving half of the green top on them.
• Pound garlic with a large pinch of salt until you have a smooth paste.
• In a bowl, stir: 2 tbsp olive oil + garlic paste + cumin + pepper flakes + pumpkin seeds.
• Place carrots in a large baking dish in a single layer. Add oil and spice mixture and stir. Add one large pinch of salt and toss again.
• Pour 2 tbsp of water into the baking dish.
• Cover tightly with foil and cook for 25 minutes.
• After 25 minutes, remove foil and cook for 35 minutes more or until carrots are lightly browned and tender.
• While carrots cool, peel orange and segment it.
• Halve avocados lengthwise and remove peel and pits. Slice them lengthwise into thick slices.
• Put the avocado slices in a large bowl. Add lemon juice + 2 tbsp oil + a pinch of salt. Toss gently with your hands.
• Add orange slices and cool carrots. Stir very gently and arrange with cilantro on top. Serve right away.
• ET VOiLA !

APPLE AND ORANGE TEA CAKE

This cake is a variation of a cake I make all the time. It's a butter/oil free tea cake with apple and orange zest. So no butter, no oil but a lovely and creamy mascarpone cheese, mostly used to make the famous Italian Tiramisu. Mascarpone gives a light and moist texture to the cake, and the orange zest a nice perfumed flavour. This recipe is really simple to make and you will only need one bowl. So if you are tired of doing the dishes, this is for you!

iNGREDiENTS:

• 250 gr mascarpone
• 220 gr organic cane sugar (preferable but not essential)
• 250 gr all purpose flour
• 3 eggs
• zest of half a lemon
• 1 small orange (zest + juice of half of the orange)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 big apple
• 1 pear (the pear will bring more moistness to the cake)

RECiPE:

• Preheat your oven at 180°C (350°F)
• In a bowl, stir together: mascarpone + sugar + eggs, until creamy.
• Add: flour + baking powder and stir again.
• Add the lemon and orange zest + juice of half the orange. Stir again.
• Peel and core the apple and the pear and cut them in pieces. This time I cut them in thin small slices but depending on how you like it, you can also make big pieces.
• Add them to the batter and stir one last time.
• Put the batter into a prepared baking pan (greased with butter). 

• Bake from 40 to 60 minutes, when a skewer will come out clean, it's done. The baking time will really depend on your oven and cake pan size. Start checking after 30 minutes. You might have to cover the cake with foil after about 30min to stop the top from over-browning.
• ET VOiLÀ!