Mojito cheesecake

An ideal option as a light and refreshing desert for your summer party. If you prepare this original treat for your friends you will surely amaze them and become true cocktail queen 😉  

40 g unsalted butter
300 g almond or cacao biscuits
110 g caster sugar
juice of 4 limes
zest of 1 lemon
1 large cup of mint leaves
200 ml of white rum
250 g mascarpone
300 g cream cheese
Decoration: mint leaves, quarters of lemon slices, flower, grated white or dark chocolate

First crush all the biscuits in the food processor and mix the biscuits crumbs with melted butter. Press mixture to the base of 12 serving glasses and leave to chill in the fridge.
Meanwhile in a pan bring to the boil sugar and half of the volume of white rum. Stir until sugar gets completely dissolved, then simmer for about 5 minutes. Add juice of limes, zest of lemon, mint and  the rest of the rum. Remove form heat and let to infuse for about 20 minutes.
In a large bowl combine mascarpone with cream cheese. Strain syrup through a sieve, pressing down to extract as much flavour as possible. Whiz the syrup in a processor with mascarpone and cheese. Then just spoon into glasses. Chill for at least one hour to set. When ready to serve, garnish each glass with slice of lemon, mint leaves, flower or grated chocolate.

Black & white ricotta cake

One of my mum’s favorite. It is quite heavy but delicious and surely these sweet calories would make you happy 🙂

base:

40 dkg flour
1 tablespoon cacao powder
250 g unsalted butter
1.5 teaspoon of raising powder
1 yolk
3 tablespoons milk

ricotta filling:

3/4 kg ricotta
3 yolks
1 tablespoon of flour
30 g sugar
30 g vanilla sugar
zest from one bigger lemon
4 egg whites

In the food processor mix all ingredients for the base. Prepare well homogenous hard dough, form a small ball from it, wrap it in cling film and leave it in the fridge for one hour. Meanwhile in a large bowl combine ricotta, yolks, flour, sugar and lemon zest, make sure that sugar gets dissolve completely. Then separately whisk whites into solid meringue and slowly combine with ricotta cream.
Preheat the oven to 180ºC and prepare baking tray. Grease it with margarine and dust it with flour. Then take the hard dark dough for base from the fridge and grate it into small peaces over the surface of the tray to cover it homogeneously. On the top spread the ricotta cream and leave to bake about 40 minutes at 180ºC until the surface turns golden brown and cakes starts to smell nicely. Bon apetite!

Breakfast for lovers

This desert consists of chocolate sponge, much lighter than typical chocolate brownies, thick vanilla custard, little bit of whipped cream and strawberries. Any doubts why I consider it as perfect sweet breakfast for lovers? Moreover this recipe is really simple and fast. Thus you can create delicious treat for somebody special and your cake will not be too heavy nor too sweet but surely brings lot of pleasure… 

RECIPE:

100 g margarine
100 g caster sugar
100 g flour
1.5 teaspoons of raising powder
2 medium eggs
25 g cocoa powder
2 tablespoons of milk
for custard: one packet of custard (vanilla cream)
                   half of the recommended volume of milk (usually 250 ml)
    40 g sugar
for topping: strawberries
whipped cream
    

Preheat oven to 180oC. Place all ingredients into a bowl and mix with an electric whisk until you get light and creamy cake mixture. Grease and line 20 cm round cake tin and pour the dough. Bake about 30-35 minutes until the cake springs back when lightly toughed. Let the cake cool down slowly in open oven. Meanwhile prepare custard by mixing the powder for vanilla cream with milk and sugar on low heat. When the cream starts to boil it gets rapidly very thick. Remove it from the heat, you can even transfer it to a cold bath and keep mixing it until the cream gets cold. Constant stirring is important to avoid lumps and creating dried crust on top of the cream. Spread the custard over the top of chocolate sponge cake, decorate with whipped cream, strawberries or any other fruits that you like. Bon appetite, enjoy…!

Pineapple Ravioli With Mascarpone Cream

This simple light dessert very pleasantly surprised me in one spanish restaurant in the Czech Republic. It is probably an invention of skilled czech cook who got inspired in southern Europe but I would not go any further in guessing where the recipe comes from. It could be from anywhere and I would very much recommend it to everyone.

RECIPE:

1 ripe pineapple
0.5 l hot water
250 g mascarpone
3 vanilla sugars
0.5 teaspoon cinnamon
few drops of almond aroma
for finishing: sprig of mint, raspberries or vanilla ice cream or chocolate

Cut the top and bottom off the pineapple and carefully take the skin off. Then cut very thin circle slices of pineapple starting from its middle of the fruit. For the moment don’t worry about any ragged edges. Next bring a water to the boil in the middle-size saucepan. Add few finely sliced pineapple, take the pan off the heat and leave 10-15 minutes until the slices get tender. Let the pineapple slices cool down either in the water or outside on the plate.
Meanwhile mix well mascarpone cream with vanilla sugar, cinnamon and almond aroma. Very gently lay each cold pineapple slice on the plate, fold it in half and cut the ragged edges to form a perfect ravioli shape (you can use a pastry cutter to create a decorative edge to your ravioli). Fill each ravioli with mascarpone cream and serve with a bit of dark chocolate, hot raspberries or vanilla ice cream. Add sprig of mint and enjoy it!