Cinnamon Challenge: Accepted.

I'm starting to think that working weeks look much more promising when I can start them off with a slice of something sweet - which makes me dread the thought of tomorrow morning, as I baked no cake this weekend.
So much for my colleagues always wondering where I find the time to cook: the truth is that if you don't make time yourself for the things you love, no one will make it for you - and when you'll realise that you have slowly, inexplicably lost something precious, it'll be too late to take it back. 

All this, to introduce today's recipe: both a great start to the past week, and the final fulfilment of a challenge I had avoided for more than one year after a first series of indisputable failures.
Apparently, brewer's yeast was no friend of mine until one week ago, as I had tried to use it many times before, and never seemed to figure out quite how it worked. Instead of soft and fluffy doughs, I got flat and despairingly hard focaccias, deformed rolls, unfulfilling breads...until I decided not to use dried yeast ever again, since even following recipes to the tiniest detail seemed not to be enough to guarantee success.
And then I discovered cinnamon rolls.
I had never seen one back in Italy, but here they're just everywhere. A temptation that's hard to resist, screaming "Eat me, please!" from every café counter...but also radiating Butter, so much Butter that I never really dared to treat myself to one.
It was quite surprising to find that the recipe doesn't involve as much Evil Butter as I feared, and it was with much less guilt feeling that I finally resolved to try them at home. But Problem Number Two lied in ambush, meaning that I had to choose between resuming my battle with brewer's yeast and risking another defeat, or giving up on the Cinnamon Challenge: you'll see for yourself what I went for (unsurprising, how could I resist?), and yes, I have won, so why are you not erecting a monument to Queen Baker NOW?

Cinnamon Rolls

 Ingredients for the dough (about 10-12 rolls):

- 125ml skimmed milk;
- 25g butter or spread;
- 260g flour;
- 50g plain sugar;
- 1/2 tablespoon cinnamon;
- 1 egg;
- 1 sachet dried yeast;
- 1/2 teaspoon salt.

Ingredients for the filling:

- 90g brown sugar;
- 1 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon;
- 30 g butter, softened.

Recipe:

- Start preparing the dough: melt the butter in a saucepan, together with the milk, taking care of not bringing to the boil. Pour the mixture in a bowl, and add all the sugar, cinnamon, egg, yeast and salt, and 70g flour.
- Knead thoroughly for about 3-5 minutes, then add the remaining 190g, and continue kneading until you have used up all the flour. Of course, feel free to add more of it if the batter is too sticky.
- Knead for 10 more minutes on a clean surface (on which you will have previously spread a little flour), until the dough is smooth and elastic. Finally, put it in a bowl greased with a little oil, cover it with cling film and a cloth, and leave aside to raise for about 2 hours, or until it becomes twice its size.
- Prepare the filling, mixing brown sugar with cinnamon, and softening the butter until it is creamy enough to be spreadable  - but not completely melted.
- Two hours later...get back to the dough: spread it evenly on the floured kitchen top, in a rectangular shape, about 14x19cm big. Spread the butter on the surface, leaving 1cm "empty" border on each side, and then pour the cinnamon and sugar mixture evenly on the buttery area.
- Roll up the dough, starting from its long side, and pressing gently with your hands to keep it tight.
- Keeping the sealed side down, cut the roll in 10-12 slices of the same size, about 1.5-2cm thick. Put them in an oven dish, greased with butter or lined with baking paper.
- Once again, cover the oven dish with cling film and a cloth, and leave aside for about 45 minutes, until the rolls have become twice their size.
- Last but not least...pre-heat the oven to 190°, and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the rolls from the oven dish as soon as they're ready, and put them on a grill, leaving aside to cool for about 10 minutes.

To my experience, you can store them for about 3 days in a hermetic box; to be honest, I would have tasted one immediately - and I suspect that they would have tasted much better when still warm -, hadn't it been Saturday evening and almost dinner time. They were excellent the morning after, though, and still delicious on Monday and Tuesday,  when I brought them to work for breakfast.
In your face, brewer's yeast! I'm so excited about this success, that I'm making homemade pizza tonight...so please, don't let me down, will you?

(On air: Belle and Sebastian - The blues are still blue.)

So this is the new year.

When does it start being too late to say happy new year?

I don' think I actually said it to anyone this time, apart perhaps from my parents, so when I got back to work (January 4th), and popped into the warehouse room to say hi to my colleagues, I felt a little puzzled to be welcomed with a joyous "happy new year!".

This new year is starting to sound too much like the old one. I'm glad I never make any resolutions, because I'd probably have failed at one or two of them already during these mere two weeks.
If I had been the resolution kind of person, I might have resolved to get rid of my fear of flying, for a start. Can you imagine how many places in the workld I would like to visit, and how many of them are too far for my 2-hour flight limited autonomy? No, you can't, because the number is too high even for myself to recall.
Well, my first flight of 2012 was an absolute nightmare. Later on, I have been told that England was undergoing a sort of tropical storm, and I have no doubts about it, if I go by the hellish turbolences that I experienced on the plane.
That reminded me of what I hate the most about flying alone: when something happens, if something happens, there's no one to hold your hand, or hug you close, or tell you that everything is going to be alright. Which is exactly what I needed that day, as I seriously thought that I would die - if not because of the storm, because of my own anxious cries, that I tried to repress all along (come on, there's people here), only managing to turn them into deep breaths and desperate, still-too-loud sighs.
I must have looked so frightened that the guy sitting beside me felt compelled to ask me if I was alright - and I, who usually reply everything's fine, thank you, even when I obviously look distressed, said something like no, and then something like I've done this so many times, and I still can't believe that these things can safely land.
You wanted to go to London, honey? Tough luck, you're doomed to fly.
In my next life, I'll choose anywhere else I can reach by train. Paris is 14 hours away from home, could be worse, huh?

No, I've got no resolutions for this year - certainly not becoming a better person (you're free to decide whether I'm implying that I'm already perfect, or that I don't give a fuck), or losing weight (who, me?), and not even, alas, learning Spanish, which I had taken up last year, and then abandoned because I had no time: now I have even less.

The only thing I'll seriously try to stick to is writing. I'd love, for once, not to fail.
I resumed carrying around my notebook, for a start. That seems to work, judging from the fragments I jot down while in the tube, glad that my efforts to keep hold of my passing thoughts throughout the day are rewarded by at least a few lines every day. However, everything still looks so messed up, so work in progress, so precarious: nothing that justifies my pride, for the moment, nothing that I have never done before. Those fragments need a thread, and it'd better be a strong one. My resolution, then, would be to find it. And yes, I'm always up for an improbable challenge, if you ask.

Speaking of way less improbable challenges, instead (speaking, that is to say, of absolutely feasible, totally possible, utterly worthwhile challenges), let me show you what I baked last week.

Make-believe Victoria Sponge

(looks like the real thing, doesn't it?)

 

This comes from my Indisputable Baking Bible, that is to say a huge (and, alas, too heavy for a Ryanair checked in baggage) cookbook that had been on sale at my town's biggest library for a couple of months a few years ago. I had been ostensibly perusing it quite a few times, hoping that someone would notice my interest -  and then, the following December, I found it nicely wrapped under the christmas tree, together with an enormous box full of kitchen utensils (my mom, who had been plotting the present for weeks, joked "see, now you've got the theory and the practice!". Now isn't she lovely, when she makes an effort?).

My cookbook collection has been getting bigger and bigger over the years, but this one is still my favourite. I'm still trying to figure out how to bring it over from Italy; in the meantime, while at home for holidays, I made do with some photocopies; this was the first one on the "to bake" list.

It does look like a Victoria Sponge, but it is not - mainly because there is no butter, and because I haven't used raspberry jam, which I didn't have at home. And it does look like an Angel Food cake, as well, but there are far less eggs than in the original recipe, and the yolks need to be used as well. So, what shall we call it? Angel Sponge? Victoria Food? Whatever, who cares about the name. Isn't the taste what really matters?

Ingredients:

- 60g plain flour;
- 60g self-raising flour;
- 4 eggs;
- 160g sugar,
- 4 tablespoons jam (that is, whatever jam you feel like using - if you're unsure, go for blackcurrant, I can guarantee that's a rather good choice);
- 125ml whipped cream.

Recipe: 

- Sift all the flour for three times (I did it twice - that becomes quite complex, when you have to use a grater instead of the sift that you wish you had bought beforehand).
- Beat the egg whites until stiff; add the sugar, gradually, until it melts with the whites, forming a thick and soft cream. Add the egg yolks, and continue beating for around 20 seconds.
- Add the flour to create the batter. Split it evenly into two greased cake tins - or, for the poor and resourceful, pour it all into one tin; later, instead of laying one cake above the other, you will simply have to cut the one you made in two halves, lengthways.
- Pre-heat the oven to 180°, and bake for 20 minutes, until soft and golden brown. Leave aside for 5 minutes, then remove the cake(s) from the tin and cool down.
- Prepare the filling: spread the jam on one cake (or one cake half), then spread the whipped cream on top. Cover with the second cake (or half), and sprinkle with icing sugar before serving.

By the seventh day, God had finished the work He had been doing. Lucky him, I have not.

I hate eating alone. Absolutely, completely hate it. Sure, I got used to it - you have no choice, once you leave home and start living on your own -, but I still hate it.

I hate cooking meals for one, mostly: I usually end up screwing up the quantities, and eat either too little or too much, which is annoying, either way. And I always fall upon the same dishes, over and over again, because there's no point in trying something different when no one can share it with you.

Tuesday night was one of those nights - and, to be honest, during the whole day I have caught myself dreading the thought of the empty house I would go back to at the end of my shift.

Empty house, empty pans, empty stomach.

Food makes me much happier, when I can cook it for someone; as a matter of fact, rather than having dinner alone I prefer not to have dinner.

Screw it, I thought, at least I'll have some time to write.

There's a short story I have been thinking about for weeks, actually, and I have written only half of it, so that night should have been a good time to write further. I thought, and thought, and thought about it - on the office, on the tube - and when I finally sat down in front of the screen, pop! My mind went completely blank.

Which is usually not a problem, as my rule of thumb for writing is "if you can't remember it two hours after having thought about it, then it wasn't worth it from the start"; but damn. The alternative to writing was finding a convenient pastime that didn't consist in sitting in front of a screen, and I didn't have one, so I can safely say that I wasted a consistent part of my ever-shrinking spare time on that Terrible Tuesday.

Well done, yay! As it always happens, the following day, while heading towards the train station praying god that the rings under my eyes were not that evident, all the clever things I wanted to write came to my mind again. And there was not going to be another girl's night in to catch up, because this week - hear this, guys - I was scheduled to work on a Saturday.

No, no, no. Let's be more specifical: yesterday I went to the office because I asked for it.

Yeah, right. File it under "things you are willing to do to get an extra day off and fly back home for a few days at christmas". My holiday'd better be awesome, cause I won't settle for less after such a week.

Speaking of which, here's how it went:

Day one: I try to send a parcel to Halifax, and miserably fail, because after devoting half of my lunch break to the quest for the post office (which was inside a Costcutter I hadn't even noticed - what's wrong with clear directions and signs?), I realise that the recipient's address is written in my daily planner, and my daily planner is on my desk, back at the office.

Day two: I try to go to the bank to cash a cheque, and miserably fail, because the bank is not where it's supposed to be according to the map (thank you Barclays Branch Finder, I'll surely trust you again).

Day three: I try my luck at the post again. I spend ten minutes arguing with the guy at the counter because he doesn't want to print a posting receipt for me, not even after being showed samples of receipts I got from every other single post office I have been to during the past two months. And I have to capitulate, because it's getting late, my break is almost over, and I still have to have lunch.

Day four: Dead calm, for once. Surprising, huh?

Day five: I suffer in silence every time I hear someone saying thank god it's Friday or I'm so much looking forward to the weekend!.  

And it's not actually a bad day, per se; however, I get home so tired that I'd rather shoot myself than wake up at 7 for one more day. But I still try not to complain, because I asked for it, right?

Yeah, Right.

Day six: I go to work, try to get something done at work - well, actually, I do get something done at work, but not all of it. I guess that on Tuesday I will risk being killed, as three of the four 300-page important invoices that had been left there for me to check are still untouched (ah, the perks of sharing the office with the company's Head of Finance!).
At the end of the day, heading to Soho to meet my friends is absolutely out of question for the human derelict I have turned into - so I flee back home for a much more relaxing pizza-and-football night, falling asleep 5 minutes before the end of Real Madrid vs. Barcellona.

Day seven: Despite having earned the right to stay in bed until 1pm, I'm up and dressed at 8am because my throat is [insert swear word here] aching for whatever mysterious [insert swear word here] reason it conjured up on its own, and I can't [insert swear word here] sleep. 

The plan for today is to pretend being in good shape and go meet my parents - who are here because tomorrow there is my awards ceremony, and they are still determined not to miss it, although they admittedly don't understand one word of English (guess who will have the privilege of translating?).
It's going to be...interesting, to say the least. Or it would be interesting, if it was happening to someone else. But it's happening to me, and I'd rather forget about the ceremony and the graduation and all the hype and enjoy my day off without a care.

You'll agree with me that, if I survived this week, that was only be because of what I knew I would find in my fridge at the end of the day.

Amaretti with coffee and mascarpone

(and welcome to today's guest star: my lovely* and amazing* boyfriend, who actually made these mostly by himself. Alas, how I wish I was the daughter of a former chef too.)

I'm not a big fan of mascarpone, actually. I was a little worried about how it would affect the biscuits' taste, especially since no sugar is involved in the preparation, but I changed my mind as soon as I had the first bite.

I should have known better, of course: how on earth can an otherwise reasonably smart human being have doubts about something involving amaretti?

Sorry, Lord Amaretto, I won't do it anymore. These biscuits are simply amazing, and I'm trying really hard to keep myself from rushing to the kitchen and having another one. Two. Three.

As for how to make them, there's hardly anything easier.

Just soak the amaretti biscuits with coffee (I poured the coffee in a bowl and then plunged them in - and that's all I did as far as this recipe is concerned, really), and divide them into pairs: put a teaspoon of mascarpone on the flat side of one biscuit, then attach a plain biscuit, making a sort of sandwich.

As soon as each biscuit is ready, roll it in grated coconut, and put it on a plate (we used the baking tin, and covered it with a plate to protect the biscuits). Finally, put everything in the fridge, and wait at least 4 hours before serving.

See, it's really easy to make. You have no excuses not to try - so buy those [insert swear word here]** amaretti, and head to the kitchen. Now.

(on air: The Cure - Friday I'm in love)

(* = these are not my words, of course. I certainly wouldn't attribute such flattering adjectives to His Remarkable Person*, if he hadn't agreed to pay me a fee of £20 per compliment; this is business, baby, how dare you call it love?)

(** = Yes, I swear a lot, in real life. And  I can't even convince myself that it's a bad thing. But then, you can't really grow up in a country village in North-eastern Italy and talk like a lady, can you?)

Forever alone - hey, that's me!

So we are having this party, tonight: a party that we have been planning for ages, since our former flatmate informed us that he would be moving out in two weeks that later became one whole month, and that, since no one was meant to replace him, we would finally be able to access the backyard, have a living room, and use the house like it's meant to be used: three bedrooms, three people, and one lounge.

Like all potentially good things, the living room craze lasted about one week: we barely had the time to clean up and put the PS3 gloriously beside the television screen, that our other flatmate asked the landlady to swap rooms and take the one downstairs. To which the landlady said yes, but you are going to pay a higher rent, and i'm going to find someone to take the small room.
And here we are: we will soon be four again, four and unable to go outside and pet the neighbours'cat. Or to have friends round and chill out outside the kitchen, for that matter. Yeah, sad story is sad. But what's sadder is that we organised this party, tonight - conceived as house-warming, turned into Farewell Living Room and Social Life - and no one's coming.

I invited my classmates from uni and a few other friends, and my boyfriend fueled my celebrative spirit by promising that all his ex-colleagues would be there; we came up with a list of little less than twenty people, which is a lot for a couple of socially awkwards as we are, and chances are that we will actually be no more than six, because all the others didn't even bother to reply.
Goodbye to my positive disposition and hope that everyone will have fun, then: I suspect that, as always, I will end up feeling responsible for my guests, which means feeling crap because I invited them to something they disliked.

Fuck, I hate organising parties. And I hate the emo-teen-like sensation that I always get in these situation, the kind of feeling that sounds like no one gives a damn about my party, which means that no one gives a damn about me, which means that I screwed up with everyone and I don't know why.
Seriously: why do most people in the world only have to say ah to be surrounded by friends, while I'm unable even to have the people I made friends with over the past year come and have a drink at my house?
It's frustrating; I hope, at least, that the dessert I invented from scratch this afternoon will taste good, but I guess you'll find out in my next post.

For this one, since we're talking about half-failures, let me introduce you to my half-failed muffins. They were supposed to be delicious - and they are, indeed - but they were not supposed to be so small.
Why are they so small, you ask? Well, because the chef is an idiot, for a start: I guess they would have been the right size if I had made eight of them like the recipe said, and not twelve.
They should have also represented my first serious try at decent food photography, but I discovered far too rapidly that my kitchen is the worst location ever for that. I guess I'll try again when I'll have the money to have my own house and my own lifestyle-magazine-like kitchen; for the moment, I cannot even afford Ikea, fancy that.

Ricotta and Chocolate Chip Muffins

(I found the original recipe on an Italian forum, so I guess there's no point in pasting the link)

Ingredients for 8 muffins (eight, understood?):

125g flour;
60g sugar;
50g butter;
50g milk chocolate;
125g ricotta cheese;
¼ glass milk (I use skimmed milk, but you can change that if you prefer);
½ sachet baking powder;
1 egg.

Recipe:

- Melt the butter in a heatproof bowl, over simmering water; remove it from the hob and mix it with the sugar.
- Add the egg and ricotta cheese, and beat well, until the batter is even; then, add the flour and baking powder.
- Pour the milk over the batter; mix well, and add the chocolate, which you will have previously chopped into not-too-small chunks.
- Pour the batter into a greased muffin tin, and bake for 20 minutes, at a temperature of 180°.


That's it, and it's terribly easy, if you are just a little smarter than me (which everyone potentially is, trust me).
In the end, the muffins were so tiny that I could have eaten all of them in one go; I'll definitely try them again, to experience the pleasure of having them full-size.

(On air: Delain - Frozen)

Still looking for god? Read here.

My first weekend after five whole days of work feels totally different from any other weekend I can get myself to remember. It is probably the first time that I can spend a whole Saturday morning sitting here, on my bed, writing on my laptop because I have no other significant plans...and not complain at all, not even one single time.

All in all, it's a much more relaxed feeling - which sounds strange, I agree, if we consider that waking up every morning at 7 is seriously putting my brain to the test, and leaving me dead tired and craving for sleep at just ten in the evening. But compare this to the disquiet, the despair of having little or nothing to do and feeling that you will have little or nothing to do for the rest of your life: whoever says that routine is hell, has probably never been unemployed, because once you finally build one it's impossible not to recognise that to a certain extent there's comfort in it.

My workplace is one hour away from where I live (unless the 7.33 train is late, unless I miss it, unless the tube gets stuck like it did yesterday evening), but even this is no big deal to me: I get to listen to some music, to read the papers, to read much more of the books I used to hopelessly carry around just to find that I didn't have time for them in the end. I plunge into human nature, search for the inspiration I feel I have lost as for my writing. And I relish the moment when I will be back home, looking forward to a satisfying dinner to make up for another tasteless Marks and Spencer sandwich.
Well, it would probably not be so tasteless, if I gathered the courage to go for full-fat tuna mayo or chicken and bacon and follow my colleagues to the checkout without feeling guilty. Forget having reduced fat food at lunch is definitely one of the lessons I learnt from my first week as a team secretary, but I'm afraid that it will take a lot of time before I actually put it into practice.
(The second lesson, if you ask, sounds like no matter how early you get up and dressed, you won't be really awake until you have your morning coffee. And as 7 a.m. is definitely too early to have breakfast at home, I don't manage to have my morning coffee until nine. )

You are free to warn me that I will start to loathe routine approximately at some point towards the middle of my second week, but I will say no more about the matter - not for now.
I guess all the above sounded plain boring, huh? I know, I know, you are waiting for the food; so be it.

There's a long story behind this cake.
I first heard about it from my mother, who had been going on for at least a couple of years about how good at baking this janitor at her school was, and about how amazingly delicious the cake she brought the teachers from time to time had proven to be, and about how much she regretted not being able to offer me a taster.
Give me the recipe, then, I used to reply. At least four times, if I remember well.
The first time she forgot to ask for it.
The second time she couldn't, because the janitor was seriously ill and off work for at least a couple of months.
The third time - well, the third time my mother did something really cute: she cut out a tiny slice of The Cake, sneaked it into a tissue and then into her bag, and brought it home. I remember I found it good. Yeah, well, the slice was too thin to actually call it by its name, which is no less than Divine Wonder. And no, I didn't get the recipe, not even then.
I got if the fourth time, together with another one (an apricot pie that I still haven't tried). So, to celebrate my depart to London, I baked it the week before leaving home, and felt as if I had just found the secret to recreate the most delicious dessert anyone had ever baked.

Since then, I guess I started associating it with celebration - as I didn't bake it again until last week, when I finally could fulfil my promise of making an amazing cake as soon as I got a job. I even took it to the office on Monday and Tuesday, for breakfast; you probably can imagine the pain I felt when I returned to my usual Weight-Watchers-yogurt-and-bran-flakes on Wednesday, but I surely don't wish you any of it.
What I wish you, instead, is to try this cake and go through the same epiphany that I experience any time I eat it. I'll certainly bake it again, one day or another: maybe when (and if) I get a pay rise?

Ricotta and amaretti cake

Base: 

- Mix 100g butter with 100g sugar; add 1 egg, 250g flour, baking powder and 1 tablespoon almond flavouring.
- Knead until firm and even, and spread inside a greased cake tin. 
Careful, though: you should not use all the batter, as you will need a little bit of it later, for the decoration. It's not easy to decide how much exactly to set aside: I tend to use about 3/4 of it for the tin, and my rule is that it has to be spread evenly on the bottom, but the borders should remain clear.

Cream:

- Mix 400g ricotta cheese with 2 tablespoons sugar; add 2 eggs and 150g amaretti biscuits, which you will have previously broken into crumbs.
- Pour the cream in the cake tin, over the base. 
- Decorate with another 50g amaretti crumbs, mixed with the batter you had previously set aside, broken into small pieces as well.
- Pre-heat the oven to 175°, and bake for about 30 minutes.
- MEET GOD. After it has cooled down, of course.

Hello early mornings, goodbye unemployment.

So, apparently the Great News of the Week is that I have a job.

Overall, it took me almost four months, hundreds of refusals, millions of no-replies, liters of tears and tons of mindless self-indulgence, but I finally got here; I still don't know how, and considering my self-esteem issues I probably never will, but hey: does it really matter?
I have a job. I have a job.

I survived a telephone interview during which I had actually sounded like an awkward mess (try answering to questions like what kind of person do you think we are looking for? while walking around Victoria Street in search of a quiet spot that you won't find. Try that, and then we'll talk), I survived a 3-hour trial that brought back to light my ancient troubles with mathematics and Microsoft Excel and answered to a series of tricky questions that the Spanish Inquisition could not have asked better.
(curious about why the hell an aspirant writer should look for a secretarial job? Because not all writers are good and potentially successful writers, for a start. And then because you don't get into publishing with just two degrees and an English as a Foreign Language certificate - but that doesn't mean that you cannot still be the kind of obsessive organisational nazi that makes a good secretary, does it?)
And then, after all of this and just when I was losing my hopes of ever getting back home to the huge pizza that was waiting for me in the fridge, I was offered the job. And I accepted, because I am precisely the kind of obsessive organisational nazi that makes a good secretary, and because I can always be a writer or a freelance translator during the evening, or the weekend, or even the lunch break.

I will now resist the temptation of singing The dog days are ove-errr, the do-oo-og days a-aaare done while manically jumping on my bed - mind you, just because the mattress will probably breathe its last if I do.
Oh, and because from next Monday I will have to wake up at 7 every morning, and have breakfast on the tube - of course, if I am lucky enough to get a seat.
I also imagine I will have poorer and quicker lunches, but that's not a big deal, considering that I absolutely need to lose some weight before I have to upgrade my whole wardrobe to a bigger size. In the meantime, celebration is mandatory - so, while waiting for a chance to bake the amaretti cake I had sworn I would make as soon as I got a job, I will treat you with another sweet delight, hoping that you will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed it last weekend.

Supposedly Healthy Marble Cheesecake

(freely inspired from here - of course, you can use full-fat ingredients if you prefer)

Ingredients:

- 90g reduced fat Digestive biscuits;
about 30g butter, melted (the recipe said 1 tablespoon, which means around 15g, but while making the crust I found that this wasn't enough - so I simply added some more);
- 680g low-fat cream cheese;
- 200g sugar
- 25g flour
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 4 large egg whites;
- 30g milk chocolate.

Recipe:

- Break the biscuits into small crumbs, and mix them with the melted butter in a bowl. Pour the batter in a greased cake tin, spreading it evenly until the bottom is entirely covered. Pre-heat the oven to 160° and bake for 8-10 minutes, then set aside until cool.
- Place the cream cheese in a large bowl, and beat it with a mixer until smooth (that is, if you are lucky enough to have a mixer. I still haven't got one, so I made do with beating by hand, and gave up on the challenge when my arm started aching. And although the cheese wasn't particularly smooth in the end, the cake was still delicious); add the sugar and flour, and keep on beating.
- Mix the vanilla extract and egg whites in a separate bowl, then add them to the cheese mixture.
- Pour the cream into the pan, above the biscuit base.
- Melt the chocolate; now this was the really difficult part. The recipe says you should just set the microwave to high speed and cook for no more than 1 1/2 minutes, but with my microwave this certainly didn't work: after two minutes, the chocolate was still unmelted, and not a bit softer than before. So I cooked it for one more minute, and after 60 tiny seconds it was...burnt!
Still can't explain that - and I surely won't explain you what kind of an awful smell had filled the kitchen by then. Luckily, there were a few squares of chocolate left in the cupboard, so I melted them in a heatproof bowl over simmering water. And, at last, I poured the heavenly melt over the cream, swirling with a fork to create some sort of decorative pattern.
- Last step, now: bake the cake at 160° for 35 minutes, or until almost set (the cheesecake should leave the side a little). Cool on a wire rack, then cover and chill at least 4 hours in the fridge.

Serve, and enjoy - and never forget the moral of the whole story: always keep some spare chocolate in your cupboard, sooner or later it will come in useful!

(on air: Florence and the Machine - Dog Days Are Over) 

Of muffins and ingratitude.

Despite not receiving one single piece of advice on the last post (which might mean, now that I think about it, that no one reads my blog), I eventually decided to turn this into a cook-blog.
It might actually do me some good - first, because I need to get used to be a regular at something again, and second, because I am starting to fear that my obsession with diets will rise again if I don't get a job and/or push my life back again on the right track soon. When the angel on the right shoulder says you know, losing some weight sounds so much like a good idea, and the devil on the left replies screw it, if eating makes you happy then it's exactly what you have to do - who does the self-esteem-less food addict listen to?
It's hard, it's always been hard. I guess it always will be. But that's another long and complicated story, and I hope you won't mind if I choose not to tell it.

Anyway, I want to cook, and cook, and cook again. Because it's fun, because it keeps me from thinking about practically anything else (apart from gosh, do I really have to wait for it to cool down before serving?), and because, trust me, nothing makes me more happy than a recipe gone right.
I also want to write, write, and write, and write again - so, what's better than blogging about food? I'll have one more good reason to cook without feeling guilty, and one more good chance to improve my writing.
Done deal, then. Stay tuned, because here comes something I have created myself.

Chocolate Coconut Muffins

(the chocolate sponge was store-bought, alas! But I hope I'll give a try at that as well, soon)

I was inspired by this recipe, which I actually intended to try on that fateful day. It was a Tuesday, if I can remember well - a typical English Summer Tuesday, whose promise of heavy showers of rain had made me give up on my resolution to dress up, get out, go to the library and work on my master thesis.
I was alone at home, and, as it alwas happens when I'm home alone on a rainy day with nothing to do (obviously the thesis doesn't count), I was sad. Sad, and with a couple spare eggs in the fridge. Which was actually the perfect combo, because cooking muffins would surely have made me happy and given a purpose to my boring afternoon.
Unfortunately, there were no pineapples or white chocolate in my cupboard, and at that point I was feeling too lazy to dress up, get out, walk ten minutes to the supermarket and then walk ten minutes back; this is when creativity became the keyword.

As you can see, the ingredients are slightly different comparing to the original:

- 180g plain flour
- 100g sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt (which I actually think I forgot, on that occasion - nevermind, that's one good reason to try again!)
-180ml skimmed milk (just because I'm a health freak; if you want to use semi-skimmed or wholemilk, that's perfectly fine)
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon Amaretto liquor (again, the only one I had at home)
- 90g milk chocolate chips
- 50g grated coconut.

The recipe per se is quite simple, but I'm proud of the result. You should obtain twelve muffins - and this is why I highly recommend you to set twelve chocolate chips aside before melting all the others. You'll see why...that was actually my own personal touch!

- To prepare the batter, mix the milk, egg and liquor, and then add the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar.
- Melt the chocolate chips (remember, all of them minus twelve!) in a bowl over simmering water, and add them as well, together with the grated coconut.
- Split the batter evenly into a greased muffin tin. First of all, put only one tablespoon in each muffin case; add one of the spare chocolate chips on top of this "base", and then cover it with another tablespoon of batter.
- Pre-heat the oven to 190°, and cook for about 15 minutes.
The outcome? Extremely moist muffins, with a chocolatey surprise in the middle. I usually fail miserably at first attempts, but this was a pleasant exception to the norm.

Then came the moral dilemma: as usual, the angel on my right shoulder, subtly whispering come on, you're most definitely not going to eat twelve muffins on your own.
I usually exploit my boyfriend for tastings, and he is usually more than happy to accept such a task, but we weren't planning to see much of each other that week, and the muffins had to go before they lost their softness. So, I decided to insert my flatmates into the equation.

It had been a long time since I last had cooked for them, and I also wanted to apologise for the way I had treated them during the past couple of weeks: true, they had been unclean as usual, they had let two bills expire and, on top of it all, they had thrown the loudest party ever, up until four in the morning and making as much noise as possible while I was trying to get some sleep (don't worry, if you want to be on your own and study this evening we won't disturb you!) - but I surely had overreacted to it all, and it wasn't fair to blame them for my being stressed, unsatisfied of my job and unwilling to make any effort to get my thesis done.
Let's prove them I'm still a good person, I told myself, leaving eight muffins in plain sight on the kitchen table. I added a funny note, and hoped that, if they didn't want to appreciate the thought, they still would appreciate the food. Well, guess how many muffins they ate? One. Out of eight.

I left them untouched for two more days, just in case they changed their minds, but nothing happened. So, what does this teach me? Indeed, not everyone deserves to be offered your food.
Or, more broadly: stop trying to be kind to people, they just don't care.
But that's a lesson I'll never learn, I'm afraid.

(On air: Phoenix - Armistice)

Here we go again.

My proverbial constancy is shaking.
I apologise to all those who used to read my posts (not that I think you are that many): it has been really a long time since I last felt something that resembled inspiration.

In the meantime, I have done plenty of things. I have completed (it was supposed to grant me some relevant working experience, but here I am, on the edge of a downright Unemployed Graduate's Crisis whose end I cannot actually foresee); I have spent three weeks of holiday between my overseas home and the seaside resort I used to consider as Heaven on Earth, looking for a bit of summer and finding nothing but my old friend, perpetual rain.
I have cried myself to insomnia, dreading the day I would have to step back on a plane and come back to London, because I knew what was expecting me here...and there it was, exactly as I had figured it: one month of excruciating labour, juggling between a master thesis I didn't want to write and a few weeks of house-hunting; a week of preparations for the move (which actually was one of the best things that could happen to me at that time - but hell knows how the positive changes are the ones whose effect lasts the least), and then forced passiveness. I have spent three weeks looking for jobs, without anything else to do from morning to dinner time, and it already feels like ages. Which is not reassuring at all, if I think that three weeks might actually turn into three months, three years, and then a whole life.

But I'll say no more about that: I already vented tons and tons of unrequested sadness on my friends, who certainly have better thoughts to think than me and my beginning-of-depression, and my parents, who deserve better than a whining, despondent, good-for-nothing daughter.
Things will get better; I am sure they will. I have always thought that what makes us suffer more is not our reason for suffering itself, but the fact that we don't know, and we cannot get to know, when bad times will end. And that's it, once again: not knowing when I will actually receive the invitation to the interview that will change my life for good is what really wears me out. If someone came up to me and told me "you'll get a job on that particular day" (yep, I've seen Donnie Darko, why do you ask?), I'd surely strive to enjoy the time in between as it deserves, because at least I would have the certainty that change is on its way.

Speaking about change, let's get straight to the point of this post.
I've been thinking that I maybe should give a little twist to this blog - make it a little more focused, turn it into something well-defined, rather than a simple collection of random, uneven rants by an unpleasant human being who has nothing better to do but complain (at least, not for the moment). The most interesting idea that has come up until now is to turn it into a food blog, each post having its own recipe; as I love cooking, and it is actually getting me through these days.Who knows, perhaps it could be an incentive for my proverbial constancy to come back.

But I'll be a good democrat, for once, and ask for your opinion as well.
Would you enjoy my recipes, or do you prefer the rants? I can do both, of course, multitasking is one of the main skills on my CV. So yeah, let me know. I am aware that I haven't got that many readers, but those who actually stop here and grant me a few minutes of their time are more than welcome to speak out their minds. In the meantime, here's a recipe for you; I highly recommend you try it, because it's far more than amazing, believe me.

Chocolate Truffle Torte
(as found in a huge chocolate cookbook I bought in Dublin for 3, three, euros. Call it a miracle.)

(and yeah, on the cookbook it looked much better. But if you're reading this blog, then looks shouldn't matter to you. Ha!)

Crust: 

Put 50g caster sugar and 2 eggs in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water. Whisk together until pale and resembling the texture of mousse. Sift in 40g flour and 25g cocoa powder, and mix gently. Pour into a greased cake tin and bake in the oven (220°) for 7-10 minutes, until risen and firm.
Transfer the crust to a wire rack to cool, and then put it back into the tin, which you will have washed and dried in the meantime. Finally, mix together 4 tablespoons strong black coffee and 2 tablespoons brandy, and brush the resulting liquid over the cake crust in the tin.

Cream:

Put 425g plain chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, and let it melt. Gently add the melted chocolate to 600ml whipped cream; pour the mixture over the crust, and let the cake chill in the fridge until the cream is firm.

Serve with cocoa and icing sugar sifted over the top, if you like. Et voilà!
You'll love it. I promise.

(on air: Bright Eyes - No lies, just love.)

Brain drain.

My initial proposition was, write at least once a week. Then my lazy brain decided that at least sounded quite bad, and cut it off. Well, write once a week looked way more affordable, didn't it? And here I am, I missed my minimum standard again.

I'll warn you right from the start: I'm about to post a recipe. Which means, sorry readers, that before it you'll have to put up with a little gloom. I'll be quick, promised: I just got to get this off my chest before going to bed - to write my end-of-term scriptwriting project, of course, who ever mentioned sleep? - and I'll be fine.

I'm just, once again, disappointed by how my brain works. You know, when a child spends hours on a drawing, and then hands it to you as if it was the most beautiful and meaningful thing in the world - and you cannot even fake a smile, as all you see is a disorderly maze of nonsensical lines? Well, tonight I feel as if I was the child. And no, taking a breath and repeating myself you're fuckin' 23 and a master student, you should have quit feeling like this when you left middle school isn't of any help.
My adulthood (please forgive me for using such a word) equivalent of the drawing is the presentation I gave tonight for my business class: such a ridiculous thing that no one will ever convince me to speak in public again - not even if any unforeseen event leads me to fame, in that case I'll just pay a stunt and that's it.
No point in talking about it, anyway, I just want to put down in words this recurring thought I have about how my brain works. About how annoying it is, actually, to be so perfectionist not to tolerate that anything that comes from me is less than flawless, and to be so presumptuous not to accept that what presents itself to my mind like a brilliant idea might prove to be irrealistic, or worse, weak, or worse, silly.
It's not that I lack ideas: I just have too many, and they're all too good to be true. You, the normal people who are used to seeing the big picture rather than getitng attached to unimportant details and inconsistent hopes, you can spot unlikelihood since the beginning; I can't. Maybe it's true, like my father says, that I'm an idealist. Or maybe I'm an utopist, not sure whether that's actually different.

Screw it, just give me sun, a fresh drink and a slice of cake and I'll be the happiest person ever.
Oh, shit, it's as cold as in February. And I should take a healthy break from sugar; do you mind enjoying some for me?

This is the first cake I made that was both pretty and tasty at the same time, so it means quite much to me.
So much that I put it on my Powerpoint's first page, as the logo of my crappy made-up cooking school, perhaps hoping for a good omen. Well, what is it that they say? Better luck next time? Sure. Now eat.

Strawberry orange-flavoured semifreddo:

Crust:
Melt 1 egg yolk and 30g brown sugar in a double saucepan, whipping until they become very soft.
Remove from hob and continue the whipping, until the melt has cooled down. Add 30g flour, 1 tablespoon olive oil and some lemon juice.
Roll the batter in a mould; pre-heat the oven to 190°, then bake for 15-20 minutes, remove from mould and set aside to cool down.
Finally, put the crust back in the mould, which in the meantime you will have lined with cling film. If you want you can put some strawberries on the bottom as a sort of filling for the cake.

Cream:
Leave 8g gelatine leaves soaking in cold water for 10 minutes.While you wait, mix 250g ricotta cheese with 125g low-fat natural yogurt, 50g honey and 1 tablespoon orange zest, until you have a soft batter.
Warm up the juice of one orange in a saucepan, then melt the squeezed gelatin into it and add to the batter. Finally, add 2 beaten egg whites as well.
Pour the batter on the crust and put the cake into the fridge, where you will leave it for at least 6 hours. When ready, take out of the mould and decorate with strawberries.

(On air: Imogen Heap - Hide and seek.)

Serotonine wanted. Urgent, call during meal hours.

I imposed myself a quite strict rule when I started this blog; no intimate confession or personal rants, it read. Still, today I have this terrible urge to write something, and anything I produce is of no use other than unleashing the gloom I have been in since the past couple of weeks.

It's just one of those moments when I'd rather have anyone around me disappear with a snap of fingers, and what I get in return is four happy-merry-drinking-buddies sitting in the kitchen, eating delicious fish and looking at my frozen pizza with pity and contempt.
Yes, frozen pizza. With a glass of tap water and an episode of Twin Peaks: tonight is's Lonely Single Night, even if I have no reason to be either of the two.
Social skills have fallen below Zero Kelvin, today; reviving them looks like an effort too big to be worthy. And, in case I forgot to mention, those people are laughing out so loud that their damn cheerfulness reaches the most remote corners of my brain - which makes me even more grumpy, as a reaction.
Well, I guess there's nothing to do about it: I'd better keep writing, if I want to avoid a chocolate overdose .

There is a lot that I have been thinking about, these days. No surprise, when what you're reflecting upon is people: something adds up everyday, and frankly, if you can manage to remember what you learnt yesterday you can consider yourself to be quite lucky.
Today, for example, I resat an exam I thought I had successfully passed long ago. That is, "how to cope with those annoying human beings who seem to be alive just to throw their happiness into your face".
I know, I know, I'm unfair. And unbalanced. And radical. After all, that's something everyone does, from time to time.
Besides, age and practice made me pretty good at telling who does it on purpose and who is just extremely, undoubtedly happy; the problem is, that I still can't figure out which of the two attitudes I hate the most. But, again, that's not what I wanted to write about in the beginning. And I see it, clearly - the risk of jumping into something too ardently biased for the time and place.

Let's turn karma around, then: I have spent the week attempting to cook - which is usually my favourite cure for the bad mood - but almost anything I tried turned rapidly into the Disaster.
So, before another Julie-Powell-like meltdown occurs (I swear, I really look like that when I fail a recipe), I'll share with you one of my past successes. Nothing special, of course, but enough to raise my self-esteem, and hopefully give you a little treat, too: ready for some biscuits?

Ingredients:
150g all-purpose flour, sifted with 1 pinch of salt;
60g butter;
50g finely chopped almonds;
50g sugar;
1 tablespoon orange zest and 2 tablespoons orange juice;
1 egg yolk, whisked;
125 g dark chocolate.

Recipe:
Mix the butter with the sifted flour and salt, until you obtain a granuloso paste.
Add the almonds, sugar and orange zest; then, add the egg yolk and orange juice.
Put the batter in the fridge, and leave it there for about 30 minutes. Then, roll it out to about 5mm of thickness and carve it out with cookie cutters.
Pre-heat the oven to 180° and bake for other 30 minutes. Let the biscuits cool down, and melt the chocolate in a double saucepan; finally, dip one half of each cookie in the chocolate melt, and leave them on a grid until the icing becomes solid.

I'm not a great fan of oranges, but I can assure you that they're lovely. Perfect with a little coffee after lunch...well, well, no more words from my part, just enjoy and let me know if you every try them. Alright?

(On air: Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody)