Cinnamon Butter Cookies (Biscottini alla Cannella)

Life is at its best when the very simple pleasures it brings can be savored and enjoyed with unrepentant gluttony. A waffle cone filled with gelato on a hot summer day, warm apple pie served with cream as you snuggle up under a blanket and watch Downtown Abbey, freshly made cinnamon butter cookies to dunk in…

Italian Cream Puffs (Bigne’ alla Crema)

I have developed a very new, and somewhat scary, compulsion for choux pastry lately… I have spent more time that I wish to confess in the search for the perfect puff, the kind that is light as a feather and hollow inside, to accommodate gooey, slurpy fillings… I have tried countless proportions of eggs to…

Almond, Orange and Blackberry Cakes

As I opened my freezer a few days ago, I noticed a couple of punnets of blackberries I had been keeping for a rainy day. Rainy it was indeed. In fact it had been so wet in Sydney that I was starting to wonder whether we’d have any dry days at all this year! The…

Spiced Angel Cookies

150 gr (1 and 1/3 cup) sifted flour 50 gr (1/4 a cup) almond meal 1 egg yolk 95 gr (3/4 cup) of icing sugar 100 gr (a little less than 1/2 cup) of soft butter 2 tablespoons of milk 1 teaspoon of vanilla paste or extract or scraped seeds. 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon…

Lemon and Almond Cake with Vanilla frosting

It seems like every cake or cookie I make these days has to have lemon in it. This new-found obsession may be directly linked to my incredibly generous lemon tree. This year it’s going crazy and there are only so many Gin&Tonics a breast-feeding mother can have…what to do with the rest of the lemons? Boil a…

Apple and Sultana Tart (Crostata di mele e uvetta)

This is one of my “Desert Island” dishes. I guess it’s because Mamma used to make this a lot when we were little ,and to me it still tastes of home and lazy Sundays snuggled up on the couch watching cartoons, fighting with my brother and my sister over the last slice of crostata. Legend has it…