Honey Cake “Lebkuchen” Muffins

Honey cake is one of the traditional cakes during Christmas time in Germany besides Lebkuchen or Christmas Stollen. Here is one idea to make honey cake as muffin. It is best to prepare them at least one day before eating as they contain typical spices like cardamom, clove, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. As honey I…

Christmas Stollen Muffins

In Germany Christmas Stollen is the most traditional sweet bread existing. It is a heavy sweet bread loaf traditionally made from butter, yeast, curd, raisins and candied fruit peel. Besides of Lebkuchen it is the most important sweet at Christmas time. The “Dresdner Christstollen” and “Nürnberger Lebkuchen” are the most famous of all. If you…

Vasilopita – A Traditional Greek New Years Cake

It is tradition in Greece that on New Year’s Day a cake is cut, the so called „Vasilopita “. This is a cake baked with nuts and a lucky coin is hidden inside. First, before cutting the cake, a cross is struck over the cake three times. Then the cake is cut crosswise. The piece…

Homemade Bitter Orange Marmalade

My father used to travel a lot during his working life. That is when we learned about Bitter Orange Marmalade and it became one of my favorite bread spread for breakfast. As not native English you first have to learn the difference between marmalade and jam as for the rest of the world marmalade is…

Tsoureki (traditional Greek Easter Bread)

The Easter Feast is one of the most important celebrations in Greece. The celebration starts in the night from Holy Saturday to Easter Sunday by bringing the Holy Light home from church as a symbol of the Holy Spirit. There are also a lot of traditional foods on Easter like lamb, grilled slowly from early…

To Peel or Not To Peel – this is the question!

Preparing my Fruity Pasta Salad for lunch today I stumbled over this question. I love to watch cooking shows of all kinds on TV: to get new ideas, to see how professional cooks prepare something or to laugh about the unintentional stupidest of non-professionals. I am sure all of us sometimes think we could do…