Category Archives: Desserts, tarts

Egg in chocolate cream

It  dawned on me that Easter is coming up when I saw rows of chocolate eggs all over the chocolate stores in Beirut;  figured I needed to come up with something quick.  My mother subscribes to a French weekly women’s magazine and leafing through it I found what I was looking for; their recipe however [...]
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Halvah cream

  Lebanon is a small country with the distinction of having been occupied by many cultures through the ages; most recently, the Ottomans were in charge for a few centuries and left an imprint on food. In fact, a lot of the foods people eat is an Ottoman legacy (like shawarma or baklava). In my [...]
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Chestnut/chocolate cream (Turinois)

  This is a no-bake dessert devised by Françoise Bernard, the Goddess of French cooking in the sixties and seventies. My mother who was a die-hard francophile always had her books in the kitchen especially when the family moved to France. Françoise Bernard specialized in easy, practical, recipes for the busy housewive or working woman; [...]
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New Year’s fritters (Mushabbak)

Happy New Year 2013. Fritters, aka  Mushabbak or Zlabiah INGREDIENTS: 8 servings 1 cup of flour 1 cup of cornflour 1 Tbsp. of dry instant yeast 1 Tbsp. of sugar 1/2 tsp. of cardamom (or mahlab) 1 liter (4 cups) of oil Sugar syrup: 2 cups sugar 1 cup water 1 tsp. lemon juice 1 [...]
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Bread pudding

My mom, who has aphasia, was pointing excitedly at a photo in her favorite magazine, Femme Actuelle. A quick glance at the ingredients, stale brioche, eggs, milk, raisins, rum, OH! I get it! She wanted to have  bread pudding. That is her favorite dessert, after all.  The great thing about bread pudding is that it [...]
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