Sugarfree banana cheesecake

This was the first time I tried to make a cheesecake, in this case it was a birthday cake for my sister. It is an awesome cake, you can make it with basically any fruit and any flavour. I'm sure I will make other ones in the future, my favourite part is the cream, which even though you have to bake it, remains frothy and bubbly when done. It's not the quickest or easiest recipe but don't let that keep you from trying it :) 

Ingreidents for a 20 cm cake tin:

• 15 dkgs of full grain butter biscuits
• 5 dkgs of butter
• 25 dkgs of mascarpone
• 330 grs of greek yoghurt
• 15 dkgs of xylitol
• 3 tablespoons of flour
• liquid sweetener according to taste
• zest of one lemon
• juice of one lemon
• 3 whole eggs 
• 1 vanilla pod, craping the beans out
• 2 bananas
• sliced fresh fruits for the topping
• 1 packet of colourless cake jelly powder 

Line the base of the cake tin with parchment paper. Grate the biscuits and melt the butter, then mix the two together thoroughly. When it's done, pour the mixture into the pan and press it down with your hands, making it even everywhere. Preheat the oven to 160 deg Celsius and bake the crust for 10 minutes, then take it out and turn the oven up to 200 degreees. With an electric mixer, whisk the mascarpone so that it becomes smooth, add the yoghurt, the lemon zest, the lemon juice and the vanilla beans. With a fork, smash the bananas in another dish and when it is totally pureed, add it to the cream base. Whisk it again with the bananas and taste it, if it's not sweet enough, add some liquid sweetener. If you are happy with how it tastes, you can add the flour (sifted) and the eggs, but you have to stir it with a spatula or a wooden spoon from this moment on. Stir it until you get a smooth mixture. Grease the sides of the cake tin with butter and sprinkle it with some flour so that it covers the buttered cake ring. Pour the mixture on top of the crust. For the first 10 minutes bake it at 200 degrees and then lower it to 140, leaving the oven door open for the first 3 minutes. Bake it for another 25 minutes and then turn the oven off,  again leaving the door open. If you let it cool down in the oven, the top won't crack. Once it's cold, you can cover it with chocolate cream, put the sliced fruit on top and cover the fruit with the cake jelly. 

Traditional vs sugarfree chocolate chip cookies

Let's start with the pictures this time. These two recipes are the result of my most recent chocolate chip cookie baking craze. One of them is made traditionally with brown sugar and plain flour, the other one is part bran and made with xilytol. I wonder if you can tell the difference by only looking at the pictures :) The thing is that they are both delicious, for me the sugar free version seemed a bit dry right after taking it out of the oven but that's because it doesn't have any regular sugar in it and it didn't have this sticky inside that the other one had. The funny thing is that the sugar free one was even sweeter than the regular one. Making cookies is very easy and quick especially if you have a mixer and you just have to throw in the ingredients. The baking is a bit tricky, I will give you all the details a bit further below.

Ingredients for the traditional cookies:

• 20 dkgs of plain flour
• 1 packet of vanilla custard-powder
• 15 dkgs of brown cane-sugar
• 10 dkgs of butter
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder
• 10 dkgs of dark chocolate
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla flavour or extract
• 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon of rum flavour

Ingredients for the sugar free cookies:

• 15 dkgs of plain flour mixed with 5 dkgs of bran meal
• 1 packet of vanilla custard-powder
• 15 dkgs of xylitol
• 10 dkgs of butter
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder
• 5 dkgs of dark chocolate
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla flavour or extract
• 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon of rum flavour

The preparation of both types of cookies is the same, the difference is in the baking part. Measure the sugar or the xylitol and mix it with the soft butter, it has to be very frothy. Then add the one egg and keep stiring. Mix the sugar with the custard powder, the baking soda, the cocoa powder and the chocolate, previously chopped into very tiny pieces. Add the vanilla and rum flavours along with the cinnamon to the butter and egg mix, then stir in the flour mix gradually. When you have a solid dough, let it rest in the fridge for 30 minutes. Lay some baking paper in a baking tin and make walnut sized balls of the dough. Press your palm on top of the balls. The sugary one needs exaclty 7 minutes in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius, strictly without the fan on. The diabetic one needs approximately 2 minutes more. They have to be very soft and flexible when you take them out of the oven, let them cool down on the tray, and then you can remove them from the baking paper.

Sponge cake with yoghurt and bananas

This isn't one of the sweetest desserts ever but you can make it sweeter by using really ripe bananas, which I couldn't buy in the store. But according to my lunch guests it was actually why they liked it :) 

Ingredients for 6 servings:

• ladyfingers or homemade sponge cak
• 3 bananas
• 450 grs of greek yoghurt
• liquid sweetener
• lemon juice
• vanilla flavour 
• 10 dkgs of dark chocolate
• 2 dls of milk
• ground cinnamon 

Put the dark chocolate into the milk and keep stiring it until the chocolate melts. Keep stirring until you have a chocolate sauce, and put it aside for a while. Add some flavour to the yoghurt by adding some sweetener, lemon juice and vanilla flavour. Lay some sponge cake on the bottom of a dessert glass and pour some chocolate sauce on it. Slice the bananas on top of the sponge cake and add a layer of yoghurt. Repeat these steps once again, then you can decorate the top with cinnamon and as you can see on the photo, star shaped pieces of sponge cake.

Chicken with garlic and sage butter and roasted potatoes

Ingredients for the chicken:

• 3 whole chicken breasts in 6 halves
• 5dkgs of butter
• 2 cloves of garlic
• a big handful of thyme stems
• 3 sage leaves
• 5 dkgs of grated parmesan cheese
• salt, freshly ground pepper
• 2 eggs
• breadcrumbs
• flour 

Sprinkle salt or roast chicken seasoning on the chicken breasts before coating it. Then roll the chicken breast halves first in flour, then in the whipped eggs and finally in the breadcrumbs previously mixed with the grated cheese. Place some baking paper on the bottom of a baking tin and gently put the chicken on top of the paper. Cut every chicken carefully sideways but don't cut it all the way through. Spread some butter inside every piece of chicken and spread the remaining butter on top of them. Bake it in the oven at 200 deg Celsius until the breadcrumbs get a lovely golden colour and the chicken is fully cooked.

Ingredients for the potatoes:

• 1 kg of potatoes
• salt, freshyl ground pepper
• 3 rosemary stems
• 4 cloves of garlic
• olive oil

Wash the potatoes and if they have nice, not very thick skin, you can just leave it on. Cut them in approximately 5 mm thick slices. Spread the sliced on a frypan and sprinkle the salt and the pepper on the slices. Chop the rosemary and the garlic fine, and with some olive oil, mix the potatoes with the seasoning. Spread them again and roast them in the oven at 200 deg Celsius until they get golden and crispy.

Homemade chicken burger

Making homemade hamburgers is ridiculously easy, you just have to make a bigger effort once and then you'll have something to grab from the freezer when you feel like eating something good. This time I didn't make homemade hamburger buns but I'm sure I will try them sooner or later because they must be better than the ones you can buy in the store.

Ingredients: 

• 1 kg of chicken breast
• 1.5 kgs of upper chicken thigh fillets
• 15-20 dkgs of smoked bacon
• garlic granules according to taste
• salt or roast chicken seasoning according to taste
• onions (not neccessary) 

Mince the chicken along with the bacon and the seasoning twice, and mix it very thoroughly, let it rest for a while before making the first one. You have to cook it until both sides get a nice golden colour, but don't let it dry out. I think it's best if you taste it when it's almost cold, and if something is missing you can make corrections in the raw mixture. You can put the steak shaped burgers on a tray into the freezer and later when frozen, just put them into a plastic bag or a box. They will maintain taste and quality for a couple of months.

The world's most delicious spaghetti

There are a couple of dishes that I could eat as long as I have any in of it in front of me, this pasta dish is one of these dishes. It's not complicated, you don't need anything special to make it and you don't even have to follow the recipe that much. You can leave out any of the ingredients and still have a great meal but of course it's the best if you use a lot of everything...:) This is why I won't write down precise amounts because you can decide for yourself how much you want from each ingredient. 

Ingredients: 

• smoked sliced bacon
• fresh thyme (as much as you want)
• rosemary (the same rule applies)
• garlic
• sundried tomatoes
• salt, pepper
• mushroom
• whole wheat spaghetti

Bring a pot of water with some salt and oil to a boil and cook the pasta in it. Meanwhile you have to slice the bacon and start frying it in a pan on a tiny bit of oil. Do it until the bacon is crispy. Then you can add the sliced mushrooms and cook it until it becomes soft, right after that you can add the garlic, the herbs and the tomaotes. Give it a good stir and let the flavours come out. Then you can add the cooked pasta and give it another good stir. Sprinkle some parmesan on top and that's it... :)

Apple pie cake

Ingredients:

 The crust:

•  40 dkgs of flour (plain and whole wheat)
• 10 dkgs of caster sugar
• 10 dkg cold butter
• 1 packet of instant yeast
• half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon
• 1-1,5 dls of milk approx. 

 The filling:

• 6 big Granny Smith apples and the same amount of smaller red apples
• liquid sweetener
• zest and juice of one lemon
• a handful of raisins
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• quarter of a teaspoon of ground clove

Measure the flour for the dough and mix it with the sugar, the yeast and the cinnamon. Get the butter and crumble it with the flour mixture. Then put the whole mixture into a bread machine and start kneading it, gradually adding the milk. You have to get a flexible and non-sticky dough as a result. You don't have to wait until it rises, the yeast will do its thing in the oven when you bake it. Let it rest while you prepare the filling.

Peel the apples and grate them. Then you have to squeeze the juice out of the grated apple. Providing that you use a clean bowl and your hands are also clean, don't even think about throwing the juice out, you can filter it and then you have a pure, truly 100% fruit content apple juice :) Then put the apple in a saucer pan and add the lemon juice, the zest, the raisins and the spices. Add the sweetener as well. You only have to cook it until it becomes soft which takes about 10-15 minutes. Let it cool down and then taste it, add some more lemon or sweetener if needed.

Then you can just put the cake together. If you want to put the emphasis on the cake part, you can bake a layer of crust beforehand and place it between two layers of apple filling. If you have some leftover dough you can decorate the top of the cake with it, just don't forget to eggwash the joining surfaces. Also when you are done with the decorating, give an eggwash to the whole top of the cake. Bake it in the oven at 190 deg Celsius until golden on the top.