My Italian Cuisine

The content and pictures of this post are copyright registered & protected ©myitaliancuisine Another Easter recipe! In Italy we use to eat these brioches on Easter morning for the traditional Easter breakfast: "la colazione di Pasqua". They are easy to prepare you can even make them with your kids, they will have fun shaping the bunnies and coloring the eggs. In my case I have just used a natural colorant, the onion peels, to get the red/brown, but you can use a variety of other natural coloring methods and suggestions, visit this web page for more info on natural egg coloring. The dough is the classic French brioche dough that you can find in my older French braided brioche post here . The shaping is very simple, just place a boiled egg in the middle of a rolled piece of dough and shape the bunny, like a simple braid... Makes 6 small brioches Ingredients: For the brioche dough see ingredients and method here You need 1 dose of dough or more if you want to p

The content and pictures of this post are copyright registered & protected ©myitaliancuisine Wooow this was quite a surprise! I wanted to make a cake ... but not too big... why not mini cakes? Single portion cakes are easy to store in the freeze, eventually, no need to cut portions...and they are so cute! They are beatiful and delicious, perfectly cooked, soft inside and crispy outside, good balance between apples and pastry.... a perfect little morning or afternoon treat! No butter and milk in this recipe, but olive oil (or any other vegetable oil) and soy heavy cream...I am sure everybody will like this recipe! Please try it and let me know ; )  Makes 6-8 small cakes Ingredients : 150gr AP flour (organic for me) but may be more or less depending on the flour you use... 50gr potato starch (or corn starch) 2 eggs (organic for me) 3/4 sachet baking powder 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1/2 cup vegetable oil (organic extra virgin olive oil for me) 1/2 cup soy heav

The content and pictures of this post are copyright registered & protected ©myitaliancuisine This is another of my favourite cocktails, a classic but very simple drink that you can serve in many occasions, parties, luncheon cocktails, brunch etc... it's light compared to many other cocktails. You need, gin, dry Martini, red Italian vermouth and fresh orange juice (from red "sanguine" in my case). You need a shaker and a martini cocktail glass, ice cubes and in few minutes the Bronx cocktail will be ready! Ingredients: 6 parts of gin (3cl-1oz) 3 parts orange juice (1,5 cl- 1/2oz) 3 parts of red Italian vermouth (1,5 cl-1/2oz) 2 parts of dry Martini (1cl- 1/3oz) In a shaker, shake all ingredients together with ice cubes till cold, serve immediately in a martini cocktail glass.  If you like, you can garnish with an orange twist. Enjoy you Bronx cocktail!

 The content and pictures of this post are copyright registered & protected ©myitaliancuisine Pasta al forno (baked pasta) reminds me of the my childhood in Italy, almost every Sunday, and on every family special celebration, my mother used to prepare this dish for the large family. I can still smell the pasta roasting in the oven, with melted mozzarella, tomato sauce and parmesan cheese....very tasty and very easy to prepare. What is really nice about the baked pasta is that you can cook it in advance and just make it warm again when you need it, just be carefull: it gets quickly dry....make sure that you use enough tomato sauce and liquid, heavy cream for instance. Serves 6/8 persons Ingredients: 500gr Italian short pasta (rigatoni for me...) 1 lt tomato passata (puree) 300gr ground beef 1 oinion 1 carrot 1 stalk of celeri 500gr fresh mushrooms or any other veggie (optional) 4tbs extra virgin olive oil 1/4 cap of  dry white wine 25cl

- First of all, what is this bubbling blob? ... "Sourdough starter is a stable symbiotic culture of wild yeasts and bacteria. The yeasts break down starches into sugars, which the bacteria eat. The bacteria, on the other hand, create an acidic environment that kills off competitors to the yeasts. The yeasts were almost certainly already living on the grains when they were out in the field. As for the bacteria, that’s a trickier question, but the consensus seems to be that they come from us – studies have failed to isolate Lactobacillus Sanfranciscensis anywhere except in long-lived sourdough starters and on human teeth. The individual mix of yeasts and bacteria varies from starter to starter, and region to region. It’s part of their charm; every starter is unique, and produces bread that tastes somewhat different from those produced with other starters" Sourdough starters work more slowly than commercial yeasts, which are much more concentrated. A sourdou

The content and pictures of this post are copyright registered & protected ©myitaliancuisine The Mimosa cocktail, also called Buck's fizz, is a variation on Bellini, Rossini and Tintoretto cocktails. All using Prosecco, the dry Italian sparkling wine (not to be confused with the Moscato which is a sweet sparling italian wine which is not to be used for these recipes!). It's a so called : Medium drink. It's very easy to prepare, no shaker needed, only Prosecco and orange juice. I suggest you to use a quality Prosecco DOC or DOCG, very cool, and freshly sweezed orange juice, filtered in order to discart the pulp. Suitable for every occation, light and fresh... enjooy!    Ingredients: Prosecco DOC or DOCG (Quality Italian dry sparkling wine) 7,5 ml freshly squeezed orange juice 5pulp discarted) 7,5 ml 1 orange slice (decoration, optional) Maraschino cherry (decoration optional) Pour prosecco in a flute, add the orange juice, decorate with 1 orange slice an

  The content and pictures of this post are copyright registered & protected ©myitaliancuisine Jam tarts, Crostatine  in Italian, are small short crust pastry rounds filled with fruit jams, or pastry cream, Nutella etc... When I wan a child they were always there for my breakfast or the afternoon « Merenda » when back from school.    Contrary to the English tea time jam tarts, which normally do not have any pastry topping, the  " Crostatine " are topped with stripes of short crust pastry as you can see in the pictures. But you can use your imagination and jutst top them as you like, witha pastry hearth for St Valentine, a star for Xmas . I have already posted the home made short crust pastry recipe, you can find it in our «  How to Make ... » section , it is very easy to prepare specually if you have a food processor and is far better to ready-made you find in crocery shops. I normally use my homemade fruit jam the higher the fruit content, the less t

 The content and pictures of this post are copyright registered & protected ©myitaliancuisine The "Bocconotto" is a small Italian short pastry tart filled with different ingredients, the recipe is different in every region, for example in Castel Frentano, Abruzzo, the traditional bocconotto is filled with chocolate and amandels, in Teramo (Abruzzo) with black grapes jam and amandels, in Martinafranca, Puglia, with  pastry cream and black cherries, in Lecce (Puglia) where is called "Pasticciotto" it is filled with pastry cream only. The bocconotto is very easy and delicious small pastry, if you want to know more about the original Bocconotto abruzzese, you can visit the "Bocconotto" web site: http://www.bocconotti.com/ and if you visit Abruzzo, do not miss one of the several "Bocconotteria" shops....the Bocconotto paradise!!  Today's bocconotto recipe is from Puglia, Martinafranca. It's filled with pastry cream and bl

 The content and pictures of this post are copyright registered & protected ©myitaliancuisine March the 8th : Women's Day!!! This year we celebrate with a pink mimosa cake with soft berry fruits. As explained in my post of the traditional mimosa cake , this cake is traditionally dedicated to women for celebration of the 8th of march. My new version of the mimosa cake is pink an it's filled with Italian cream chantilly and soft berry fruits, for a touch of chrusty I have added a base of handmade puffy pastry (which I normally use for my Saint Honoré cake ... recipe to follow) but you can avoid this and follow the traditional mimosa cake , and I have also used few drops of red color to get a pink sponge cake the result is amazing! Ingredients: 1 pink coloured sponge cake (recipe here ) - for the filling: 1 portion of Italian Pastry cream see recipe here 500ml of 35% fat heavy cream (to whip) 1/4 cup icing sugar (to be added to the whipped heavy cream) 2

 The content and pictures of this post are copyright registered & protected ©myitaliancuisine Today's pasta is one of the most classic of Sardinian recipes, the Malloreddus alla Campidanese. The malloreddus is a special pasta, shaped as a small ''gnocco" that's why it is also called ''gnocchetto sardo". The campidanese sauce (from Campidano, "Campidanu" in sardinian dialect, the largest plain of the Sardinia island),  is made with  pork sausage, tomato, basil, pecorino and saffron, it is a simple dish, but it tastes really great. Enjoy the recipe!  Serves 4 persons 350gr malloreddus pasta (gnocchetti sardi) 1 onion 1 can of Pomodorini di collina (Cherry tomatoes) 1 cup of Italian tomato puree 1 Italian pork sausage (150gr) (salsiccia sarda) I use less sausage because it's really too fat for my taste...you can use more if you want. 4 tbs of grated Pecorino Sardo cheese 10  basil leaves 3 tbs extra virgin olive oil

 The content and pictures of this post are copyright registered & protected ©myitaliancuisine It's time for a sweet weekend breakfast ... baked donuts and pastry made the Italian way with a potato dough with olive oil. In general you can replace butter with olive oil in almost every baked product (not possible with puff pastry and shortbread where butter/margarine are mandatory) the rule is simple: replace the given amount  of butter with 2/3 amont of olive oil (or any other vegetable oil) example: if your given amount of butter is 150gr you can replace it with 100gr of oil. Well...now it's time to start baking.... Makes about 20 small donuts or 10 large    1 egg 1 boiled mashed medium potato 230ml lukewarm milk 80gr sugar 500gr AP flour 11gr (one sachet) of dry yeast or 25 of fresh yeast 65gr olive oil 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract  1 pinch of salt Apricot jam for the brioche filling Chocolate topping:  200gr hard dark chocolate,