Roaming around off Tyria’s beaten paths for the shere fun of it still is one of my favorite things to do to wind down after a long day – soaking up the beautiful scenery while helping with tasks and events around the areas I’m visiting has never lost that strangely relaxing and refueling effect on me. Sometimes, things I see, do or find on these merry trips even end up tickling the snoozing kitchen-related areas of my mind to full awareness in the middle of the night.
Tag: Sweets
Lemon Cream Crêpes & Vanilla Berries
Taking a look out of my window today made me realize why theres a statistical increase in happy-pill prescriptions during the post glittery-december-decorations winter months. Since I don’t believe in bogus, synthetic alterations of my moods and/or behavior I decided on making a lively and summery dessert instead. There’s just something about lemony sweets that instantly makes me smile, so I absolutely had to use lemons today.
GW2 Crispy Chocolate Banana Puffs
Thanks to an idea the Tyrian Menu planted into my head, I recently decided to exorcise a childhood demon, a dark and stomach-curdling culinary specter straight from my personal nightmarish depths of badly-made-desserts-hell. Chocolate-Bananas. Whenever I skim over that one while browsing the recipe list at my Chef’s Station in Lion’s Arch, I can’t decide whether to shiver in delight or disgust. On some level I never forgot that chocolates and bananas are a wonderful match – the instinct to shy away from it used to have far more punch to it, flooring the flickering desire to give it a chance after all these years within a heartbeat.
GW2 Chocolate-Cherry Truffles
Chocolate and cherries are one of those winning teams in the culinary world – both in this world as well as in Tyria. When I first came across the Tyrian “Chocolate Cherry” on the Guild’s menu, my annual winter-chocolate-box related chocolate-and-butter-sticky-fest popped into my head without further ado. I couldn’t think around it to save my life at that point, so I decided to embrace the brainfreeze and, at some point, share one of my signature chocolates with you guys~
Winter Chocolate Box Special – Spiced Red Wine Truffles
As you might already know, I go through some sort of a chocolate-marathon twice a year – once as the Easter holidays are coming closer, once for the Christmas holidays. The results of these sticky days don’t just serve the purpose of bringing smiles to the faces of those receiving my chocolate boxes as presents for the gigs, they’re also the times I experiment around and come up with new creations fitting into the months ahead. This time of the year, of course, the contents of my chocolate boxes go along winter’y lines, inspired by the scents hanging in the air whenever I leave the house, thanks to the many, many christmas market stands, cafés and bakeries selling their festive goods out in the biting cold.
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Nougat Mousse & Madeira-Cherry Compote
All right, time for part two of my Madeira at Home experience – the last part, for now! Other yummy ideas, blurry or refined, I brought back home, captured in my infamous notebook, are better suited for the warmer months of the year~! This one was the result of the forgotten Ginja that kept haunting us like that one item you always forget on grocery trips and only remember once youre back home, stashing everything else away.
GW2 Blueberry Cookies
As cold and gray november, giving his best to make us stay indoors, continues on, I get the distinct feeling that something to remind us of warmer, friendlier days is in order… A while back I found an unexplained Blueberry Cookie in my mailbox back in Tyria, sent to me by a Guild mate who, as I’ve found out by now, was going through the motions of unlocking and collecting any and all recipes for his Cooking Station. Now, there’s a bright, light, fluffy and yummy idea~!
Chocolate-Walnut Fudge
Looking out of the window leaves no doubt about early winter having arrived with it’s claws and icy teeth out. In my kitchen, at least when it comes to sweets, this simple fact translates into: the time for the heavyweights in the chocolate’y business has arrived~! Dark chocolate, “warm” spices like cinnamon and allspice, nuts, dried berries, maybe a little bit of liqueur, orange’y hints… that sort of comforting taste that makes you lean back and stick out your tongue at the cold and gray november ick outside, satisfied grin on your face.
GW2 Chocolate-Omnomberry Tarte
From time to time, running around the Trader’s Forum in Lion’s Arch can be lethal. Lethal to dinner plans, that is. On my way to the Trading Post nearby, a lonely banquet table, filled with Chocolate-Omnomberry Cakes caught my eye… and wouldn’t let go. Of course, for once, a sweet, chocolate’y treat was exactly what I was craving at that moment, damned be the beef-related results of my shopping trip earlier that day!
Blackberry Mousse
As you can imagine, learning your way around the vast and amazing world of desserts as a calory counting student with a miniature kitchen and without an oven to slowly ease into to the show with pastries, cakes and the likes, can turn into an infuriatingly hard and frustrating endeavor very quickly. Of course, making ice creams and chocolates hasn’t gotten old, at least not to me, over all those years, but at some point down the line I just had to do something new to wow my dinner crowd.
Nahdala's Kitchen 