Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Marjoram and Orange Zest Focaccia / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Focaccia maggiorana e scorza d’arancia

And yet again another focaccia recipe! For today’s Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook I present you the recipe for a high hydration, fresh, spring-mood flavoured focaccia. Mix a hint of creativity, a sprinkle of marjoram a pinch of orange zest and you will have a delicious bread to accompany your salads with. Keep aside the recipe to accompany cold summer soups…try it with a fresh gazpacho, you will love it! To make it I used Maroggia’s Mill pasta and pizza flour, a skilful mix of wheat flour and finely ground semolina flour. When I don’t have any of this special flour around I usually mix 50% of wheat flour with 50% of semolina flour. The recipe has been tasted and approved by my guinea pigs, what are you waiting for?

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Roscòn de Reyes / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Roscòn de Reyes

Today for Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook a festive recipe. For once not a Christmas one but one dedicated to Epiphany instead, so you still have plenty of time to study it and find the time to bake it. For once I decided to cross cultural boundaries, flying to Spain. Roscón de Reyes is a doughnut shaped bread, made with a dough similar to panettone, which is decorated with candied fruit. This bread is prepared on the occasion of the coming of the Three Kings, on January 6th. In short, the Iberian version of the Swiss Three King Cake Bread! The dough I created is not the simplest to handle. For those who are not familiar with very rich and soft doughs I would recommend using a dough mixer. For reasons balance in the photographs but also to redistribute the Roscon to my various guinea pigs I decided to make mini portions, I think that for a larger donut 20 minutes of further baking lowering to 160 ° C will be surely necessary to bake the bread thoroughly. Try it…I bet you won’t find a softer dough!

Protetto: Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Cinnamon, Almonds, Orange and Dark Chocolate Sablés / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Sablés alla cannella, arancia e cioccolato fondente

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MTC Challenge: Of Mice and Men, a muffin dreamed by labourers / MTC Challenge: Uomini e topi, il muffin sognato dai braccianti

And so we are approaching the end of the month, and as usual I am posting just a few days before the end of this month’s MTC challenge. Last month, Francesca from the Blog Burro e Zucchero won and for this last challenge before the end of the year she decided to set a higher bar. This time not only a basic recipe to take inspiration from, but the obligation to take inspiration from written work, may it be a book, a poem, a story or a song, justifying the use of ingredients in relation to it. After a first enthusiastic reaction I got into panic. What to choose? What writer, poet, singer-songwriter? What inspiration to follow, which ingredients to choose?

Bavarian Cream with White Chocolate, Cinnamon and Orange and Dark Chocolate Butterflies / Un bavarese a quattro mani e due cervelli: Bavarese al cioccolato bianco, arancia e cannella con farfalle di cioccolato fondente

As I promised to you here on my Garganelli homemade pasta post I am finally posting the recipe for the dessert me and Michela made while her visit in Switzerland. Pastry is a world that fascinates me. Accuracy, balance of ingredients, pure aesthetics. Three core elements that just thinking about them make me shake with anxiety.

Daring Bakers: Venetian Easter Breads / Daring Bakers: Veneziana (Fugassa de Pasqua)

The April Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Wolf of Wolf’s Den. She challenged us to Spring into our kitchens and make Easter breads reflecting cultures around the world.

You can’t imagine my happiness when I read this month’s theme for the Daring Baker’s challenge, Easter Breads! I had just tried out this gorgeous recipe by Fables de Sucre and was so amazed by the perfect result at the first attempt.

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Madeleines with licorice and orange zest / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Madeleines alla liquirizia e scorza d’arancia

I’m back with the bimonthly appointment with Maroggia‘s Mill Cookbook and with my licorice fixation as well. Yes, not only I am so looking forward to my dear friend Michela’s – aka Menta e Rosmarino – visit over to Switzerland as amongst other things she already announced me she will bring a bag of licorice powder, but I can’t stop thinking about recipes that contain this amazing ingredient.

Depressed soufflé, Shrimp, Turnip and Redo Oranges zest Soufflé with Licorice sauce / Del soufflé deprimé o anche un soufflé ai gamberi, rapa bianca e scorza d’arancia rossa con salsa di liquirizia per l’MTC

I will be very straightforward and come clean to all of you. This month my participation to the MTC Challenge was more painful and depressing than ever. I’ll try to be brief and exhaustive listing the various problems that I encountered. I’m not a soufflé lover, which doesn’t help. Definitely more prone to be attracted to the sweet version of this recipe I had to deal with the strict rule imposed by Tiziana, aka Tagli e Intagli, MTC‘s hostess for this month: only savory recipes. Panic. I admit that although the blog post date had already been written down on my blog-schedule after the “recipe of the month post” came out (the last day of the contest as usual) I did not have a single idea until the end. Or rather, until the day that I set out to cook the recipe.

Chocolate, Orange and Hazelnut Vegan Tart for Nevia, but not for Mimi / Crostata vegana al cioccolato, arancia e nocciole per Nevia ma non per Mimi

Veganism. A choice, a rigid lifestyle and to me, I must admit, a bit of a problem when it’s up to baking and desserts. Until a few months ago I never had to wonder about cooking or baking vegan, but then met Mimi and Nevia.

Spiced Baumkuchen, a layered cake for Daring Bakers / Torta albero speziata per i Daring Bakers

The January 2014 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Francijn of “Koken in de Brouwerij“. She challenged us all to bake layered cakes in the tradition of Baumkuchen (tree cake) and Schichttorte (layered cake).

I admit it, when reading Baumkuchen on this month’s Daring Bakers pdf’s document for just a slight moment I had the illusion we had to bake the Polish version (Secakz)
of this cake common in Northern Europe regions such as Germany, Austria, Hungary and funnily quite popular in Japan too. Scrolling down to read more, excited and quite scared, I won’t deny my relief discovering that Francijn choice’s had fallen on the German version of this sweet loaf.