When you think about Greece there are many things that come to your mind. You picture the sun, beautiful beaches and really nice blue waters that are inviting you to dive in. Obviously its the food that will always be in your mind and Acropolis, the islands and many many more…
Category: Desserts
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Chocolate pudding with bread
Couple of years ago me and my brother had the idea to buy a laptop to my mother so she can start and communicate with us much more easily. Well, once when I was talking with her, I admitted how I missed her sweet recipes and the various cakes she made.Making a cake can be really difficult as you don’t have the chance to make a mistake in the ingredients. A small change, a small miss and most of the times the hours you invested can go immediately to the bin. That’s why I asked my mother if there was something relatively easy that I could do without spending so much time. Mothers always have something for their sons… So she lost no time and started writing the following recipe which I gladly followed..
The following is called chocolate pudding with bread, slices of bread we use for toast. Indeed its one of the easiest things that i tried and one you can’t really go too wrong with it. In the end my mother reminded to me that she did it when she had visited me once in UK with a small variation. Well, the important thing is that, i managed to do it without destroying our kitchen, my brother liked it, and Silvia (our italian flatmate) also liked it. So it is guaranteed from everyone and all possible ways. If there was an ISO approval for that chocolate pudding …this recipe would have it. (i think…)
Ready for the oven INGREDIENTS
- 12 slices of bread for toast with the harder outer part removed
- 110gr sugar
- 425gr of pouring cream
- 200gr of sweet cacao
- 75gr of butter
- A small cup of nutella
- 1 cinnamon stick or a small spoon of cinnamon powder
- 3 eggs
DOING THAT PUDDING
- First we take some butter and we spread it on the baking pan internally on all the sides.Spread a bit of nutella on the slices of bread and place them on the pan with the side that has the nutella down
- In a pot add the pouring cream and warm it up but be careful not to boil. Add the cinnamon (if you put cinnamon stick remove it later on) and the remaining of the butter and the cacao and keep stirring it so they are mixed together. Always, keep them warmed up but not boiling.
- In small plate hit 3 eggs and mix them. Remove the chocolate mix from fire and then add the eggs and stir really strong so the eggs are not cooked.
- Take the mixture and add 2/3 over the bread in your baking pad and spread it around. Put the rest of the slices of bread that you have on top always remembering to add Nutella on the outer side of the bread.Pour the remaining of the chocolate mixture you made on top covering the slices of bread. Use a spoon or a knife to spread it all over.
- Now the important part!!Take a bigger pan than the one you have place the cake and fill it with water and place the other one inside. Fill the bigger baking pan with water; just enough so it won’t spill to the chocolate cake while its being cooked.
- The whole idea is that as it will be in the oven, the water will be boiling cooking it nicely from all the sides keeping the inner part of the cake soft. (well…what can I say…mothers, they know all the tricks.) Cook it for 30 minutes, just when you realize that the chocolate is thick and still that you can pinch it with a fork.
An immense wave of chocolate is ready for you!
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Galaktoboureko recipe : the king of sweets
One of the most difficult things in cooking is to make sweetst as you need to be precise and exact on the ingredients that you put.
Couple of years ago I was leaving in a different house with a Greek girl in Acton Town, on west London. I was really lucky because whenever I begged my flatmate –her name was Sofia- she always made me one of her specialties, Galaktoboureko.
Galaktoboureko is a Greek desert that is quite famous in my country. In Greece and Cyprus they used to say that you are not a worthy housewife if you dont know how to make galaktompoureko and baklava. So i guess i am now a worthy housewife… hmmmm…. (something is wrong over here…) anyway…
My mother used to do it a lot and personally I like it a lot when it’s cold. I wanted to make it for a looong long time but never had the courage or time to even try it. Nevertheless, after a lot of waiting the time had come for one proper Galaktoboureko. I asked from Sofia this time, her recipe and… here we go
INGREDIENTS GALAKTOBOUREKO
- 400gr Sugar
- 140gr semolina
- 2 eggs
- 1 vanillia
- 1 packet thin phyllo dough
- 1 litre of milk
- 2 teaspoons of Butter
For the syrup:
- 250ml water
- 50gr glucose
- 500gr sugar
- Peel from one lemon
Initiate Operation Galaktompoureko
METHOD
Take a bowl and add the sugar, the 2 teaspoons of butter, vanilla and the semolina. At all times continue to stir continuously. When it starts to bowl remove from the heat and add the eggs while you continue to stir. You need to continue to stir until you realize that it’s boiled and it has become cream. When this happens then cover the bowl and let it cool down.
Take a deep pan and grease it with butter everywhere. Place half of the phylo pastry sheets in the pan. Grease each one of them with butter, one by one. You need to make sure that you will cover all sides properly.
When half of them are placed then you should pour the mixture and then turn the edges of the phyllo on the cream.
When its done place the remaining phyllo on top covering all sides appropriately so the whole cream is covered. Make sure that grease with butter each phyllo.
Cut the phyllo diagonally in squares with a sharp knife but only to the level of the cream. Really gently and not deep so the cream comes out…just a little bit so the heat passes inside.
Preheat oven at 180οC and bake for about an hour until you see a golden colour on the top.
As it is cooking you need to prepare the syrup.
Put in a pan the sugar, water, lemon peel and the glucose and let it boil. Again, continue to stir. Let it boil for 5-10 minutes and the remove it from the heat.
When the Galaktoboureko is ready you need to pour the syrup all over it and let it cool down before serving.
Some prefer to eat it hot, personally I prefer to put it in the fridge after its cooled down and leave it there for 1 hour. Up to you..
Delicious Galaktoboureko. -
Chocolate log Dessert
Always when I was home back in Greece I enjoyed when my mother was making cakes, sweets and anything that had chocolate. Well, don’t we all… I was hoping that I could manage once to make that chocolate log (kormos sokolatas in greek..) recipe. To tell you the truth it took me some time to find the appropriate name for that…
Well, the following is a recipe that my mother was doing and a lot of Greek mothers are doing but not really much elsewhere. At least as far as I looked online I couldn’t find similar recipes…
Anyway, I am just writing this recipe as after the Yogurt with Honey it’s my first real effort for a nice desert/sweet and I feel quite satisfied with the result. The only problem that I had was that…well I am a little bit alcoholic and I added two shots of cognac rather than one that the good old mothers recipe was saying…
The result wasn’t bad but ok, I think you should be careful with that.
INGREDIENTS FOR CHOCOLATE LOG RECIPE- 250 g. butter
- 100 g. powdered sugar
- 1 couverture
- 1 shot of cognac (or brandy)
- 5 tablespoons cocoa
- 250 g. petit beurre biscuits
How you make a chocolate log
- In a saucepan put the butter over low heat to melt. Drop into the dark chocolate cut into pieces, and stir, taking care not to boil.
- Once the chocolate melts, add the icing sugar and cocoa and stir until you have smooth mixture.
- Remove from the heat and crush biscuits in a bowl.
- Throw the mixture and add a shot of cognac. Mix well, to cover all the cookies from the mixture.Let the mixture cool slightly.
- Stretch a piece of grease-proof paper on the counter and throw the mixture. Wrap the grease-proof paper around the mixture and create a trunk. (Coasting right hand – the left until it has a uniform shape).
- Wrap the grease-proof paper at the edges so as not to spill the mixture and put in the freezer for a few hours until frozen. When ready to cut into slices and serve on a platter pieces.
Chocolate log with walnuts on top! 
The first piece 
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Greek Desserts: Yogurt with Honey
The following is a desert that you can’t really imagine how easy it is to make and how tasty it can be…
If you go to a Greek restaurant this one is a typical dessert served that rarely people appreciate. To be honest I never appreciated when I was at home and my mother usually was making it for her.
Reading a little bit more about Yogurt with honey you find out that it’s really good for the digestive system also…mmm that’s something I didn’t knew..
Well, how difficult it is?…
There is more simple to this dessert. Just make a mix and try it.
You can add to it if you want by adding walnuts…almonds ..or fruits… There are various variations to that and you can just keep on creating..