Picture perfect Tarte Tatin

I keep making Tarte Tatin since I came back from France. Last time I made a pretty innocent one, with not much sugar and butter. This time I wanted it to be rich and really pretty. The idea was to make a thick apple layer. Like the one I saw in Berthillon Paris cafe.

Upside down cake Moscow bakery

Yesterday I was meeting a friend and she suggested we check out the Upside down cake Moscow bakery. I felt really lucky with this finding. We spent 2.5 hours there and since then I can't help thinking about when I'm going back to try more desserts.

Broccoli and gorgonzola cream soup

Sometimes I really need some vegetable soup. It's the most comforting food I can imagine. Especially if it is a cream soup. The brilliant thing about it is that it doesn't have to be complicated. To me the best vegetable cream soups are plane, with one or two components and with no thickeners (like flour or heavy cream).

True Australian Pavlova

Couple of weeks ago I got really lucky on LiveJornal. An Australian working in a pastry kitchen shared her Pavlova recipe with me. Since then I was eager to try it and finally did.

A magic cup of cinnamon hot chocolate

I just needed something energizing yesterday night. So I thought about hot chocolate recipe I saw in David Lebovitz The Sweet Life in Paris. Happily I had an appropriate chocolate bar at home. I was too lazy to go out.

Quiche with red onion and blue cheese

We started routinely baking quiche in my family well before I went to study in France. Once I made the classic Quiche Lorraine (bacon and cheese quiche) after I bumped into a recipe in Gastronom.ru. Everybody liked this idea of an open savory pie filled with something baked in egg custard and we started trying different fillings.

Tarte aux poires normande (French pear tart)

While I was living in Fontainebleau Tarte Normande was one of my favorite desserts. In one of the bakeries I frequented it was just incredible. I tried it once and got addicted forever. Since then I was almost never able to leave this bakery without a piece.