The DB Challenge: Meringue Coffee Cake with Dulce de Leche, Salted Pistachios, Cranberries and Chocolate

The March 2011 Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria’s Collection and Jamie of Life’s a Feast. Ria and Jamie challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake.

Another month, another DB challenge. I always look forward to finding out what the challenge is and I'm always extremely happy with it. This time we were to make a coffee cake according to a recipe which Jamie found on a piece of yellowed paper in her dad’s collection of clipped out and hand-written recipes from the 1970’s without any source or date. I think the old recipes work the best (even though I want to make and try as much new things as possible) and that's a double true with this one. And again I immediately started thinking about summer and spring (I do this all the time right now). However, it's not the best season for my eyes, nose and skin. Trees and flowers are in blossom now and I sneeze, my nose is blocked (hay fever is sooo unpleasant!), my eyes are watering and my skin is itchy. So what should I do to feel better? Of course, make something sweet, eat it and feel great!

Apricot Almond Thumbprint Cookies

Can you feel summer in the air? I definitely can. Well, I guess it's more spring than summer but nevermind. They both mean the end of winter! It's not like I hate winter but it's been here for quite a while now and I think that's just enough :) Yes, you can hear me shouting around in summer "I want winter! The weather is too hot!" and when winter comes I just want summer. Too much is simply too much. The ideal temperature would be around 25C all the time (and sometimes snowing without being cold at all). Of course, that's not possible and maybe it's good. Life's a change and without hot summer days there wouldn't be any fresh juicy fruit in my garden. Last year there were almost no apricots and the small amount of them was made into a delicious homemade apricot preserve. I'm the kinda girl who can eat preserve/jam/jelly as it is - I don't need any bread - but sometimes it's much better with a cookie and because summer season is almost here and I have this great apricot preserve why should I wait for summer to arrive when I can make my own little summer rigth now? And so can you!

Biscotti Fiorentini (Florentines)

I'm so happy to invite the spring season finally! The winter one was way too long and I can't wait to see the birds, flowers, sun, green grass and butterflies flying around. I love hot weather, swimming and so on. I know, it's too soon to think about that but spring means it's all coming, getting closer, almost here :) I don't know why, but these cookies remind me spring and summer a lot. Maybe it's because there are cherries, orange peel and they come from Italy - warm, beautiful, hot, sunny Italy. The promised Florentines are here!