The Daring Bakers' Challenge: Milk Chocolate Pralines with Spiced White Choc Mousse and Honey Roasted Macadamias

The August 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge was hosted by Lisa of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drive and Mandy of What the Fruitcake?!. These two sugar mavens challenged us to make sinfully delicious candies! This was a special challenge for the Daring Bakers because the good folks at http://www.chocoley.com offered an amazing prize for the winner of the most creative and delicious candy!

Here we are again :) The end of the month means revealing the big secret coming out from the DB kitchen. This time it REALLY freaked me out because on of our main tasks was tempering chocolate. As I read through the page more and more recipes, directions, tips, notes and links popped out. I was pretty confused and it took a while for me to recuperate :D Well, and my head started creating and mixing up new ideas of creams, fillings and other stuff. Now you're about to find out what my head finally created.

Hot Cross Buns

Spring, sunshine, flowers, bunnies, eggs, lambs and chicks. What do these words have in common? Easter of course! Wait one week and it's here! I love Easter just like I love Christmas (and that's quite a big love!). The traditions are wonderful and the food...yum. We always spend the Easter time with our granny in her house in small village in the countryside. I can't imagine staying in the city during the holiday because here it seems to be tradition-free. Unfortunately, it's true. The traditions are slowly disappearing and nobody cares about it. On the other hand, in villages the traditions are fully alive, everybody is preparing to them, baking traditional dishes and simply enjoying live. And that's what love. The athmosphere. It's very friendly, kind and without any troubles in the air (if you what I mean :D). This time I'd like to tell you something about our Czech Easter traditions and share a recipe for one traditional English Easter dish.

Speculaas

It's already December, Christmas is almost here and people all over the world are looking forward to it. When I look out of the window I can see the winter. Cold, freezing, cool, chilling and icy. These words describe it perfectly. I wish it was snowing, too, but it's not from some unknown reason. You know, I don't know about better feeling than this one: I'm sitting in an armchair covered with warm blanket, christmas carols are being singed by my family, I'm holding a cup of hot tea and it's snowing outside. Pretty shiny small snowflakes are slowly falling down to the ground. I feel happy and comfortable and I want a cookie. The cookie, in fact. Speculaas.

Apple Ginger Muffins

Apples are in their season and they do pair well with ginger. Believe me!