Vanillicious.com – Easy Desserts

Magos Guba

Hungary has a special place in my heart. So does its cuisine, especially the desserts.

I was introduced to the Makos Guba (Pronounced: Makosh Gooba. Translation: poppy seeds dough. Not literally, though) during one of my visits in Budapest. I fell in love with it immediately (Just like other Hungarian desserts I’ve had). I decided to replicate it in my kitchen, and after checking several recipes, I created my own version of it. I was already told by certain Hungarians mine was the best Makos Guba ever.

This dessert is not only for the poppy seed lovers! Let me put it this way: even if you had bad experience with poppy seeds (like me), have no experience or you’re not too sure about your feelings, you must give it a try.

Maoks Guba is a sweet, warm bread pudding with poppy seeds, served with vanilla cream on top. Custard can be a sufficient substitute if you can’t find vanilla cream at the nearest store (or too lazy to prepare it yourself). It is very easy to prepare and will consume very little of your time.

Ingredients tip: if you’re living in Ireland or the British Isle, I recommend the M&S brioche rolls (8 mini rolls per pack should be enough to serve 2-3) and their Madagascan Vanilla Cream to serve with. In Ireland (Dublin), poppy seeds can be found in Nourish (the health food stores) or Fallon & Byrne.

Strawberry Trifle

This dessert was created when I ruined a perfectly baked white chocolate and coconut cake, that was meant to be a surprise for my friend’s parents. It just flipped out of my hands (with some help, of course), and smashed on the work surface in my kitchen. For a minute or two I was staring at what used to be a perfect cake and turned into uneven and messy cakes chunks and crumbs moments later. Something I will never serve, not even to my biggest enemies…

When I came back into my senses I knew immediately I’ll have to bake another one. And then I realized we can always enjoy those chunks and crumbs with vanilla ice cream (did I mention we always have some in the fridge?).

Few hours later I figured I can turn it into a trifle, a very easy dessert to make!The traditional recipes require a sponge cake, but honestly, I think my cake made this trifle taste so much better!

You can have your trifle with your favourite fruits and/or berries and have as many layers as your serving bowl can hold. So basically, you can use this recipe as a general guideline on how to prepare your own trifle. You can also scatter some fresh fruit between the layers.

A quick note: I manged to prepare 2 trifles (one for ourselves and one for a dinner party we were invited to. It involved loads of compliments) with half the amount of the original recipe as published here in the blog. Needless to say I was snacking around with it as well. But only a little (I had desserts to prepare!). Anyway, what I’m trying to say is the amount of cake you’ll need for this recipe depends on the size of your serving bowl and the number of cake layers you prefer.

Click here to read up this recipe!

No bake cheesecake

As a young teenager, no bake cheesecakes were a shocking discovery! I got so used to my mom’s amazing (baked) classic cheesecake and couldn’t understand how it was possible not to bake a cheesecake. Not to mention how surprised I was to discover how good they taste.

My first try (at my early teenage years) was a big failure. When I tried to cut the cake into slices, it all collapsed. When I grew older I understood I had to either add gelatine or use fat cream cheese. Back there and then, 9% fat considered to be a very fat cheese. Funny, huh? I had to relocate to Ireland in order to discover 9% fat is very slim; not to mention there was no such thing as mascarpone cheese available!

So now, 15 years older and wiser, I’m sharing another delicious, vanillicious recipe.

Click here to read up this recipe!

Alfajores

There are many recipes for Alfajores,  these wonderful, Argentinian sandwich cookies, and this recipe is probably the best one I came across. Preparing the cookies is very simple. However, you might want to free an hour of your time for filling and decorating the cookies.

These alfajores are amongst the simplest cookies to prepare but they taste so amazingly sophisticated! and the way they melt in the mouth is just yum! Need I say more? You should already be preparing the cookies! (Or at least on your way to buy the ingredients. Or preparing the dulce de leche. Now, go!)

Click here to read up this recipe!