Almond Butter

Weekend is coming and weekend means pancakes for breakfast. And this would be the end of the weekend story if I wasn't that picky. What to put on my pancakes? (my first world's problems...) Nutella? Too boring. Jam? Too sweet and artificial with all the 'let's pretend there were more fruits added than they really were'. Lemon curd? Cool... but for morning pancakes? Naaah... rather for afternoon cookies. Peanut butter! Nope... I had peanut butter cookies not that long ago. Honey? Fits rather for toasts and butter than pancakes. Time for something new. This time homemade Almond Butter won :)

 

 Almond Butter

500 g raw almonds

1 1/2 tbsp honey

2 tbsp olive oil

salt

Preheat oven to 200 C and spread almonds on a baking sheet so that you get a single layer of them. Roast almonds for 10 minutes and change their position occasionally with a spatula. Remove them from the oven and let them cool. 

Something to listen to while waiting for them:

Placebo- Kings of Medicine

When cooled transfer roasted almonds to your food processor, add honey, one tablespoon of olive oil and salt and blend until smooth. First almonds will become very crumbly, but with time you will be able to see that they blend into a smooth nutty butter. Add another tablespoon of olive oil, spice to taste (e.g. I prefer my almond butter a bit more salty) and blend a bit more. Transfer Almond Butter to jars and store at room temperature. Spread it on pancakes, use it for cookie dough, add it to ice cream, blend it with smoothies, eat it with with your fingers. There are countless possibilities :) 

Pecan Cookies

I didn't have much luck in the kitchen this time. The first time I've tried to make these cookies I burned nuts instead of roasting them (not good). The second time I've tried to make these cookies I've mistaken salt with sugar and I'm telling you... 20 cookies don't need 100 g of salt (really not good). The third trial was successful though. And these Pecan Cookies are definitely worth trying. The recipe is simple and they're delicious as long as you follow the recipe :)

Pecan Cookies

1 cup pecans

100 g unsalted butter

1/3 cup sugar

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour

Roast pecan nuts in the oven to 180 C for 7 minutes (and that's absolutely enough... I've checked it for you). 
Beat butter, sugar, salt and vanilla extract together until well mixed, add flour and beat it for 1-2 more minutes. When nuts are roasted and cooled blend them into tiny pieces (you can also finely chop them). Throw chopped roasted pecans to the dough and knead it fast. Form little dough balls and press them on baking paper to form cookies, cookies, cookies! Sprinkle tiny little bit of confectioners sugar on cookies and bake at 190 C until they become golden. 
Something to listen to while cookies are in the oven: 

One Republic- Counting Stars

Dried Cherries Oatmeal Cookies

 The gloomy weather in a foggy warm autumn day when all the leaves have already changed their colors to red, yellow or orange was like the definition of autumn come true. And of course the autumn all around me made me want to bake something appropriate for the mood. Something that would make the day whole. The choice was cookies. 'Definitely cookies' I thought. But not any cookies... they have to fit with taste to the autumn foggy weather outside my windows. My dream was to bake some cookies and then eat them while sitting on the bench sipping a hot tea. Mmm... so the cosy choice was Dried Cherries Oatmeal Cookies. 

Dried Cherries Oatmeal Cookies

1.5 cup dried cherries

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

70 g dark chocolate

1.5 cup oats

1/2 tsp salt

120 g unsalted butter

1 egg

1.5 tsp vanilla extract

Chop chocolate into small pieces, maximum 1/2 cm big. In a bowl mix dry ingredients: chopped chocolate, flour, oats, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and cherries. 

Then add butter, egg and vanilla extract and knead the dough until all ingredients are well mixed together. In the meantime preheat the oven to 210 C. From little balls from the dough (3-4 cm wide) and press them on baking paper to form cookies. Bake for ~ 20 minutes, unless cookies become solid earlier. 

Linkin Park- Faint

Let them cool and you have your awesome dried cherries oatmeal cookies. Sweet from the sugar,  sour from dried cherries, spiced with cinnamon and vanilla. Gooood, gooood cookies :)

Mini-Calzone

Autumn cosy weekend afternoons require a cosy equivalent on the plate. After a relaxing bike trip to the forest in the foggy day I decided that I have all the energy in the world to prepare a cosy dish, one that I haven't made in a long time: Mini-Calzone. Fun to make, fun to eat, tasty eaten fresh, tasty eaten for lunch at work. They become even more fun to eat them when stuffed with different fillings to make them more diverse and interesting. Oh goodie, here comes the cosy mini-calzone recipe!

Mini-Calzone

50 g yeasts

200 ml milk

3 tbsps olive oil

3 tbsps honey

1.5 tsp salt

1 tbsp sugar

650 ml all- purpose flour

The most important part is the dough, which may seem to be tricky but is very easy to be made. 

First heat the milk to the temperature that would be very warm, but not hot when touched by hand. Transfer it to a plastic, big bowl and add 1 tbsp of olive oil, 1 tbsp of sugar, 1/2 tsp of salt and mix well to dissolve the sugar. Crumble yeasts into the bowl and smear the pieces so the mass is homogeneously dissolved in milk mixture. Cover the bowl with a piece of cloth and leave it in a warm place (next to a heater) for 15-20 minutes. 

When incubation is done add 400 ml of flour, honey, 1 tsp of salt, 2 tbsp of olive oil to the bowl and knead the dough until flour is distributed homogeneously and all clumps are removed. Cover the bowl with the piece of cloth again and incubate in a warm place for another 30-40 minutes. Here's a song to fill your time: 

Franz Ferdinand- Kathrine Kiss Me

When incubation is done and dough is grown, add 200 ml of flour and knead the dough until smooth. You can add some more flour if needed, the target dough should not be sticky, but still delicate. Roll the dough to 3-4 mm thickness and with the use of cup cut circles from it.

You can stuff mini-calzones with anything you can imagine, but here is what I used this time:

Avocado&Pepper filling

3 ripe avocados

2 chili peppers

1 red pepper

75 g grated gouda cheese

sweet pepper

salt

pepper

Cut avocado and red pepper in small cubes. Chop chili to small pieces and mix it together with avocado, pepper and season with sweet pepper, pepper and salt. 

Spinach&Salmon filling

350 g frozen spinach

100 g salmon
50 g grated red cheddar cheese

1 onion

1 clove of garlic

5 dried tomatoes

salt

pepper

Chop the onion and garlic and stew them for 5 minutes together. Add spinach spices and dried tomatoes to the frying pan and stir them occasionally until all water is removed. Cut salmon in small pieces and add them to the spinach mix. 

Stuff mini-calzone with any filling you like, close them well by pressing for on the edges of each calzone and bake them at 200 C until golden. Serve with garlic sauce (greek yoghurt, pressed garlic, salt, pepper and sugar), sweet chili sauce or ketchup. Eat freshly baked at home or reheated at work, they're always awesome ;) 

Peanut Butter Cookies

It got more chilly outside and a bit more rainy lately. Sitting at home when outside it's raining cats and dogs calls for a blanket, cosy cookie and a hot cup of tea. But this weekend I was visiting my friends and I wanted to give them a little homemade gift. Going through all my recipe ideas for cosy cookies, fit for this weather and good for a little gift Peanut Butter Cookies won as a perfect fit.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Cookie:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1.5 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup honey

1/3 cup agave syrup

1/4 cup almond milk

3/4 tsp table salt

1.5 tbsp kosher salt

1 cup homemade peanut butter (see below)

Peanut butter:

250 g peanuts

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp honey

1 tbsp peanut oil (or extra virgin olive oil)

Let's start from the main ingredient: peanut butter. 

Preheat oven to 190 C and roast peanuts for 15 minutes on a baking paper sheet. Stir peanuts once in a while to make sure all of them roast equally and be careful not to burn them. Remove tray from the oven and let them cool for 15 minutes. Then transfer roasted peanuts to a blender, add honey, salt and oil and blend until smooth. You may need to stop from time to time to scrape down the peanut butter.

Now... cookie time! 

Add flour, baking-powder, vanilla extract, honey, agave syrup, almond milk, table salt and of course peanut butter to a bowl. If your peanut butter was quite solid you can add additional 1.5 tbsp of olive oil. Knead the dough and incubate it in a fridge for 20 minutes. In the meantime preheat the oven to 190 C. After incubation form 1.5 cm-wide balls from the dough and press them slightly on the baking paper sheet. Decorate top of the cookie by pressing fork on top and sprinkle each cookie with kosher salt. Bake for 12 minutes and then cool for 5 minutes. 

Serving: 36 cookies.

Muse- Unintended

Cookies will taste perfectly served with hot cup of afternoon tea, black coffee or breakfast glass of milk. Perfect for all the occasions. The choice is yours.

Lemon curd & Poppy seeds Cookies

Oh, how I love to cook! This weekend I went on a cooking spree. I just couldn't leave the kitchen, I didn't want to leave it where there was so much to be done. So from the morning till evening I've been chopping, mixing, boiling, baking with small breaks for trips to the shop for extra ingredients. If I was to choose one recipe to present from this weekend the choice would be difficult, but I think this one would win... cookies with homemade lemon curd and poppy seeds. 

Lemon curd & Poppy seeds Cookies
Cookie:

125 g unsalted butter

150 g poppy seeds

1/2 cup caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose four

1 tsp baking powder

1 egg 

3 tbsp milk
150g poppy seeds

Lemon curd:
125 g unsalted butter
1 cup lemon juice
2 tbsp lemon zest
1/2 cup caster sugar
4 eggs

Let's start from making the lemon curd. Melt butter on very low fire, add sugar and mix until completely dissolved. Zest lemon and squeeze lemon juice. Add them together with eggs to the mixture, keep on low fire while continuously mixing. Mix until lemon curd reaches its jelly-like consistency and transfer it to a jar. This amount of lemon curd will be sufficient for cookies and much much more, so prepare sterilized jar to store it. It will also taste fantastic with morning toasts or pancakes. 

As for cookies mix butter, sugar, flour, baking powder, vanilla extract, egg and only 1 tbsp of milk together. Knead the dough well and prepare poppy seeds by soaking them for 5 minutes in 2 tbsp of hot milk. Divide dough into two and roll each piece between two baking paper sheets into A4-size rectangles. Spread lemon curd on the rolled sheet, sprinkle them with poppy seeds and roll the dough from the longer end. Keep the rolled dough for 1 hour in the fridge and in the meantime preheat the oven to 190 C. Take the rolled dough out of the fridge, cut it into 1.5 cm slices and bake until golden. In the meantime, to match the mood :)

Fool's Garden- Lemon Tree 

Apricot & Raspberry Dessert

I am in a constant need to snack. Whenever one meal is done, I'm looking for something new to eat. I know I should have some limits, but somehow they're nowhere to be found, so the least I could do was prepare something snacky and healthy. And as the season for apricot is around guess what appeared on my dessert menu?

Apricot & Raspberry Dessert

14 apricot

10 dates

soya yoghurt

200 g raspberries

shredded almonds

The recipe is fast and childishly easy. It is so easy it shouldn't even be called a recipe. First, separate stones from apricots and blend pulp together with dates. Second, transfer the mass to a glass the dessert will be served in and decorate it with 2-3 cm layer of soya yoghurt. Decorate the dessert with fresh raspberries and sprinkle with shredded almonds. The more raspberries the better, they will add a strong and contrasting taste to the dessert. Keep the dessert in fridge until devoured.

My need for constant snacking was satisfied, at least for a while. How about your snacking capabilities? Any special needs?

Placebo-Special Needs

Carrot muffins

When I moved to Denmark 3 years ago I was suddenly exposed to plenty of new things I've never experienced before. The weather was colder, the wind was stronger, the light was less present and there was no proper Polish cottage cheese. Sounds like a disaster, doesn't it? But of course there is more to Denmark than this and one needs time to discover the charm of Denmark. There are all those kind people, with their amazing sense of humor and sane mentality, there is the economic equality, there is the amazingly fresh air (especially if you live on the seaside, which is quite easy to achieve when you're in Denmark) and obviously there is the strongly addictive Danish pastry. The list could go on and on, but somewhere at the top experiences Denmark offered me is carrot cake that I fell in love with from the first bite. I'd eat several portions of it whenever friends brought it to celebrate their birthdays, but whenever I took the challenge of preparing my own carrot cake at home it would end up as a big failure. I've tried a few recipes and all of them gave me a slack-baked cake, but I wouldn't give up. How could I? And today I proudly present my successful recipe for Carrot Muffins!

Carrot Muffins  

5 small carrots

20 dates

1 cup apple juice

3 small eggs

3 tsps cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla extract

4 tsps baking powder

3/4 tsp salt

2 cups all-purpose flour

Topping: 4 tbs shredded coconut + 1/2 tsp cinnamon 

Put the peeled carrots in food processor and blend them together with dates. Transfer the mass into a bowl and add the remaining ingredients: apple juice, eggs, cinnamon, vanilla extract, baking powder, salt and flour. Use the mixer to homogenize the mass and transfer it to muffin baking pans. 

Mix shredded coconut with cinnamon and sprinkle each muffin with the mixture. Transfer muffins to the oven preheated to 190C and bake for 40 minutes or until the coconut shreds become golden and the top part of muffin is crunchy. In the meantime prepare chocolate sauce (optional). 

Chocolate sauce

70 g dark chocolate

1/2 cup of water

1/4 cup agave syrup

1/5 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Pour water into a pot, add agave syrup, cocoa powder and well-chopped dark chocolate. Bring to boil and continue mixing the sauce (the targeted consistency is dense, but still liquid). Allow the sauce to cool before serving and use it for decorating the plate with muffins. An alternative for serving idea instead of chocolate sauce is sour cream (9%). Little tip for serving: muffins taste fantastic served together with black strong tea that will underlie their rich taste.

 Nancy Sinatra- Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)

Spring Rolls

It's a sunny, hot and still weekend. There was absolutely no desire in me to add more heat to the kitchen, so I had to figure out something light and refreshing for my dinner menu. Refreshing, raw, no-baking, no-frying, just cut the veggies and roll!

Spring Rolls

1/2 small cabbage

6 carrots

1 onion

250 g sprouts

1 red pepper

1 chili

1 thumb-size ginger

1 pot of fresh basil

Peel carrots and grate them into small stripes. Chop the chili, grate the ginger and cut the sprouts. Cut the remaining vegetables into thin stripes. Place the rice paper sheet into hot water for 20 seconds and transfer it on a wooden surface. Place the veggies and 3-4 basil leaves on a rice paper and roll. 

Serve with soya and sweet chili sauce.

Asaf Avidan - One day / Reckoning Song

Have yourself a healthy little breakfast

So the weekend has come and I say let's treat ourselves! However, let's not make it tedious or time-consuming, we're still tired after the all week of hard work, right? The mango smoothie fulfills all the requirements for a perfect breakfast treat.

Mango smoothie

1 mango

100 ml soya yoghurt

1 tbsp agave syrup

blueberries

Peel mango from its skin and separate pulp from the stone. Blend mango pulp with yoghurt and agave syrup until smoothie-smooth. Decorate the smoothie with blueberries and enjoy it together with Daft Punk song from their newest album. Get lucky is not the only good song from that album worth our praise.

Daft Punk- Instant Crush

Macadamia Raw Tart

There is a time in a woman's life when she has all she ever wanted, all she ever craved for and then she decides she wants something completely different. When all she got, all she achieved, all she learnt and all she created is simply not good enough. When all this becomes a basic level of life and knowledge and capabilities and she can no longer perceive it as a great achievement. It all becomes the new baseline from which one has to start developing oneself anew. I needed to challenge myself and to bring a new fresh idea to my life. Or maybe was it just my curiosity to check if it was possible to be done? Having everything ready-made, packed and processed nowadays preparing a raw-food delicacy seemed to be quite an exciting way to go.

Macadamia Raw Tart

160 g macadamia 

10 dates

300 g cashew nuts 

2 tbsp lemon juice

100 ml coconut oil

1 vanilla pod

80 ml honey

50 ml water
400 g fresh strawberries

Start preparing the lower part of tart by blending macadamia and dates in your food processor. Depending on the food processor you may need to blend them for a bit longer, but don't homogenize the mixture. It should contain little pieces of macadamia nuts, not become a paste. Transfer the mixture onto a plate or a baking tin on which you will serve it when ready. Spread the mass across the container of your choice and clean the food processor from the ingredients. Don't forget to snack a bit of the tart before you clean the food processor from it. 

The second step is the filling that should be prepared by blending cashew nuts, water, freshly squeezed lemon juice, honey, coconut oil and vanilla seeds. Blending is done when you obtain a smooth and homogenous mass. After that you can transfer it on top of the tart and spread it equally across it. Put it to the fridge and allow to solidify, 2 hours are minimum. In the meantime you can enjoy the newest White Lies song that I absolutely fell in love with:

White Lies- There Goes Our Love Again

Decorate the tart with fresh strawberries on top and voila! 

Is it good? Is it eatable? Is it healthy? Yes, yes and yes. It's simply divine.

Strawberry Breakfast Bars

There is never enough time. All the rush, all the fuss, all the musts, all the work, all the papers, and every day I wish that the alarm clock will fail. That one day it will just forget to do its job. Especially this week. However, I do not give up easily. You could even say I never give up. That is why, even though the schedule was tight, I decided to squeeze in some baking-time and the perfect recipe for busy people, who need their energy fast is: Strawberry Breakfast Bars.

Strawberry Breakfast Bars

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cup oats

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 cup brown sugar

200 g of salted butter

500 g strawberries

4 handfuls coconut shreds

To make it fast and efficient start with cubing the strawberries. Add 1 tbsp of brown sugar (or two depending on how sweet the fruits already are) and heat them in the pot on medium fire mixing occasionally. 

Having the strawberry filling in progress mix flour, oats, salt, baking powder and sugar together. Cube the butter and add it to the powder components. Don't forget to mix the strawberries, so they don't burn. 

Knead the dough into a homogeneous mass and press it into a baking tin. It is a good idea to smear a thin layer of butter on the baking tin before pressing the dough into it. Blend the strawberries in the pot and leave it on a medium fire for another 8 minutes and mix them occasionally. The target consistency is a bit dense, not too liquidy and does not contain pieces of whole fruits.

Now assemble! Put the strawberry filling on top of the dough, sprinkle it with coconut shreds and oats, press the topping gently into the filling, but not all the way down. Bake at 160 C for 30-40 minutes. A good indication that the bars are ready is when the coconut shreds start to turn golden. Cool it down. 

A good idea is to bake it in the evening, leave overnight to cool down and then munch it for breakfast or take to work for a power break. Don't forget to share it with your colleagues. They might need it more than you do. And here is little something to make your mornings more full of energy and fill them with motivation:

Muse-Survival

Gazpacho Day

Today, I call a Gazpacho Day. As the tomatoes become more rich in taste and outside it's getting warmer and warmer, I craved for something cool and veggie. 

I bought some fresh, ripe tomatoes, cucumber, sweet pepper and chili and hoped for the best to create the taste I remember from my trip to Granada.

 Gazpacho

1 kg fresh tomatoes

1/2 sweet red pepper

1 big cucumber

1/2 chili

1/2 onion 

1 tbsp lime juice

1 tsp brown sugar

2 tsp balsamic vinegar  

It's an easy and quite fast recipe, perfect for the busy people who want to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Recipe written for 3 portions.

Start with blanching the tomatoes for 4-5 minutes in freshly boiled water. This way it wil be easier to remove their skins. Place a sieve on a pot and cut the tomatoes in halves. Do that keeping the tomatoes above the sieve so that you will be able to collect all their precious juice and remove manually seeds from tomatoes (seeds go to the sieve, cleaned tomatoes go directly to the pot). With the use of sieve separate seeds from the pulp and juice as much as possible.

Peel and cube the cucumber, cut pepper and chili into stripes, add pressed garlic, vinegar and squeezed lime juice to the tomatoes. Add freshly milled pepper, salt and brown sugar to taste.

Blend all the ingredients until the soup is homogenous and put aside to the fridge for min. 30 minutes.

In the meantime prepare ciabatta bread. Cut it into slices, spread a bit of olive oil on top, press garlic on top, sprinkle with dried basil and bake in the oven until crunchy.

You can spend your waiting time with Manu Chao: 

Manu Chao- Me Gustas Tu

When ciabatta is ready, serve it together with cold gazpacho decorated with fresh basil leaves. I must admit, I am quite a critical person, but this gazpacho met absolutely all my requirements. It even managed to surprise me with its rich taste and caused a pleasant refreshing sensation in a very warm day. A gazpacho that is worth recommending to all veggie-lovers!

Rhubarb Heaven

This weekend I had way too much energy. I went for a trip to the seaside, I did the shopping, I worked during the weekend, I cleaned the house, I read a book, I went to the lake, I made a pizza, I made sushi, I made freshly squeezed juices, I tried my new lens, I couldn't sit still in one place. But the highpoint of my weekend was baking the rhubarb tart. It was quite an unexpected choice. In the shop, me and the rhubarb looked at each other and I knew there was no other choice. We had to leave the place together. 

Rhubarb tart

3 cups flour

260 g unsalted butter

1 pinch of salt

10 tbsp powdered sugar

30 ml of ice-cold water

1 kg rhubarb

2 apples

2 tbsp lemon juice

1/2 vanilla pod

 First step is to prepare the tart. Cut the butter into 1 cm cubes and beat it with flour, salt and 7 tbsp of powdered sugar. Then knead the dough manually, add the ice-cold water and knead a little bit more. When the dough is homogeneous, divide it into 3/4 and 1/4. The bigger part should be pressed and fitted into a tart pan and pricked with a fork in a few places. The smaller part should be rolled into a ball and wrapped in a plastic bag. Place the dough in the fridge for at least 30 min. In the meantime heat the oven to 200 C.

Second step is getting friendly with the rhubarb. Wash it well, dry it a bit and chop it into smaller pieces. Place the chopped rhubarb, peeled and cubed apples in the pot. Mix them with lemon juice and 2 tbsp of powdered sugar and seeds obtained from the vanilla pod. Leave the mixture on a low fire for 30-40 minutes and mix occasionally. You want vaporize most of the liquid.

Put the tart into the preheated oven and bake until golden. In the meantime spice your date with rhubarb-filling with:

Arctic Monkeys-Fluorescent Adolescence

When the tart is ready remove it from the oven and put the rhubarb-apple heavenly filling on top. Roll out the remaining part of the dough and cut stripes from it. Place the stripes on top of the filling (yes, the awesome sour-sweet filling) and bake for additional 30 minutes. When the tart has cooled decorate it with 1 tbsp of powdered sugar on top.

A good tip for serving the tart is with vanilla ice cream (and trust me on this one... this is a really good, mouth-watering, heavenly combination of flavors). 

Keep Calm and Bake The Cheesecake

When the week is hard and the challenges at work are overwhelming everyone needs the 'Keep Calm and Carry On' moment. That was what I needed. I needed it bad. A little balance in my life, a kick of confidence, a little 'I've got this under control'. And the recipe for all this mess and stress was The Exquisite Cheesecake. My answer to all the challenges, my hope to restore some balance. 

The Exquisite Cheesecake
500 g ricotta
250 g mascarpone 
100 g powdered sugar
4 handfuls of almond flakes
1 lemon zest from one fruit
1.5 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp flour
3 eggs
75 g unsalted butter
140 g digestive cookies

Step 1: the cookie layer.

Melt the unsalted butter in a pot and in the meantime crumble digestive cookies. You can crumble them with the use of a blender or you can mash them with hand (if you had a bad day). Mix crumbled digestives with melted butter and transfer it to the baking tin. Press the cookie mixture to the bottom of the baking tin with the use of a spoon. Place it in the fridge for 20 minutes and preheat the oven to 180 C. In the meantime... step two!

Step 2: the OH-so-creamy-and-delicious layer. 

Grind the almond flakes and prepare the lemon zest. Add them to ricotta, mascarpone, eggs, sugar, flour and vanilla extract and mix well until smooth and creamy.

Easy? Easy. Now transfer the cheesecake mass on the digestive cookie layer and bake for 50 minutes or until the cheesecake becomes golden. As you wait and inhale the heavenly, the sweet smell of the cheesecake miracle you can fill your time with a pinch of classy. I enjoy the combination a lot.

The Beatles- I've just seen a face

When the cheesecake is baked cool it by slowly, step-wise opening the oven. Open the oven at few centimeters, leave it open for few minutes, open wider, etc. In the meantime roast a handful or two of almond flakes on the frying pan for 10 minutes. Decorate the cheesecake with roasted almond flakes and powdered sugar.

Keep the cheesecake in a fridge (applicable only if you can withhold yourself from devouring it on spot at once), but remove it from the fridge 15 minutes prior to serving. 

So when the week was hard or the day was bad and the deadlines are coming and the work is piling, keep calm and bake a cheesecake. Come back from work, leave it all behind, make a cup of excellent tea and savor every bite and crumble of the cheesecake.