The crazy and fragrant summer strawberry season is in full bloom. This year I like strawberry cocktails the most. I add other fruit, and the strawberries are so sweet that I don't need to add any sugar. My favourite is a combination of strawberries with melon, or pear and apple juice with peppermint leaves.

As usual during the weekend I prepared a cake. This time it was a strawberry shortbread cake with blancmange and crumble topping. Everything fit together nicely. I think that this cake could be excellent with more sour fruit. Cherries, redcurrants or plums come to mind. I have to realize this idea.

The idea for this cake comes from www.moniamieszaigotuje.blogspot.com.

Ingredients:
dough
0.5 kg of flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
200g of sugar
200g of butter
1 egg
1 egg yolk
3 tablespoons of cream

Nobody is perfect. Even though we count the calories and eat healthily, sometimes we need to let go and allow ourselves a little self-indulgence. Today I would like to share with you the recipe for a dessert which is neither light nor lacking in sweetness. Instead it is simple, yummy, beautiful and very chocolaty.

I prepared two versions: the first one with desiccated coconut and blueberries and the second with dark chocolate and strawberries. Choose your favourite dessert or go crazy and make your own version.

Bright dessert

Ingredients (for 2 people)
200g of white chocolate
100g of blueberries
200ml of 30% sweet cream
200ml of mascarpone cheese
2 tablespoons of desiccated coconut

What should a Sunday dessert be like if it is to disappear as soon as it has been served? In my home we need two things: chocolate and fruit. These ingredients usually ensure my culinary success. Recently I used them to prepare muffins with blueberries and white chocolate. They were yummy, fluffy inside and crunchy outside, and it was possible to smell the sweet, chocolate fragrance in the corridor outside our flat. As usual, some of them were packed in boxes for my children's packed lunch.

Ingredients (12 muffins)
300g of flour
3 tablespoons of cocoa
150g of butter
170ml of milk
160g of brown sugar
2 eggs
2 flat teaspoons of baking powder
½ teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
12 bars of white chocolate
blueberries

Today I would like to share with you the recipe for a dish which I prepare for my children on beautiful, sunny afternoons. They liked the dessert with rhubarb, strawberries, coconut crumble topping – but without flour and sugar – especially if I served it with their favourite ice cream. I think I will make it more often because as well as its excellent flavour it has a couple of other assets: you don't need any sophisticated ingredients, you may prepare it easily and fast, and you may use any seasonal fruit.

Ingredients (for 4 people):
3 long sticks of rhubarb
250g of strawberries
4 tablespoons of xylitol
4 tablespoons of butter
150g of desiccated coconut

At last it is the strawberry season. Now the fruit not only looks beautiful but is tasty and smells like nothing else in the world. Again we will eat porridge with strawberries, noodles with strawberry mousse for dinner, strawberry cocktails for afternoon tea, and salad with strawberries for supper. Every year I go at the strawberry season with gusto, and after a few weeks I will be fed up and won't be able to look at this yummy, fragrant fruit.

For a good start, I recommend an excellent and healthy strawberry dessert with chia seeds. It is great after Sunday dinner, for afternoon tea, or, if you prepare them earlier, for an energetic, filling and yummy breakfast.

The inspiration for this dessert comes from "Smaki życia" ("Flavour of Life") by Agnieszka Maciąg.

Ingredients (for 4 people)
300g of strawberries
300ml of milk (it may be coconut milk or whatever you prefer)
honey or maple syrup
4 tablespoons of chia seeds
fruit and peppermint leaves for decoration