For a few years I have loved eastern sweets. I know that they are extremely sweet, but I eat them nevertheless. Well, everybody has their weakness. As well as chocolate, I love baklava and Turkish delight - the traditional treat, usually fruit-flavoured and jelly-like, textured with coconut shreds or nuts, and served as a cube in icing sugar. I don't think I need to introduce baklava to anyone. I love its layeredness and sticky sweetness. My favourite is pistachio flavour. I dream about the summer vacation in Turkey, where baklavas in different flavours were available everywhere.

A few days ago I decided to prepare baklava in my own kitchen (using master Paweł Małecki's recipe from Lidl's culinary website). It was absolutely delicious and surprisingly easy. I recommend it to everyone who loves eastern sweets 

Ingredients

1 pack of chilled French pastry

60g of melted butter

200ml of water

150g of sugar

2 tablespoons of lemon juice

2 tablespoons of honey

150g of chopped almonds and cashew nuts

100g of chopped pistachios (without shells)

1 tablespoon of flour

Do you, like me, also associate citrus fruit with winter and the holiday season? Maybe because in December the most important news on the TV is that citrus fruits are being transported from Cuba to Poland. Then you only have to wait and enjoy the amazing smell of exotic fruits. If you save a little it can last a bit longer than only for the holidays. That's why tangerines are for me a winter fruit. Actually, I only buy them during this season, but I buy a lot of them, because my children love them.

Today I used these beautiful and juicy fruits to prepare an upside-down tangerine cake. The slightly tart taste of tangerines goes perfectly with the sweetness of caramel. The cake is amazing just after baking. It has a fantastic caramel shell and a soft fruit-vanilla inside. The next day you should soak the cake with caramel-tangerine sauce and it will be perfectly moist and fluffy at the same time. I don't know which version I prefer. Decide for yourselves 

Ingredients (20-cm baking sheet)

6 mandarins

250g of flour

100g of sugar for cake + 100g of sugar for caramel

130ml of oil

150ml of water

1.5 teaspoons of baking powder

2 eggs

a pinch of salt

I think that everybody who was raised in difficult times remembers perfectly the taste of kogel-mogel: eggs whisked with sugar to make a light-yellow, almost white, fluffy mixture. For many of us it was a way of dealing with having a sweet tooth. Later, when chocolate sweets were a little bit easier to get, we added a spoon of cocoa and the dessert was completely different. Today nobody could make me eat a raw egg, but for my husband it is still one of the best sweets. Today I prepared a huge portion of luxury kogel-mogel. I put it on some field berries and made a heavenly dessert. I warn those who are watching their figure, because it is a sugar bomb, but it is really hard to resist. Hot, aromatic juicy field berries, sweet and slightly stretchy kogel-mogel with a crunchy shell is an amazing combination. I recommend it for boosting your mood, especially on a nasty winter afternoon. Imagine this: it is dark and cold outside and on the table there is a hot and sweet pleasure with the smell of fruit...

Ingredients (for 4 people)
500g of different forest fruit
4 egg yolks
4 tablespoons of sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
1 teaspoon of butter

Mousse made with sweet cream or aquafaba is a perfect dessert. It doesn't require a lot of work, looks amazing and tastes even better. You can add chocolate, fruit or fruit mousse and every time we have a different fantastic dessert. Today I offer a coffee version of the dessert based on sweet cream. It you want a light option, use aquafaba. Because I like a coffee and chocolate combination, I added some dark chocolate. For gourmands, milk or white chocolate will be perfect. The dessert will be sweeter but more subtle in taste.

Ingredients (for 4 people)
50g of dark chocolate
2 cups of espresso
250ml of 30% sweet cream
1 teaspoon of caster sugar
1 teaspoon of gelatine
fruit for decorating

Holidays like Halloween or Valentine's Day need not exist for me. But because we try to celebrate family moments, these days are an occasion for us to spend time together and to eat something delicious. On Halloween we eat scary snacks and on Valentine's Day something pink, red and with hearts  But every day can be an occasion for cooking and eating something delicious. I associate Halloween and fall with pumpkins, so today I prepared a recipe for a quick and delicious pumpkin cake with a lot of deliciousness inside. The cake is scary for one reason (apart from decoration). It is really hard to resist taking another piece.

Ingredients:
270g of pumpkin purée
250g of flour
50g of brown sugar
125ml of oil
60ml of milk
2 tablespoons of cider vinegar
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
½ teaspoon of baking soda
2 teaspoons of gingerbread spice
100g of chopped dark chocolate
75g of chopped nuts
100g of dried cranberries or raisins
a pinch of salt