A rainbow of tastes

Chocolate Babka and “The Dinner Party” Do you remember that one episode of Seinfeld with  Chocolate Babka  ? It was “ The Dinner Party ” episode who introduced me to this deliciousness. I remember this one very well after so many years. The “team” goes to a dinner party and Elaine says they shouldn’t go empty handed, so she decide to buy a bottle of wine and a chocolate babka to bring to the party. While Kramer and George’s responsibility is to buy the wine, Elaine and Jerry stop at a bakery to take the babka. But as always, everything goes wrong and they have to settle for a “lesser” babka: the cinnamon one :). And this was the first time I heard about babka. I must say that I was so curious about its taste back then, but silly me… I totally forgot about it. Until few days ago when, when while browsing through my magazines, I found an interesting pistachio babka recipe. I immediately remembered that Seinfeld episod...

Moldavian Mucenici - A Traditional Romanian Pastry Dessert Moldavian Mucenici are also a Romanian dessert, from Moldavian region. They are  similar to the Muntenian Mucenici  as they are both eaten traditionally on March, 9 when it is celebrated an old Orthodox tradition: the 40 Christian martyrs that were sentenced to death by freezing in a cold lake.  In this case, the dough shaped like figure 8 is much bigger in size and is baked instead of boiled in water. They are served with crushed walnuts and honey and flavoured with lemon or orange zest. The ingredients below are for 8-9 servings Ingredients for Moldavian Mucenici dough: 500 g all purpose flour 100 g granulated sugar 7 g active dry yeast or 25 g fresh yeast 1/3 cup neutral oil 1 cup almond milk (can be easily replaced with water), lukewarm a pinch of salt 1 teaspoon lemon zest 1 tablespoon vanilla extract Ingredients for Moldavian Mucenici syrup : 1 cup water 150 g sugar zest f...