Strawberry festival & a recipe for a chocolate cake with strawberries!

Last week was a hard week... and on friday I was at school till 1:30am, whilst I woke up at 5:30am on Saturday morning, to bake goodies for the evening's "Cuisine, Cultural & Artisan Festival", which was a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

Brownies & Kwarezimal at my stall

Despite the interesting exhibition and the varied amount of stalls displaying their wares, attendance to the event was very sparse, which was also positive, because it gave me time to speak to some very interesting people. Sales weren't too bad either. It seems that wherever I am, the brownies will be grabbed up immediately. So were the kwarezimal. Most of the pudina was sold to my family and friends who came over en masse and spent the evening chatting around my stall. Some locals bought some of the pudina too, and said they liked it. (They might have been trying to be polite though... :p) On Saturday night I fell asleep much before my head hit the pillow!

My version of the traditional Pudina (bread pudding)

So it was with great effort that I woke up early on Sunday morning, in order to beat the traffic and the crowds attending the "Festa Frawli" (Strawberry Festival). I made it a point to go, because I had heard good things about it, on previous years.

Festa Frawli: Waffles with strawberries and ice cream

But oh! What a disappointment! The stalls were few, the traffic was terrible, even at 10:00am and there was only a single point from where you could buy fresh strawberries! 

Festa Frawli: Mqaret with strawberry sorbet

Festa Frawli: Strawberry lolipops

It wasn't all bad... the strawberries I managed to buy from there were sweet and tasty, the goodies prepared with the strawberries looked nice, and the onee I tasted were also good. There were really beautiful displays of strawberries and flowers and some interesting, cultural entertainment. 

Festa Frawli: Strawberry and flower displays

Unfortunately, the small bottle of "imbid tal-frawli", a strawberry liquor of sorts, I bought for €4.50 from one of the stalls, wasn't too good. 2 sips of it (the second sip was to confirm that it was complete and utter rubbish) gave me a bad case of heartburn and the rest of the bottle went down the drain. All in all I'm not sure the whole trip was worth it at all!

Festa Frawli: Entertainers in traditional maltese dresses

Festa Frawli: Entertainers holding traditional instruments

Apparently there were other things going on in the area, other than the stalls, but I did not see any signs anywhere so we must have missed all of them!

Talking about strawberries, here's the recipe for last week's pictured chocolate cake with fresh strawberries. It was a huge hit and altough I baked it at 7:00pm, not a crumb remained for the next day! So I guess it's worth a try. Recipe adapted from Larousse Gastronomique.

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Patches 5th Edition: A Roundup

The Patches Market has come and gone... leaving behind memories of such a lovely day. I was actually surprised at how busy we were, since it was raining and very bleak :)

Luxury Nut brownies

Once again, the brownies were a huge hit, together with the cookies. The baked lemon cheesecake, topped with pistacchios and a homemade marmalade-honey sauce was also a great success - loved watching people drool over it :)

Biscotti, Cherries in Chocolate & Profiteroles

Yippeeee!! Couldn't have been happier! My wonderful nephew D. was as usual an enormous help, as was my better half M. Both helped man my stall while I sprinted around buying stuff on offer from the talented artists :-D.

Kwarezimal, & cookies displayed on the new cookie stand

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Imbuljuta and an Imbuljuta-inspired brownie

Imbuljuta tal- Qastan

The Maltese culture presentation is tomorrow, and today (yes! the night before :p) I made the last recipe to finish it off - a brownie, inspired by a Maltese traditional chocolate-chestnut soup - the imbuljuta.

This soup, which is traditionally eaten at christmas time, right after mid-night mass, is a thick & hearthy drink,  flavoured with tangerine & orange peel, cinnamon & crushed cloves. I also like to add dark chocolate to the mix for an even more decadent drink.

The last time I drank the imbuljuta, the chocolate-ness of it reminded me of my favourite brownies... and when doing the above mentioned project, I thought of incorporating these two, excellent recipes to produce a brownie using chestnuts, orange zest & spices.

Imbujluta Brownie

I am happy to say that the result is a brownie, as fudgy and as soft as the nut brownies I usually make with an awesome citrusy, cinnamony flavour. OH YUM!!

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My First Ever Market Stall - Patches!

It's today! It's today!! I am sooo excited, I can't wait!! Everything is ready... 80 Brownies, 60 Cookies, 80 Biscotti and 31 cards, to be exact. Hope I will manage to sell some stuff at least :)

Pictures of the stall will follow soon... YEAY!

Patches Market Event ◦

A fresh start... and lots of hard work :)

After 2 years and a few months in Dublin, we've decided it was time to go back home! We were missing the little ones too much, and they grow up sooooooo fast!!

This last month back on the rock (Malta) has been spent catching up with family and friends, planning our appartment's refurbishment and loads and loads of baking, because (apparently) my sweet treats have been missed more then I have!!!!

 I can't say I'm sorry though. I have been enjoying every minute of it, except the heat of the maltese summer. Maybe we should have came back in winter, where it would have been raining even more then in Dublin :)
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