If life gives you lemons...

Hi Y'all,

As you might know, I have a sweet spot named Carnival - as I am born in Cologne, the love of Carnival was given to me as a gift in my cradle. But as the saying goes "when in Rome, do as the Romans do" I decided to see what Maltese Carnival is like. Yes, there is such a thing! And in fact, there are a few things quite similar to Cologne Carnival. Surely the season doesn't start on November 11, and the clubs aren't organised by a board of eleven and they don't wear uniforms, but the Maltese celebrate from Thursday to Tuesday, school children have Monday and Tuesday off, and capable hands work the whole year round to create awesome floats which are even bigger than the carnival trucks in the Rhineland area.

Here is just a small one - and like in Germany closely related to current events :-)

For me the whole shebang felt like a mixture of venetian and Brazilian Carnival, as there was also a lot of dancing and incredibly elaborate costumes (although more modest than in Rio de Janeiro). 😏

But the greatest advantage of Maltese Carnival is definitely the weather! It's much more relaxing to celebrate with 17 degrees Celsius and sunshine and you only rarely have to worry, if rain will ruin the feather in your cap...

And like in Germany, all celebration ends with Ash Wednesday, and therefore I quit talking about Carnival and show you the latest concoctions of my witchy cauldron! Since I made some orange curd lately I have been thinking of a recipe for healthy lemon bars which I once saw on social media. I finally found it and veganised it (0 eggs instead of 4). Thus I shredded some oat flakes and mixed them with some homemade caramel syrup and coconut oil to form my no-bake pie crust. On top I spread some lemon curd made from lemon zest, lemon juice, homemade plant milk, sugar and cornstarch. Was an awesome mix of sweet and tangy! 

And because citrus is my sweet spot, I made an orange cake as well. At first sight nothing special, but I used a whole orange for it. Yes - with peel and all, just quartered and then blended. I sticked to the recipe but next time I would start with batting the eggs with sugar, then shredding the rest and finally and carefully fold in the flour. As you might see in the picture below, it could have been a bit more fluffy. But has potential for sure! 

Clue what that might be?

Hint: These are sweet potatoes and dates. Any ideas now? Sure, these are brownies! Ok, admittedly that wasn't obvious. But it was definitely the base for a brownie dough. Added some cocoa powder, ground almonds and flour and it was coated with a ganache of cocoa powder, coconut oil and caramel syrup. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the finished brownies because they were finished super fast!

And while we're talking sweets, I just stick to it and show you another two things I tried today. In my last post I told you about my chocolate spread with chickpeas. Now I wanted to test a similar thing but with hazelnuts instead. I very carefully roasted the hazelnuts - you guys might remember my desaster with the last batch of nuts when I completely underestimated my oven. But everything went well and then I peeled the nuts and blended them with cocoa powder, caramel syrup, water and a teaspoon of coconut oil. Next time I will start with blending the nuts only to get some kind of nut butter and then add the other ingredients to get it super creamy. Til then I'll have Nutella al dente! 😆

I'm already looking forward to spreading it onto my Sunday morning breakfast rolls! And last but not least another citrus treat: coconut bliss balls! They basically consist of shredded coconuts, lemon zest and juice (or orange juice), coconut oil and maple syrup or caramel syrup. Blend that into a tough mix and roll into balls. Then hide a whole peeled almond in every ball. Finally roll them in coconut shreds and chill them in the fridge. Look a bit like Raffaello but taste more citrusy and thus are the perfect summer treat! 

On that note: If life gives you lemons, make bliss balls!