Oranges and chocolate are the biggest flavors of the festive season, so why not combining them into an orange chocolate shortbread.
The chocolate really compliments the orange flavors, it mixes sweetness to the bitterness and leaves you with a very enjoyable aftertaste.
A cheesecake without dairy? Yes, it’s true! This Crème Brûlée Cheesecake is actually a New York cheeseless cheesecake, prepared with soy yogurt and soy cream in place of traditional ingredients.
For the crust of the cake I used my recipe of cookies, so I’m sure about them being dairy free.
There is little sugar in this recipe to balance with the topping of your choice that will be sweet, here there is a layer of caramelised sugar to mimic a ‘crème brûlée’, a fruit coulis/sauce would also be very sweet.
I wanted to make a 100% dairy free cheesecake but it is quite hard to find dairy free cookies at the supermarket so I decided to make my own banana and peanut butter cookies.
For the best flavour, use the ripest bananas you have and for the peanut butter, use the one you like the most crunchy or soft. I do prefer the crunchy one because it add crunchiness to the cookies.
Why Swiss meringue ? Sometimes when you bake, you only use the yolk and you have many egg whites that would be wasted. The solution is to make meringues, it is very easy to make, requires the minimum amount of ingredients and always tastes nice.
You can add any flavor or color to them.
Chocolate éclair is the pastry that you can find in any boulangerie in France. Commonly flavored with chocolate or coffee and situated close to the counter when you buy your daily bread, you can’t not see them.
Éclair can be translated as ‘flash’, it is called like this because it can be eaten very fast.
The beginning of the recipe is the to prepare the chocolate custard. Feel free to replace the chocolate custard by any flavor of your choice, vanilla, hazelnut …
The chocolate custard is part of my chocolate éclairs recipe but can be used as filling for any type puffs or cakes.
It can be used to make any custard, only the step 8 needs to be change to the taste you want, pistachio, white chocolate, caramel, coffee …
Vanilla pods is better than vanilla extract, it gives a stronger flavor to the custard.
This brownie recipe is really easy to make. I suggest to prepare it the day before and leave it in the fridge overnight, it gives time to the chocolate to settle and make the brownie more moist and chewy.
In this recipe I used walnuts but you can replace by any type of nuts.
