Sweets

This is my second time to make this chocolate pudding.

It’s super easy to make yet so tasty.

This time I served it with coconut cream and fresh strawberries and currants.

My husband’s birthday is coming up, and we decided to start celebrate this weekend.

His request for his birthday cake is always the same, “a lemon cake.”

The lemonier, the better.

This is made of three layers of vanilla sponge cake, lemon curd, coconut cream, and fresh fruit.

This turned out great!

My husband and I both loved it.

This may be one of my favorite cakes I’ve made.

My husband says he is not a big fan of coconut, but he has slowly come to like coconut cream, and I think he liked it particularly when it was paired with lemon curd.

The cake was decorated with beautiful fresh fruits, including the red currants from my mother-in-law’s backyard.

By the way I used new pans to bake these layers of cake.

I typically never purchase anything impulsively (even a dollar item!), but I did buy these pans the first time I saw them.

I liked the unique shape, but also they were marked way down, and the store was a bit away from our house.

No regret.

This was my first time using these pans, but I liked how the cake turned out.

It’s unique and looks elegant.

The combination of orange and chocolate is so irresistible.

I couldn’t decide which look I liked better, with or without powdered sugar.

This chocolate cake is my current favorite.

Originally this recipe was presented as “brownies”, so it’s a rather denser texture instead of fluffy.

It’s very moist, though.

This time I added a generous amount of orange zest.

I wanted to make sure I would taste orange in every bite.

I decorated the cake with coconut cream (my favorite!), orange slices, and red currants (from my mother-in-law’s backyard).

When your fruits are perfectly ripe, you don’t want to do too much to them.

Simple is best.

My husband and I finished eating all the strawberries I had picked, but my mother-in-law went back to the same farm and picked more, and shared some with us.

It was the last day for picking, and these are so ripe and sweet!

I also got this beauty this weekend.

These currants are from my mother-in-law’s backyard.

Tart with custard cream and fresh fruit.

Delicious!

When I got beautiful strawberries I picked myself, I knew I wanted to make a cake with them for sure.

First, I made a coffee-chocolate cake.

And put a generous amount of cream.

This slightly sweet cream is made of coconut cream, powdered sugar, and vegan butter.

Then, of course, fresh strawberries.

I just loved how pretty and elegant it looked!

Enjoyed it very much with a cup of black coffee.

Who wouldn’t want delicious brownies that are made of relatively healthy ingredients.

I’m particular when it comes to the texture of brownies.

This is made not in the oven but in the microwave oven, which creates a unique texture.

The good thing is that I happened to like it.

I adopted the recipe from https://www.instagram.com/p/COKv-WjhXY2/ .

The main ingredient I used is bran flakes.

I’ve just started buying bran flakes, and I really like them.

I enjoy eating them for breakfast and snack.

My husband is a huge lemon lover.

He loves any sweets made with lemon.

So I made this mostly for him, and he loved it.

The problem was that not only he but also I overeat them.

We cannot stop.

A good thing about being the one who cooks/bakes things is that you know exactly what is in it.

The bad thing is that you know how much each ingredient is in it.

I was shocked when I found out how much sugar was going into these lovely bars, but I went ahead with it because I knew the tartness of the lemon had to be balanced with some sweetness.

I understand the logical part of it, but the image of the mountain of sugar never left me.

Even with that image in my head, I ate them, lots of them.

At that point it really didn’t matter how much sugar I was consuming.

They made me happy.

They are so lovely, aren’t they even before dressed with powdered sugar (don’t say “more sugar?!”)?

Perfection!!

(If I can say so myself.)

I did have plans to prevent overeating them though because I had the feeling this could happen.

One of the plans was to take some to my mother-in-law.

Another was freezing them after we each ate a few.

(Out of sight, out of mind, right?)

Well, my husband would not listen to me, saying they would be gone soon.

And they stayed in the fridge.

Every time I opened the fridge, they were staring at me.

It has a fair amount of coconut cream in it, and you can certainly taste it.

So it may not be for those who are not a coconut milk fan, but I should mention that my husband, who avoids coconuts as much as he can, loved these bars.

The brilliant vegan lemon bar recipe is Ms. Alison’s. https://lovingitvegan.com/vegan-lemon-bars/ .

These guilt-free donuts are amazing!

The recipe calls for only a few ingredients, and the main ones are tofu and rice flour.

Of course, they have to taste good, and they do taste great!

I made two different flavors.

This is lavender lemon.

The sweet x tart plus lavender combination was fantastic.

These are cardamom chocolate.

Cardamom makes everything special and sophisticated.

Adopted from Ms. AYA’s recipe https://www.instagram.com/mmm_diet_160/ (in Japanese).

There are different types of cakes, but I tend to be attracted to the moist type.

This gateau au chocolat is super moist, almost like mousse, and delicious!

The cake looked great when just out of the oven.

It was hard to wait for it to cool down.

I actually decided to refrigerate it overnight.

I wanted to taste it badly, but I’m glad I waited.

The cake was served with whipped-slightly sweetened coconut cream.

The recipe – > https://www.instagram.com/nozomi__iii/ .

I loved it so much that I made it two weekends in a row.