I don’t remember the first time I ate this dessert, nor do I remember who had made it. All I can remember is the feeling. I absolutely loved the dessert, even though I had never been a fan of quince as a fruit or of the fruit desserts such as baked apples or poached pears etc.
I like using unusual ingredients in baking. Using zucchini in a sweet recipe to give moisture is a rather unusual thing to do (ok, not the most groundbreaking idea, but still..).
When I was a kid, whenever I wanted, my mother would make this pastry for me. “Puf Böreği!” I’d say and she would not make me say twice. We call this pastry (börek) “puf” because it puffs like a little balloon when it is fried!
A couple of weeks ago, I had a catering order and we were trying to make the perfect menu with my client Tiina to fit all the dietary requirements, as much as possible. Perhaps you don’t know it, but I do catering for events in Helsinki and I also make my own eating events. Anyway, we had an “almost perfect” menu but there was just one gluten free baked good missing. So I worked on this recipe after watching a video of Farinata in Food Wishes blog and I served variations of this bread – after the event, Tiina said that it was one of the big hits in the menu!
Oh my, I’ve been planning to put this recipe on the blog for I don’t know how long. I just didn’t have the photos for final, baked cake and that’s why the recipe lingered in the waiting list for months and months, for more than a year actually. I am so happy that I can finally publish it, because it became a serious burden!!
Ok, gotta admit: I always work on a new recipe for the new taste, but this one I did almost entirely for how it looks – I saw the original recipe on Better Homes and Gardens website and I fell in love with it!
I don’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t know what a börek was. It has always been a natural part of my life, because it is the most common thing in Turkish cuisine. There are many, and I mean many, variations, with different kinds of fillings (cheese, potato, meat..), different kinds of making (fried, baked..), different kinds of dough (filo, puff..), but in the end, all of them are called, “börek”.
Let me give you a very easy and basic, lemony, buttery and very poppy cake recipe!
I came back from Turkey in such a weird, panicky way after all the coup attempt and whatnot, that the only thing I could bring with me happened to be a mezze cookbook that I bought at Istanbul Airport. This spinach pastry is inspired by a recipe from that book. The main difference: I didn’t put the freaking dill in my version!!
This recipe has been laying around in my computer for many months now and but for some reason I could never publish it. If you remember, I was very much in a raw cake mode at some point in winter and I prepared this recipe then. The pomegranate makes a great addition!
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