Sticky buns … with an Orange and Chocolate twist

December is here.  This means I have been in Italy for over 1 month now and it is now less than 1 month till I fly home to Germany to see my family (we are not going to talk about what this means for my Christmas shopping, if there is one thing time has taught me is that I will find a present for everyone by the time the 24th of December comes round, however late or early I start the present hunting). I already posted a recipe for a French twist on the typical sticky bun / cinnamon roll recipes, so the recipe for the dough below is the same recipe, again, taken from the Pioneer Woman’s blog. Her recipe for sweet enriched dough (i.e. a basic yeasted dough which is enriched with the addition of fat, here sunflower oil, and sugar) has become my go-to recipe whenever I need a sweet yeasted dough.  Yes, the dough is not

read more Sticky buns … with an Orange and Chocolate twist

Cleaning out my closet (read: pantry)

As I mentioned in one of my last posts, I will shortly be moving to Italy for six months to work in the Rome office of my company. While I cannot wait to eat my way around the city and see how far my Italian will get me when chatting with the produce sellers at Testaccio market, for now my excitement has been replaced with slight freak-outs at the amount of stuff I need to get on top of these last 3 weeks in London (interspersed with being slightly emotional at seeing certain places for the last time and saying goodbye to good friends). While I have started packing (never boring – do I have more stuff than I think? Do I have less stuff than I think? How heavy can I fill one of these boxes? Is this enough bubble wrap?) another key task is to clean out my pantry. I made a huge pot of chili the other

read more Cleaning out my closet (read: pantry)