One beautiful Sunday morning last autumn, my friend Christine and I took a walk on the Aqueduto das Águas Livres in Lisbon. This was the site where Diogo Alves – Portugal’s first serial killer – supposedly robbed and killed seventy people, feigning suicide.
Continue reading “Recipe: Persian Love Cake”Tag: Almond Flour
Recipe: Summer Fruit (Apricot & Plum) Cake
This recipe of Moelleux of Summer Fruit from David Lebovitz popped up in my Instagram feed the other day. I happened to have some local apricots and plums from my visit to Caldas da Rainha in central Portugal. So I decided to give it a try. It was super easy to make and turned out beautifully.

Recipe: Sicilian Orange Cake
My trip to Venice rekindled my interests in Italian cooking, to a point that I was tittering with another trip in the spring to Naples and the Amalfi Coast. Then we all know what happened.
Bostock
Two things I miss most from visiting b.patisserie in San Francisco: one is chef Brenda Leong’s delicious kouign amann – I have yet to find anything like it in Seattle. The other is Bostock.
Bostock is toasted brioche soaked in pastry syrup, topped with almond cream(frangipane) and sliced almonds. It is quite easy to make, as long as you have day-old brioche. I didn’t have day-old brioche at hand, so I made one from scratch and waited till the next day to make bostock. I know it sounded like wasting a good loaf of freshly baked brioche. But when one wants a bostock, one must have it!
Ingredients:
Orange Pastry Syrup
2 cups water
1 cup sugar
orange juice, Grand Marnier, Cointeau or Triple Sec (to taste)
Combine water and sugar in a small saucepan. Bring syrup to a boil. Once sugar dissolves, remove from heat and cool. Add orange juice or liquer to syrup. Syrup keeps up to one month in the refrigerator. Continue reading “Bostock”