Masticha

This Banana Cake is very easy to make and the only excuse you need when you want to bake something sweet is “why waste these overripe bananas?”

Mastic powder (Masticha in Greek) (pistacia lentiscus var. chia ), is produced in the island of Chios and comes in resins or tears as they are called. It is very aromatic and used to flavour food. 

Macarons are the new madness, frenziness, fashion, trend or whatever else you want to call it in desserts.  It is a meringue cookie and its main ingredients are egg whites, sugar and ground almonds.  Macarons can be filled with buttercream, jam, lemon curd, pastry cream, whipped cream, chocolate ganache or any other filling you like.

Garides Saganaki is an appetizer made with shrimps and tomato sauce. Saganaki takes its name from a frying pan with two handles called “sagani”.

  I have the pleasure to announce that I am going to be this month’s host of Think Spice, created by Sunita, of Sunita’s World.  When I contacted Sunita way back in May, last year,  asking if I could host one of the events, Sunita gladly replied to me that I would host in February.  …

I based this dessert, on a cream my mother used to make in Cyprus called Paris on Ice, which was flavoured with masticha (mastic resin). For those of you who are not familiar with the mastic resin, it is an evergreen shrub or small tree of the Pistacio family growing up to 4 m (13 …