There are recipes you see and immediately you're dying to try at least once in your life. The results in the photos online look so perfect it seems impossible you'll ever get something even remotely similar. Well, that's exactly what happened to me with these incredible Swiss buns from María Lunarillos's blog, and I have to say I pulled it off: they came out simply spectacular. I'm sharing the recipe just as I made it, since the proofing times are quite different from the original. Be warned, this isn't one for when you're in a rush, but it's totally worth it…

What do we need?

• 500 g (4 cups) bread flour
• 250 g (1 cup) whole milk
• Two eggs
• 90 g (about 1/2 cup) sugar
• 5 g (1 tsp) salt
• 3 g (1 tsp) active dry yeast
• 80 g (about 1/3 cup) softened butter
• One beaten egg for glazing
• Sugar and water for decorating

How do we make it?

1. First, dissolve the yeast in 100 g (about 1/3 cup + 1 tbsp) of warm milk and add 100 g (about 3/4 cup) of bread flour. Mix well with a wooden spoon, cover the bowl, and let it ferment until you see bubbles forming.
2. After the resting time, add all the other ingredients except the butter. Start mixing with the wooden spoon and finish with your hands. Let it rest for 10 minutes and knead again, simply pinching a bit of dough from the outside and folding it inward. Repeat this rest-and-quick-knead cycle two more times. You'll notice the dough becomes less sticky and more elastic.
3. Add the softened butter and knead again. In my case I used the dough hooks on my mixer, but you can do it perfectly well by hand. You want to end up with a fairly smooth dough.
4. Grease a clean bowl with a little sunflower oil and put the dough in, covered with plastic wrap. Let it rest until doubled in size. Since my kitchen was pretty cool, I left it overnight (about 20 hours of proofing in total).
5. Once doubled, turn the dough out onto a floured countertop and press it down with your hands to release all the air. Form little balls of 60 g (about 2 oz) each.
6. To get perfect balls, pinch them to form a sort of bundle and then roll them. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, you can see this technique in the video by María Lunarillos.
7. Let the balls rest on a baking tray lined with parchment paper, covered with plastic wrap, until doubled in size. In my case, I left them for almost 4 hours and they didn't quite double, but it was enough.
8. Preheat the oven to 210°C (410°F) and brush the buns with beaten egg, being careful not to flatten them. Brush them twice, leaving about 10 minutes between coats so the egg film dries slightly.
9. With a very sharp serrated knife, make a deep cut down the center and sprinkle on sugar moistened with water (just like the kind we use for roscón de reyes).
10. Place in the oven on the lowest rack (top and bottom heat, no fan), lower the temperature to 200°C (390°F), and bake for 12 minutes. Finish with 1 more minute with the fan turned on.
11. Take them out and let them cool as long as your cravings to sink your teeth into one will let you.

Tips:

– It's not a difficult recipe but it requires time and patience. It's better to trust the look of the dough than the times I give you, since depending on the room temperature and other factors they can vary considerably.

– In many recipes there are ingredients you can easily swap for others, but in this case, you cannot replace the bread flour with regular flour or the active dry yeast with baking powder.

We're back at it after a long stretch of inactivity. It doesn't mean we stopped cooking tasty things during all those months, but laziness sometimes wreaks havoc... However, as a good friend once said, you have to defeat laziness. So, with the intention of picking up this little recipe collection again, Pics&Cakes is back in action. That said, since our official photographer is pretty busy these days, the photos might not do justice to the delicious things we'll be making. Apologies in advance.

And without further ado, today a traditional and simple recipe for homemade meatballs.

What do we need?

• 500 g (1.1 lb) ground beef
• 1 egg
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 slices of whole wheat sandwich bread
• 100 ml (about 1/2 cup) milk
• Salt
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• Flour and olive oil (for coating and frying, respectively)
• 2 onions
• 4 carrots
• 1/2 glass (about 120 ml / 1/2 cup) white wine
• 1 tablespoon flour
• Salt and Provençal herbs

How do we make it?

1. Place the ground beef in a bowl and add the bread (previously soaked in milk), the egg, the olive oil, the crushed garlic, and salt to taste. Mix well with your hands.
2. Shape into balls the size of a ping-pong ball, or whatever size you prefer. Lightly coat with flour and set aside on a plate.
3. For the sauce, chop the onions and carrots and sauté them in a pan with a little olive oil and salt.
4. Once they get a bit of color, add the flour and the white wine. Stir and lower the heat. Let cook for about 20 minutes, adding water if needed.
5. Heat oil in a pan and fry the meatballs until they're golden on the outside. They don't need to be fully cooked through, because we'll finish cooking them later in the sauce. Transfer them to a plate lined with paper towels and set aside.
6. To finish, blend the sautéed vegetables with a hand blender or food processor so it comes together as a sauce. Add the meatballs and cook over low heat for about 10 minutes.
7. Sprinkle in Provençal herbs to taste and adjust the salt.

Tips:

– You can make the sauce with any vegetables you like and have around in the fridge. In our case, we had a surplus of carrots...

– You can serve them with French fries. For those, I recommend frying them in two stages. First over low heat until they're soft on the inside (poke them with a kitchen needle) and transfer them to a plate. Set them aside until your meatballs and sauce are ready. Then, reheat the oil from the fries and brown them over high heat for a couple of minutes. They'll come out crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.

Just because summer is over doesn't mean we have to say goodbye to salads. Today, a super simple and quick recipe for a tasty, healthy chickpea salad. Since we're using pre-cooked chickpeas, it takes no more than 5 minutes to put together, so there's no excuse. Enjoy!

What do we need?

• 1 can of cooked chickpeas
• 2 tomatoes
• 1/2 onion
• 1 small can of corn
• Mustard
• Herbes de Provence
• Salt and pepper
• Oil and vinegar

How do we make it?

1. First, drain the canned chickpeas and rinse them with cold water to get rid of that characteristic canned taste. Place them in a large bowl.
2. Dice the tomatoes and onion and add them to the bowl with the chickpeas.
3. Add the corn.
4. In a glass jar, make a vinaigrette. The usual ratio is three parts oil to one part vinegar. For this salad, you can pour about two finger-widths of oil into the jar, a third of that in vinegar, 1 teaspoon of mustard, 1 teaspoon of herbes de Provence, and a pinch of salt. Close the jar tightly and shake vigorously until the mixture has emulsified. Taste and adjust with whatever ingredient suits your liking.

Tips:

– As with all salads, more than a recipe, this is a suggestion. Feel free to add other ingredients or seasonings you have in the fridge.

A really simple recipe where all the originality comes down to a single ingredient: black garlic. Black garlic is just regular garlic that has gone through a specific slow-fermentation process, which transforms its look and texture and boosts its nutritional properties. For this burger we'll use it both to season the ground beef and for the accompanying sauce. The flavor is a little peculiar — feel like giving it a try?

What do we need?

• 300 g (10.5 oz) ground beef
• 2 burger buns
• Lamb's lettuce (mâche)
• 1 head of black garlic
• 125 ml (1/2 cup) heavy cream
• Salt and pepper
• Butter (optional, for toasting the buns)

How do we make it?

1. Crush two cloves of black garlic and mix them into the ground beef. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
2. Divide the meat in two and shape the patties, then let them rest for about 30 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, get the black garlic sauce going. Put the cream in a small saucepan with 5 or 6 peeled black garlic cloves. Let it simmer for about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4. You can blend the sauce with an immersion blender to make it perfectly smooth and uniform, or just use a fork or whisk and stir vigorously. Black garlic cloves are very soft and after cooking they break down with no trouble at all. Add salt to taste.
5. Cook the patties in a pan to your liking.
6. Toast the buns in a pan with a little butter and assemble the burger with a layer of lamb's lettuce, the patty, and the black garlic sauce.

Tips:

– You can make some fries on the side — they always go great with any burger.

To kick off the weekend, the holidays, celebrate Madrid's La Paloma festivities… any excuse is a good one to bake this wonderful, fluffy cocoa cake. I got this recipe from Alma Obregón's blog and only made a few small tweaks (Cesmm always tells me I'm incapable of following a recipe to the letter… could it be true?). Made with pure cocoa instead of chocolate, it feels lighter, and the syrup on top is perfect for those who love bitter, not-too-sweet chocolate. Bundt cakes are those ring-shaped cakes with a hole in the middle. Technically, only Nordic Ware® brand cakes are bundt cakes, but the name is generally used for any cake of this shape. If you want to learn more about its history and even when its international day is celebrated, you can read about it here.

What do we need?

• 125 g (4.4 oz / 1 stick + 1 tbsp) butter
• 2 eggs
• 250 ml (1 cup) milk
• 360 g (1¾ cups) white sugar
• 60 g (⅔ cup) unsweetened pure cocoa powder (I use the Valor brand)
• 260 g (2 cups) all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 1 pinch of salt

For the syrup:

• 40 g (scant ½ cup) unsweetened pure cocoa powder
• 3 tablespoons white sugar
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 3 tablespoons corn syrup
• 120 ml (½ cup) milk

How do we make it?

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F).
2. Melt the butter in the microwave and once fully melted, add the eggs and the milk and mix well. It's best if the milk is at room temperature so the butter doesn't solidify into little lumps (if it does, it's not a big deal, the cake will be just as delicious).
3. In another bowl, mix all the dry ingredients together (sifted flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt).
4. Then add the wet mixture to the dry one and stir well with a whisk until you have a smooth, lump-free batter. You don't need to use an electric mixer, a hand whisk works perfectly.
5. Pour the batter into the previously greased pan (with a baking spray or with butter/margarine/sunflower oil) and bake at 180°C (350°F) for 45-50 minutes. You'll know it's done when a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.
6. Let it rest for at least 20 minutes inside the pan while you prepare the syrup.
7. For the syrup, mix all the dry ingredients in a small saucepan and then add the rest.
8. Heat over low heat and stir constantly until it thickens and reaches the desired consistency.
9. Once the resting time is up, unmold the cake and pour the syrup over the top. Enjoy!

Tips:

– You can easily find corn syrup in creative baking shops, which are popping up in more and more places. One of the most common brands is Karo, which is what I used for this recipe.

– As tempting as it is to dig in straight out of the oven, it's really important to let it rest. Otherwise, the cake will fall apart. So, patience…

– It's best to pour the syrup while it's still hot so it runs nicely down the sides of the cake, since it solidifies very quickly (it never goes completely hard, but it sets into a kind of gooey cream).

Cicadas singing, getting into a car that's 46°C (115°F), sweating like a pig, and not being able to open more windows at night because your house simply doesn't have any — clear signs that summer has arrived and with a vengeance. So, faced with this heat, we're going to fight back with cool, refreshing meals to survive the summer season. Kicking off salad season, today we're bringing you a spinach salad. It's such a simple recipe that you couldn't even call it a recipe — just a suggested combination of ingredients to inspire your next salads.

What do we need?

• 1 bowl of fresh, washed spinach
• 1/2 red onion
• 1 tomato
• 1/2 cucumber
• 4 sun-dried tomatoes
• Poppy seeds
• Feta-style cheese
• Oil
• Vinegar
• Salt

How do we make it?

1. Slice the cucumber into rounds, julienne the onion, dice the tomatoes, and pile everything on top of the fresh spinach leaves (if they're very large, tear them with your hands). Add as much feta cheese as you like, crumbled by hand.
2. Finally, sprinkle on the poppy seeds and dress to taste.

Tips:

– You can whip up a vinaigrette by mixing 1 part vinegar with 3 parts oil and a pinch of salt. Pop it into a jar that seals tightly, shake it vigorously to emulsify, and it's ready to dress your salad. You can add any spice, herb, mustard, or whatever else you can think of to a vinaigrette.

– Watch out with the sun-dried tomatoes because they pack so much flavor that sometimes you can skip the salt altogether.

Everyone who visits Turkey says that the kebab there is nothing like the ones we eat in Spain, so at this point I'm not entirely sure what to call this. In any case, what I can promise you is that it's delicious and the preparation couldn't be simpler. We discovered this recipe thanks to the YouTube channel Recetas de Cocina, which is always worth a visit. Give these kebabs a try and let us know how it goes.

What do we need?

• 400 g (14 oz) lamb leg chops
• 400 g (14 oz) chicken thighs
• 4 teaspoons garlic powder
• 4 tablespoons Ras el Hanout (a North African spice blend)
• Salt and pepper
• Lettuce (chopped or julienned)
• Sliced tomato
• Sliced or finely julienned onion
• Pita breads

For the yogurt sauce:

• 2 Greek yogurts
• 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1 or 2 garlic cloves
• 3 teaspoons sugar
• 1 pinch of cumin
• Salt, pepper and fresh parsley

How do we make it?

1. Cut the lamb chops and chicken into bite-sized pieces.
2. In a bowl, combine 6 tablespoons of olive oil and 2 tablespoons of Ras el Hanout and mix well. Add the chopped chicken, season with salt and pepper, and sprinkle in two teaspoons of garlic powder.
3. Mix well so all the meat is fully coated and let it marinate for at least 1 hour in the fridge (the longer it sits, the more flavor it will pick up).
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 with the chopped lamb.
5. While the meat rests, let's prepare the yogurt sauce. Mix the yogurt with the mayonnaise. Then add the crushed garlic, the sugar, the cumin, salt, pepper, and finally the lemon juice and chopped fresh parsley. Mix everything thoroughly (no blender needed) and keep it in the fridge until you're ready to use it.
6. Once the meat has had enough time to marinate, you have two options: cook it in the oven, or in a frying pan or on a griddle.
   a) For the first option, line a baking tray with parchment paper and spread the pieces of meat out separately. Bake at 200°C (390°F) until they look golden. When you take the meat off the tray, drain off any excess oil.
   b) If you prefer, you can sauté them in a pan or cook them on a griddle. There's no need to add oil since the marinade is enough. This option is faster since there's no oven preheating and the cooking time is shorter.
7. All that's left is to assemble the kebabs. In a pita bread, layer meat, lettuce, tomato, onion and yogurt sauce to taste.

Tips:

– You can adjust the yogurt sauce to taste, but it's better to go light than to overdo any one ingredient, especially garlic and salt, which are hard to fix once you've added too much. I recommend adding little by little and tasting as you go.

– It's better to cook the meats separately so people can choose whether they want their kebab with just one type of meat or mixed. Lamb tends to have a much stronger flavor than chicken, which not everyone enjoys.

– The meat quantities are just a guide. Adjust them depending on how many kebabs you want to make.

For many of you, this is probably a childhood memory, and I bet that every once in a while you get tempted to buy them again and eat two in a row without your mom scolding you. Well, if I tell you that you can make them at home and that the size is up to you, I think you should already be on your way out to buy some good ripe strawberries.

What do we need?

• 500 g (1.1 lb) strawberries
• 250 g (9 oz / about 1 cup) cream cheese (Philadelphia type)
• 100 g (about 1/2 cup) heavy whipping cream
• 150 g (3/4 cup) sugar
• 2 teaspoons powdered cuajada (rennet-based setting mix)

How do we make it?

1. First, wash the strawberries and remove the stems. Blend them well with a hand blender until you get a strawberry purée.
2. In a small glass, put a bit of the strawberry purée and dissolve the cuajada in it. Set aside.
3. Put the rest of the strawberry purée in a saucepan and heat it until it boils.
4. Remove from the heat, add the portion of purée with the dissolved cuajada, and stir well.
5. Put it back on the heat for about two minutes, stirring constantly. (BE CAREFUL at this step because if the heat is too high the strawberry purée can splatter and burn you. Trust me, the stuff is worse than water — being denser, it really sticks to you.)
6. Let the purée cool down a little and then add the rest of the ingredients (sugar, cheese, and cream).
7. Blend everything well with the hand blender and you'll see it has already taken on a lovely petit suisse color.
8. All that's left is to pour it into whatever little glasses you want to serve it in and leave it in the fridge overnight.

Tips:

– We used shot glasses — they look really cute and it's the perfect portion size, since we have to admit this is a pretty rich dessert (now I understand why our moms wouldn't let us eat too many… :-P). You can also use the little glass yogurt jars or any small cup you have around.

– I can't tell you for sure how long they'll keep in the fridge, but with these ingredients I'd estimate they'll last a week without any problem.

Today we’re bringing you a muffin recipe. Muffins are similar to Spanish magdalenas but, unlike those, they usually use butter instead of oil and the batter isn’t as smooth (you just mix the ingredients without having to beat them). Also, muffins can be either sweet or savory and they take a wide variety of “chunks” inside (chocolate chips, dried fruit, nuts, etc.). Don’t confuse them with the famous cupcakes that are so trendy these days, which are always sweet and decorated with buttercream or some other kind of frosting.

What do we need?

• 230 g (1¾ cups) all-purpose flour

• 150 g (¾ cup) sugar

• 1 teaspoon baking powder

• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• 1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)

• 2 eggs

• 110 g (½ cup) butter (room temperature)

• 3 ripe bananas

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)

How do we make it?

• Preheat the oven to 180°C (355°F).

• In a bowl, combine all the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon).

• In another bowl, mash the bananas with a fork until you get a purée. Add the lightly beaten eggs, the softened butter and the vanilla. Mix well.

• Fold the banana mixture into the bowl with the dry ingredients. Using a spatula, mix until the ingredients are just combined, but don’t overmix. The batter will be a bit thick and lumpy.

• Divide the batter into muffin molds, filling each one about 3/4 of the way since they’ll rise. Bake for about 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out completely clean.

Tips:

• You can add walnuts or chocolate chips to this recipe by mixing them in with the dry ingredients.

• The riper the bananas, the better. You can even use those ones that have gone ugly and a bit brown.

• Even if you use paper liners, I recommend placing them in a metal muffin pan. Otherwise, the paper liners might not hold the weight and the batter will spill out.

  [English version] BANANA MUFFINS* Ingredients:-*

• 230 g all-purpose flour

• 150 g granulated sugar

• 1 teaspoon baking powder

• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• 1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)

• 2 eggs

• 110 g butter (soften)

• 3 ripe bananas

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)

• Preheat oven to 180ºC.

• Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl (flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon).

• In a different bowl, mash the bananas with a fork. Add lightly beaten eggs, soften butter and vanilla. Mix well.

• With a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, lightly fold he wet ingredients (banana mixture) into the dry ingredients just until combined and the batter is thick and chunky. The important thing is not to over mix the batter. You do not want it smooth.

• Bake about 20 -25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Tips:

- You can add nuts or chocolate chips when combining the dry ingredients. - The riper bananas the better. You can use even those ones that have turned brown. - When using paper liners, use a muffin pan too. Otherwise paper liners might not be strong enough to hold the butter and the muffin shape will be ruined.

Believe it or not: we’re back! After months (literally) with our blog in some kind of hibernation, we’re back at it and hoping that this time our willpower won’t fade so fast. We’re returning with that recipe that’s been sitting at the top of the blog for so many days now, the one we know plenty of you have been dying to make: the Crispy Chicken. For lovers (or at least, frequenters) of fast food joints, the Crispy Chicken is a Burger King staple, a chicken burger with a spicy kick. But here we’re sharing the upgraded version. Meaning, the one we make with an actual chicken fillet and not some suspicious mystery patty pretending to be one.

What do we need?

• 4 tablespoons of flour

• 1 tablespoon of onion powder

• 1 tablespoon of garlic powder

• 1/2 tablespoon of paprika

• Salt

• Black pepper

• 2 eggs

• Cornflakes

• A splash of white wine

• 2 chicken breast fillets (not too thin)

• 2 burger buns

• 2 tomato slices

• 2 lettuce leaves

• Mayonnaise

How do we make it?

• First, we’ll prep the breading for the chicken. Mix the flour with the onion and garlic powder, paprika, salt and pepper.

• In another bowl, beat the eggs with a splash of white wine.

• In a third bowl, add the cornflakes and crush them with your hand. Grab fistfuls and squeeze them little by little. We don’t want the pieces too small, so it won’t take much time.

• Take your chicken fillets and bread them in the same order as the bowls you prepared: flour, egg, and cornflakes. Let them rest while the oil heats up in a frying pan (or deep fryer).

• Fry the breaded fillets until golden and transfer them to a plate lined with paper towels to soak up the excess oil.

• Now all that’s left is to assemble our ‘burger’. Spread a bit of mayo on each half of the bun, add a fillet, a tomato slice, and a lettuce leaf. Ready to eat.

Tips:

• Instead of onion powder, we used a packet of onion soup mix. A pretty curious ingredient that we’ll use in other recipes like COCA-COLA CHICKEN.

• The fillets should be a bit thick so they stay juicy, but you have to be careful when frying them to nail the perfect point: golden on the outside and fully cooked on the inside. We recommend cranking up the heat at first and then turning it down a bit to make sure they cook through properly.