Spring is in the air, daisies (margherite in Italian) are blooming and I woke up full of optimism.

At this very hour, a friend of mine (last Summer student in a party cooking class in Tuscany) is posting a video on Facebook where it’s snowing heavily far away from Italy.  So cold over there in West Babylon, New York. I don’t know where you live but here in Pisa (Tuscany, Italy) the weather is warm and beach resorts are already open. Can’t believe that someone is swimming in the sea of Marina di Pisa!

I live in the Tuscan countryside, where cherry and plum blossoms greet you along the dirt roads. Fields seem to invite you to lie down and God only knows how much I like it!

So Spring is in the air and every time it happens I realize that a new job season is starting for our group of Cuoche in Vacanza (Cooks for your Holiday in Tuscany).

We run Cooking Classes and Private Dinners in Tuscany; we go directly to our customer’s homes. In fact, they’re mostly tourists and travelers and we women who cook are very busy from Spring to Winter starting.

Anyway, there’s also a Brick N’ Mortar place: DOLCE VITA IN TUSCANY Cooking School and B&B, in the Lucca Countryside.

While planning our new job season during Winter, I often think of new dishes and recipes to offer to our guests the next Summer. Our must is to prepare a full Menu Meal, that’s why both kinds of dishes (those ones for cooking classes and dinners) have to be easy and fast. That’s why as I feel that Spring is in the air I finally write the last version of Cooking Classes and Private Dinners Menus and send them to all my Tuscan partners (resorts, villas, castles, and B&B) interested to introduce my company to their guests.

How do we like to end a meal? Of course dolcemente (sweetly) with desserts that are in equal part easy, yummy, and quick.

Last year our customers’ favorite desserts were those ones in a glass. The winner was: mascarpone and amaretti crumble in a glass,

similar to our customers’ absolute favorite: the real TIRAMISU.

This time I’m posting (video and recipe below) another fresh dessert in a glass: a creamy yogurt, heavy cream, and berries with cookie crumbles.

Sometimes I can’t believe that something so simple could be so delicious as well. As I often say to my students from Cooking Classes in Tuscany there are 3 rules to follow in cooking, especially in making desserts:

1. having basic techniques
2. using right amounts of ingredients
3. respect the right steps

Well, to make this dessert you just need to know a few basic techniques:

1. well whip fresh cream (cold bowl)
2. dissolve gelatine in a hot liquid (a wooden spoon is better)
3. combine gelatine with whipped cream and yogurt (folding technique)
4. cook (shortly) fruit with sugar till translucent.

Are you ready?

You know, today is a wonderful day here in Tuscany…how’s the weather in your area? What best occasion than preparing a dessert to (or with) someone that you love?

Spring is in the air like never before and I can’t wait to insert this creamy dessert in our Cooking Classes in Tuscany Menu.

A special assistant beside me this time, my daughter Ginevra. She’s passionate about cooking but she is very busy with school and “adolescent” interests. Anyway, it just takes 30 minutes!

So this time she was sacrificed to my wish and was very helpful in preparing this dessert (you see her hands in the video).

What we’ll wow you in this dessert is the fluffy consistency added to the yogurt aftertaste. Everything dissolves in your mouth leaving the flavor of berries.

I think to have found the right proportion between yogurt, honey, and fresh cream…anyway I don’t like “too sweet desserts”. Please taste the yogurt and honey moisture to check if it’s enough sweet for you.

Have you your own fast and yummy dessert in a glass recipe?

What’s your favorite one?

Please, leave a comment. I approached this kind of dessert for 2 years and I’m looking forward to new recipes and pictures to share with you.

L'articolo Spring is in the air. Let’s whip up a fresh yogurt and berries in a glass, recipe and video. proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.

What to do in Tuscany?

This question is often asked me from my students in cooking classes or guests-customers in private dinners and cooking at home.

I think that the best is to look for authentic experiences. Tuscany is wonderful, and you can decide to follow the standard touristic tours in the most famous towns: Lucca, Pisa, San Gimignano, Siena, Florence. Anyway don’t forget that if you’re living around these towns there are so many “adventures” to live which are very authentic and can give you the real sense of enjoing a holiday in Tuscany.

Well, what to do in Tuscany? the best authentic experiences are of course related wit food:

• taking a COOKING CLASS. Better if a Private one: professional cooking coaches which directly come to your holiday home to run a real Tuscan cooking class.

Cuoche in Vacanza is an 8 years experienced company that you can CONTACT to have right this.

What to do in Tuscany during a Cooking Class? Fresh Handmade Pasta! No doubt.

Be careful: a cookery course in Tuscany has now become a fashion and you risk to have at your Villa some people (not professional) who can stay much more time than promised and miss some important ingredients for your class. In many cases you risk of getting bored because of long downtime between preparations.  Only a many years experience from your cooking coach can guarantee a perfect management of time, learning and fun.

Are you curious about our Cookery Courses in Tuscany experiences? Watch the VIDEO clicking here

What to do in Tuscany? Eat dishes that you can’t imagine and you’ll never find in a restaurant.

• A Private Cook at your holiday home. It’s not only not to taste touristic menus, it’s the opportunity to eat like a local, like a Tuscan family.

Please CONTACT us to watch our Menus: only quality, fresh and seasonal ingredients, local produce.

This is a way to taste all the Tuscan and Italian dishes often different from those ones of restaurants.

Added to this you choose your time and stay comfortably at your home, avoiding queues and waiting times, while kids can do whatever they like.

Be careful: some people pretend to be cooks just to make money from the touristic business. They have no passion for quality food (I’d say for the land of Tuscany) and come to your home after buying food at the takeways or, at worst, they buy to the supermarkets food ready to be heated.

How to avoid this?

1. Check that they prepare every course by scratch, dessert included
2. Be sure that they’ll come to your holiday home about 2,30 hours before dinner (a shorter time is often impossible for a full menu)

The reasons above bring to a choice:

1. Prepare genuine, but high quality food. Obviously not complicated desserts needing minimum 1 day rest time or to be frozen for many hours before tasting.
2. To focus on what is fresh and homemade. That’s why Cuoche in Vacanza are mad about Fresh Pasta and they’ll prepare it by scratch before your eyes!

Are you curious about our dishes and experiences in Cooking at Home or Private Dinners? Watch the video clicking here

The Region of Tuscany is not only famous for its food. If you’re looking for what to do in Tuscany, don’t miss the opportunity to enjoy: Nature, landscapes and woods… they are fantastic!

Our suggestion about what to do in Tuscany in this regard is

• Nature Trail and Gathering Edible Herbs

  

1. to recognize and distinguish the herbs we meet along the way
2. to collect herbs and to create a Menu with herbs and flowers collected
3. to arrive to an old country stone-house among the olive trees where we’ll cook herbs and enjoy the meal together

Are you curious about wild edible herbs trail and cooking?

Click HERE to know more and read an article by Cathy Wilson

Do you think this post has been helpful?

What kind of authentic experiences would you like having in Tuscany?

Any suggestion for us?

Do you already know what to do in Tuscany but you don’t know how?

Please leave us a Comment below or contact us, I’ll answer you very quickly!

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L'articolo What to do in Tuscany: authentic experiences with Cuoche in Vacanza proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.

You can choose a lots of typical Italian sauces for your Private Cooking Class in Tuscany, anyway the most successful one is Carbonara sauce. It’s a simple sauce, with any doubt but as my granny always sayd: simple is not easy, and this is true for all the recipes in italian cooking. Fresh ingredients, seasonal and quality extra virgin oil are the base for this cuisine;

everything is simple if fresh, but you’ve to respect each single step.

A succesful dish, a very good dish, has to respect 3 conditions, and first of all, don’t forget the “name” of your recipe:

1. the right balance of flavors: What’s the most important ingredient in your dish? What’s the “title” of your recipe? Well, remind that this ingredient is the protagonist; its flavor should not to be covered by other, only accompained
2. the right consistence:
   you know that bacon in “Carbonara” or sage in “butter and sage” sauce should be crispy; try to obtain it through many tests and once you found your way, you can prepare the dish
3. the right cooking:
   each ingredient has its own cooking time, don’t forget it while preparing a dish made from many ingredients

I always repeat these conditions during our cookery lessons and once you learn this, you can make amazing recipes; the simple ones, are the most difficult as well, because you’ve few ingredients, that’s why you must comply in all respects these rules.

Are you ready? Let’s go…I’m looking forward to know how’ll taste your

Carbonara Sauce for Pasta

…let me know!

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L'articolo Cookery Courses in Tuscany, Pasta Sauces at your Holiday Home: Carbonara! proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.

Days of fire here in Tuscany… in every country as well, I suppose: Christmas’s gone, the last day of the year’s gone…our tummies are full!

If you’re living my situation and you invited a lots of people at your table before, during and after Christmas…maybe you’ll need to sleep (first of all) and to manage “these days after” the party as well.

Organization is a must, but first of all: it needs to prepare quick and easy dishes for the days coming after the big (in Italy for sure) Christmas lunch.

1. Butter and Sage
2. Pummarola Sauce (Tomato, Garlic and Basil)
3. Mushrooms Sauce
4. Pesto Sauce
5. Sea fruit sauce 
6. you name it…

Homemade Ricotta Gnocchi 

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L'articolo Tuscan Cooking Class: Homemade Ricotta Cheese Gnocchi… a perfect Italian meal after Christmas Holidays! proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.

Toronto, Oslo, Perth, New York, Houston, Instambul … I do not know if I’m going there, but definitely a piece of these places came inside me and will not come out more on.

Summer is ending and I’m already rearranging memories and pictures of cooking classes and private dinners, clicking HERE you can watch a video .
This year I met many new people coming from distant  and charming countries; I discovered ways of thinking different from mine, this year too. Thanks to the words of my guests I managed to see places, feel the tastes and smells. I managed to dive in the habits of countries that I still have never visited, but I will soon, I hope.

Thanks to all of you, if you were students of our cooking classes, or guests in our private dinners; the adventure does not end here, I know … the sun still shines in the land of Tuscany, yet so many days of work ahead.
Inside of me I feel, however, already the melancholy of this season 2014 that is going to greet us; enjoy a few pictures from this summer and I would recommend: keep in touch !!

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L'articolo Toronto, Oslo, Perth, New York…meet Tuscany during Cooking Classes and Private Dinners. Thanks my friends, you’re far away, but you gave me a “piece” of your countries! proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.

Ricotta and Fresh Peaches Tart…such a tasteful cake during Summer, when here in Tuscany you’ve the best juicy peaches and if you go for a walk in the countryside you can pick up them directly from the trees.

You couldn’t miss this Tart! It’s one of the most loved desserts during our private dinners. The Recipe is a very easy and fast one and the success is guaranteed…Trust me and Buon Appetito…I had to run away toward another Dinner Adventure!! Keep in touch

Ricotta and Fresh Peaches Tart

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L'articolo Montopoli: Ricotta and Fresh Peaches tart, one of our most successful dessert proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.

No eggs Bavarese is one of our most successful desserts in our private Dinners in Tuscany.

In late May, I will have to prepare a buffet for a wedding, and I’m very thrilled about this new event held by Cuoche in Vacanza.

Our Mission is always the same:   

” …we come directly to wherever you’re staying in Tuscany to prepare the tastiest traditional dishes with you”

The bride and groom’ll tie the knot and then in the afternoon, about five o’clock, we will be cutting the cake, followed by dinner.

The wedding cake … yes, I’d like talking about it!  

They strongly chose a Bavarese citrus. I assure you that I went into a lot of crisis: 

Bavarese is not what we call “the classic cake” for a wedding.

Added to this: how to make a Bavarese for 40 people?  

Which mold to use? 

How can I manage to make it beautiful, worthy of a marriage? Well, only successful desserts in a wedding, of course.

So, during these days I’m doing testing on tests and I finally found a solution!

What’s better than replicate my fav no-eggs Yogurt Bavarese in a very large cake pan?

Once ready I can put in in the freezer and take off it 1 hour and half before eating.

4 years later: Well, in fact this is exactly what I made (see the pictures!) and I can assure that yes, it was definitely a very successful dessert…so easy and fast, but delicious.   

Different yogurts, different sauces, always new successful desserts!

• Well no matter what’s the flavor of the yogurt; each different yogurt will give to the dessert a different flavor. In a few words: you’ll obtain many differents and successful desserts with only one recipe.
• No Eggs Bavarese with Vanilla Yogurt is perfect with Wildberries Sauce (see the following recipe)
• The same Bavarese (that one for the wedding) with Citrus Yogurt has all the flavor of citrus and sun from Italy. I made it with  a delicious gelly based lemon sauce. Since the pale natural color of lemon juice, I “colored” this sauce with curcuma.
• No Eggs Bavarese with Coffee Yogurt is the last one that I made. The Sauce was a dark Chocolate one. The coffee flavor together with the chocolate one is a fantastic “fresh” combination.

So my friends, I told you it’s a very easy recipe, now try it!

When you find the simplicity of execution combined with a really attractive and stylish look, you can be sure that we’re talking about successful desserts.

I could not wish more and I’m sure you’ll make it many and many times.

Bavarese Vanilla Yogurt (the basic one) and Wild Berries Sauce

Recipe by Erika Elia

Prep time: 30 minutes + 3 hours to rest
Cook time: 10 minutes
Total time: 40 minutes

Ingredients

• 8 g gelatine sheets
• 250 g vanilla yogurt (or your fav one)
• 250 g fresh cream
• 50 g icing sugar
• 1 coffee cup milk
• 250 g wild berries, or strawberries, raspberries…you can use them frozen too
• 4 spoons sugar

Cooking Directions

1. Soak the gelatine sheets in a small bowl with cold water; just for 15 minutes.
2. Mix yogurt and icing sugar with a whisk
3. Heat the milk, turn off the fire and pour in the gelatine whisking until it’s fully dissolved
4. Add the milk to the yogurt
5. Whip the cream and incorporate it to the yogurt
6. Pour your “Bavarese” in a pudding mold and store in refrigerator for 3 hours at least, better if all night long. 

 For the Sauce: 

1. Heat the fruit in a saucepan and add the sugar
2. Continue mixing and, when it’s soft
3. Turn off the fire
4. I love to serve the sauce warm, over the dessert; but it’s very good cold too

Have you some questions for me?

Can I help you in cooking or baking?

Do you know some easy but successful desserts?

Please leave a comment, I’ll answer you very quickly to all your questions.

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L'articolo Many successful desserts with only one recipe: No eggs Bavarese with Yogurt proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.

If you’re looking for the Real Pesto sauce, you’re in the right place!

It’s official: summer has arrived! That’s what they said on TV… but here in the Tuscan countryside, you don’t need the news to know. You can feel it everywhere. The warm sun, the fresh air, the sound of nature waking up… that’s what summer really smells like to me.

With all this sunshine, my basil is thriving—lush, vibrant, and full of flavor. I picked it this morning, washed it carefully, and brought it with me to a private dinner for a wonderful,  cheerful and friendly family. .

Tonight, that fresh basil will become the star of one of Italy’s most beloved sauces: authentic pesto, tossed with perfectly cooked pasta.

I’ve shared two pesto recipes with you:
The traditional version, made the classic way (it takes a little more time, but it’s a beautiful experience).
A quick, modern version that’s easy to make and still incredibly creamy, fragrant, and delicious.

And if you’re not sure which pasta to pair with pesto, don’t worry—I also included my favorite pasta shapes at the bottom of the recipe card.

Enjoy… and bring a little taste of an Italian summer into your kitchen!

Terricciola

Preparing Pesto sauce in a Blender

Private Dinner in Terricciola

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L'articolo Terricciola: The Real Pesto Sauce, the Pasta types and my joy to prepare “Easy” Pasta al Pesto for a cheerful family! proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.

Here in Lucca cooking classes and love from Norway.

We knew these special families while they had a dip in the swimming pool…such a wonderful thing, I envy them…I always feel cold if I think this.

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L'articolo Lucca cooking classes and love, in Tuscany from Norway proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.

Butter and Sage

You have given us many happy memories to bring home to Ireland.

Thanks again

Mary Paul Ha Thi and Danh.

Potatoes Velutè and Ravioli Filled with Chard and Asiago Cheese

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L'articolo Cooking Class in June proviene da Cooking Classes and Private Chef In Tuscany.