This dessert, named after a Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, is like biting into a fruit coated cloud. Delicate and light, crispy on the outside and sticky on the inside. Sweet, shiny and fragile meringue with creamy topping and spiced up with fresh fruit. There’s a lot of Pavlova versions, we tried a version with lemon coconut cream, blueberries and mint. If you follow this recipe, you’ll get 8 mini Pavlova cakes with 10 cm diameter.

for pavlova’s

4 large egg whites

1 cup fine white sugar

2 teaspoons cornstarch

1 teaspoon white wine vinegar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

pinch of salt

for the topping

2 cans coconut milk, refrigerated overnight

2 tablespoons powdered sugar

a few drops vanilla extract

zest of 1 lemon

fruit of choice

mint

Making pavlova’s

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and line 2 baking sheets with parchment. Using electric mixer, whisk the egg whites and a pinch of salt until they’re holding firm peaks. Add sugar gradually, spoon after spoon, while beating. You’ll get a full bowl of shiny, satiny snow. Now sprinkle the cornstarch, vinegar and vanilla and fold in to combine. Spoon the meringue onto the baking parchment and make 8 piles of snow, each with a diameter of 10 cm. With a spoon, form a little bowl in the middle to hold the toppings later on. Put into the oven and turn it down to 150 degrees Celsius and bake for 30 minutes. Turn the oven off and leave them in for another half an hour. Transfer them on their baking parchment to the wire racks. Let them cool completely.

Lemon coconut cream

Open the refridgerated coconut milk and carefully scoop the thick solid part off the top. Save the watery part for another use. Leave the thick part on room temperature to soften a bit, this way it’ll be easier to prepare. Use an electric mixer to whip the coconut cream until fluffy. Add powdered sugar (dose by taste but keep in mind that the pavlova’s are already sweet), vanilla and lemon zest.

Top pavlova’s with coconut cream, your favourite fruit and mint.

For serving, we made a sauce from frozen raspberries. Heat them up slowly, sweeten it a bit, add vanilla and freshly squeezed lemon juice. Cook until it thickens. If you’ll whisk it while cooking you’ll get a uniform sauce, without fruit pieces.

By the way, we made another version with whisked double cream mixed with greek yogurt and vanilla. That’s a nice variation as well.

This recipe is adapted from here with a few modifications.

Serve immediately and share with someone special. <3

The last of our holiday cookie selection is Speculaas, the traditional Dutch holiday spiced cookie. The name comes from the word speculum which means mirror. This has to do with the technique of making them. The dough is rolled over wooden moulds of various shapes. One of the more famous one is a windmill shape. We don’t own the moulds so we made them in a boring - roll and cut - way.

Ingredients

3 cups flour

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 1/2 tsp grated nutmeg

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1/4 tsp freshly ground white pepper

170 g unsalted butter

1 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup milk

Preparing the dough

In a bowl, mix flour, spices and baking soda. In another one, using an electric mixer, beat together butter and sugar. Mix until light, fluffy and combined. Add half of flour mixture and mix. Now alternately add flour mixture and milk. Form into two disks and chill covered in plastic foil for two hours.

Baking the cookies

Heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and line baking tray with baking paper, set aside. Roll the dough on a well floured surface and cut out the cookies. Re-roll until you have no dough left. We cut out the gingerbread man shape and some stars. Bake until golden brown, for about 16-18 minutes. They taste great!

The fourth treat is a chocolate holiday classic - chocolate truffles. Bite-sized centre is made from chocolate-cream ganache that melts in your mouth. Traditionally they’re rolled and coated in cocoa powder but you can use whatever your heart desires - chocolate, hazelnuts, coconut, pistachio, almonds… There are endless possibilities. Really simple, aesthetic and super appropriate for new year’s parties. We prepared the base from this recipe.

Ingredients

300 ml double cream

25 g unsalted butter

1 clementine

300 g good quality dark chocolate (70% cocoa)

pinch of salt

5 ml brandy

cocoa powder

Preparation

Heat double cream in a pot over medium heat. Add clementine zest and butter into hot but not boiling cream. When the butter melts, add chocolate, broken into small pieces. Whisk until the chocolate melts. Add salt to bring out even more flavour. Now stir in a splash of brandy. To make truffles elegantly avoid using your warm chocolate-melting hands and instead use cold kitchen utilities. Here’s our trick. Pour the chocolate mix into a medium sized dish, covered with plastic foil, so that the mixture is 1,5 cm thick. Refrigerate for about 2 hours to set. Use a warm knife and cut into 1,5 cm squares. Using forks, transform them into a cocoa bath and roll them into balls. Serve on Ribrand’s board.

Here’s another twist on the Italian classic biscotti cookie. The oblong-shaped cookie is traditionally made with almonds. The name originates from the latin word biscoctus, meaning “twice-cooked”, which is what makes them special. Baking them twice, makes them dry and crunchy. That way they can be stored for a longer period of time. It’s a perfect cookie for dipping in a warm winter drinks. Today there’s a a lot of biscotti versions, we chose a bright, fresh flavoured lemon-pistachio combination.

Ingredients

4 1/2 cups (570 g) flour

4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

230 g butter, room temperature

4 eggs

1/3 cup (80 ml) limoncello

peel of 1 organic lemon

200 g toasted pistachios

2 tbsp lemon zest

First baking

Heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line 17 x 42 cm baking tray with baking paper and set aside. Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl and set aside. In another, larger bowl, mix butter with sugar. Mix it well using the electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time. Mix it well before adding another one. Now alternately add flour mixture and limoncello. Add lemon zest and grated peel of 1 organic lemon, and pistachios. Mix just until combined. Shape the dough into baking tray and bake until golden, about half an hour. Let it cool completely.

Second baking

For the second baking, reduce oven to 150 degrees Celsius. Cut cooled biscotti into 1 cm thick oblong-shaped strips. Transfer strips to paper-lined baking sheets and bake until deliciously golden brown. About 40 minutes. Let it cool completely and store in holiday cookies boxes. Nibble with coffee, tea, cocoa or hot chocolate.

Baci di dama is Italian for Lady’s kisses, an Italian cookie which consist of two separate hazelnut cookies, kissed together with a layer of chocolate. Traditional baci di dama cookie is made of buttery hazelnut dough, glued with dark chocolate. We chose a slightly different recipe and our ladies taste a bit more like meringue or macroon cookies. Crunchy on the outside and sticky on the inside. For decorating and putting them together, we used white chocolate.

Ingredients

170 g ground hazelnuts

1 cup (200 g) sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/3 cup (40 g) cornstarch

2 large egg whites

100 g white chocolate

Preparation

Heat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius and prepare two flat baking trays with baking paper. In a bowl, mix the dry ingredients - hazelnuts, half of the sugar, salt and cornstarch, set aside. In a different, a bit bigger bowl, beat the egg whites on a high speed with an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Slowly add the remaining sugar and mix for another minute. Now add the dry hazelnut mix. Gently fold with a rubber spatula, with as little gestures as possible, just until combined. Transfer to a piping bag and pipe out rounds in a diameter of 1 cm. Bake until lightly browned, about 15 minutes. Leave on trays until cool, this way they will peel off easily.

Let's assemble the cookie

Melt cracked white chocolate on a water bath and use it to “sandwich” two cookies together. That’s how you get the traditional baci di dama cookie. We played around a bit and made different ones. The classic one got a drop of chocolate with an almond on top (even though hazelnut is a more appropriate choice). We dipped some of them in chocolate from the side and decorated them with confetti or ground coconut. A drop of the remaining salted caramel sauce from our hot chocolate recipe is a good choice as well. If you run out of chocolate, add a tablespoon of any nut butter in it (we used peanut butter). Those were our favourite ones. Decorate them with what’s in your pantry, make different versions and serve on separate wooden platters.