Mascarpone All' Amaretto and Bloggers Around the World May

What is your favourite course of a meal? Starter? Mains? Dessert?
What if the starter and the mains is already so good you hardly can restrain yourself, would you still eat the dessert? Some say (including my very self), sweets, puddings and cakes go to a separate stomach, so it is totally unaffected by what you ate before. Having a second stomach, though, is complete nonsense unless you are a cow, of course. Nevertheless, dessert always goes.
Right now, I am having one of those ...

... Mascarpone All' Amaretto, simple, yet very delicious. I found the recipe in the cookbook Two Greedy Italians Eat Italy. You simply whip together 250 g of mascarpone with a tbsp. of milk, 50 g sugar and 25 ml amaretto. Then crumble over some amaretti biscuits and stick in a chocolate stick. That's it! Is it the booze? Is it the mascarpone? I reckon, it's the combination that makes it so delicious.

You definitely should have a go. Something else you should have a go at is the Bloggers Around the World challenge for May. You might have concluded, we are going to Italy again. Right, but things are not that simple for this time, we are just concentrating on desserts. That's why I have presented you the Mascarpone All' Amaretto.

Well then, off we go for another month of Bloggers Around the World ...

... with the delicious theme ...

ITALIAN SWEETS, PUDDINGS AND CAKES

Along that line, you could present us a dessert like I just did or ... having so much to choose from ... you could do gelato, semifreddo, polenta cake, tiramisu, zabaione, panna cotta and much much more. If it has any connection with Italy, it's fine.

Besides that, the usual rules / guidelines apply ...

1. Link to Cooking Around the World and this very challenge in your post.
2. Use the "Bloggers Around the World" badge (you should be able to find it).
3. Use either an old post or write up something completely new.
4. You can enter as many posts as you manage (we can never have enough sweets).
5. Enjoy ...

Here some more impressions from Italy. After that you get the chance to link up your post  ...

Apples and Marzipan once more ... Stuffed!

These days it can be a bit hard to do things. Somehow my motivation is somewhere else. Maybe it was tired of winter and went South to a place with a more temperate climate. I wouldn't mind joining myself, but somehow I have to stay due to ... a lack of motivation. Oh, that sounds like a vicious circle.
Yesterday I had set my mind on braking the circle. I wanted to do some extended and lovely cooking. Therefore I went shopping and came home with five items, of which I needed two already anyway. To me that sounds already like ... eh ... not working. Rightly so, no special and tasty cooking.
However, I don't want to leave you with nothing.
A few days ago I brought you a chicken soup with apple compote in it. Now I bring you back the apples (not the same as in that apple compote). Last year I posted about an apple cake with marzipan in it. Today, I bring back the marzipan (also not the same one as in that cake).
The marzipan goes into the apples. How? We shall see ...

Ingredients:
3 apples
3 tsp apricot jam
about 50-100 g marzipan, depending on the size of the apples
2 walnuts, if you are good at opening them flawlessly
Splash of amaretto
A wee bit of brown sugar

Method:
Pre-heat your oven to 180 °C. Mine has a speed heating function, so I could do that later as well, after preparing the apples.
Here we go then. We start by coring those apples. I start with a knife and then go in with a spoon to scoop things out. Said and done!
Give one tsp of apricot jam into each apple. 

After that you fill the apples with the marzipan to the brim making sure the apricot jam doesn't come out again whilst pushing in the marzipan.
If you have whole walnuts it would be time to crack them open. If you are good at it you get three undamaged halves of walnut easily. Otherwise, you just eat the not so nice looking parts. Should you manage flawlessly, you get only one excess part for eating right away. On the other hand you could also use pre-opened walnuts and ...
Whatever, push a half walnut into the marzipan in each apple.
Pour a splash of amaretto over each apple and then sprinkle a wee bit of brown sugar over the apples.

Finally add a little bit of water to the bowl and transfer it for about 35 minutes to the oven.
I hope you enjoy them afterwards for pudding.
I guess then, as far as I am concerned, the apple season is over for me. I also tried to bake some apple cookies, but they were not that spectacular.
What do I do know? I'm not sure. Maybe relax a bit, go to bed ... it doesn't matter, I'm not overly motivated ...

Tea Time: Tipsy Blueberry Mini Bakewell Tart

What come to your mind, when you think about tea time? Simply having a cup of tea? Or will there definitely some lovely tea time treats? Sweet of Savoury?
Then there is also the question, what kind of teat you will have. At my place it can be quite a challenge. I think I have about 1,000,000 types of different tea ... or maybe a little less. It's simply a lot: tea bags, loose tea, green tea, black tea, red tea, fruit tea, herbal tea, flavoured black tea with, orange, cherry, marzipan, toffee or spices like cinnamon or cardamom, and so on. Here is a small part of my tea tin collection ...

Look to the front, I also found something else: sugar sticks. They are a nice way to sweeten your tea and are looking good. In case of emergency you can have them as a treat as well. 

Anything else? Is there any tea grown in your area. Sorry to say, English tea is not grown in England, but, hey, no worries. 
No matter how you like your tea time, a good cuppa is always appreciated and can be helpful to wind down or simply let your worries slip back into the shadows.

I don't know about you, but I like my tea time treats sweet. I still have fond memories of the last bakewell tart I had. That's why I decided to mess a bit with the recipe and adjust it minimally to my needs ... make it smaller, make it a Tipsy Blueberry Mini Bakewell Tart. 
Oh ... what a shame ... now I wrote what I didn't want to, because I don't want you to get me wrong. The 'Tipsy' part is not the adjustment to my needs, it's the 'Mini' part. Puh, I hope you believe me.

Well, from the amount of ingredients you still could do a normal sized one, but that way we are having four small ones.

Ingredients:
250 g puff pastry
4 tbs blueberry preserve or ...
3 eggs
120 g sugar
120 g butter, melted
50 ground almonds
2 tbs almonds schnaps of amaretto
Vanilla icing sugar for dusting

Method:
The first task is to get the puff pastry divided among four pastry cases. Try to make it fit nicely and remove any protruding pastry at the edges. I wish I would be a bit more skillful at those things.
Prick the pastry at the bottom with a fork and then get a tablespoon of blueberry preserve on each of the four corresponding bottoms.
Get yourself a bowl an crack in the eggs. Did it ever happen to you when cracking an egg that just the shell breaks easily, but the thin membrane beneath it remains intact? Strange!
Whatever, pour in the sugar and whisk it together whisk the eggs until it looks not too orange anymore.
Then add the ground almonds, almond schnaps (or amaretto), and the melted butter. Whisk through to mix well. Divide the frangipane mixture among the four pastry cases by pouring it over the blueberry preserve. Fine! So far we managed quite good and easily.
Now transfer it to the oven at 200°C for 30 minutes.
When ready and the almond-egg mixture has set properly get it out. Serve them with icing sugar sprinkled on top. You may wait with that until they have cooled down ... or you may just go for it.

I have a another cuppa!!! 

Oh, I enjoyed that very much, I think after a year it's time to use it again and link it up to Bloggers Around the World: Great Britain.