For a few years I have loved eastern sweets. I know that they are extremely sweet, but I eat them nevertheless. Well, everybody has their weakness. As well as chocolate, I love baklava and Turkish delight - the traditional treat, usually fruit-flavoured and jelly-like, textured with coconut shreds or nuts, and served as a cube in icing sugar. I don't think I need to introduce baklava to anyone. I love its layeredness and sticky sweetness. My favourite is pistachio flavour. I dream about the summer vacation in Turkey, where baklavas in different flavours were available everywhere.

A few days ago I decided to prepare baklava in my own kitchen (using master Paweł Małecki's recipe from Lidl's culinary website). It was absolutely delicious and surprisingly easy. I recommend it to everyone who loves eastern sweets 

Ingredients

1 pack of chilled French pastry

60g of melted butter

200ml of water

150g of sugar

2 tablespoons of lemon juice

2 tablespoons of honey

150g of chopped almonds and cashew nuts

100g of chopped pistachios (without shells)

1 tablespoon of flour

Do you, like me, also associate citrus fruit with winter and the holiday season? Maybe because in December the most important news on the TV is that citrus fruits are being transported from Cuba to Poland. Then you only have to wait and enjoy the amazing smell of exotic fruits. If you save a little it can last a bit longer than only for the holidays. That's why tangerines are for me a winter fruit. Actually, I only buy them during this season, but I buy a lot of them, because my children love them.

Today I used these beautiful and juicy fruits to prepare an upside-down tangerine cake. The slightly tart taste of tangerines goes perfectly with the sweetness of caramel. The cake is amazing just after baking. It has a fantastic caramel shell and a soft fruit-vanilla inside. The next day you should soak the cake with caramel-tangerine sauce and it will be perfectly moist and fluffy at the same time. I don't know which version I prefer. Decide for yourselves 

Ingredients (20-cm baking sheet)

6 mandarins

250g of flour

100g of sugar for cake + 100g of sugar for caramel

130ml of oil

150ml of water

1.5 teaspoons of baking powder

2 eggs

a pinch of salt