Christmas… My favorite time of the year. For this second group blog post – the first one is right here - I want to share with you a recipe, not any recipe, but THE recipe. First of all, let me introduce my sister Elsa and I favorite breakfast: pancakes and crêpes. We love them both and I remember my sister being 4 year-old and eating more pancakes than every one around the breakfast table. She has calmed down now. But still. The idea of pancakes or crêpes always gets her rushing in the kitchen, begging our mother to have the first one or the last one (we all know I am talking about the ugly ones, the first one being the one we fry to make sure the dough has a proper consistency and that the frying pan is hot enough and the last one being the one we fry with the dough leftovers, always having an ugly shape but still being kids’ (and bigger kids too) favorite one). 

When I knew I would be part of a group blog post for the second time, I felt excited but felt a lack of inspiration. I had absolutely no idea what I would cook or bake. And then, I remembered. Cooking is what I like and I cook according to my cravings. I always listen to my stomach so that I am going to make a dish which meets my palate’s needs of the moment. Last week, as I was coming back from University, tired and exhausted, I decided to make crêpes.

Crêpes are so comforting. I love them. When I was younger, I mastered the art of having her cooking batches of them almost every Sunday night during wintertime. As I moved to go to college, I had to face the fact that even though I loved cooking and was quite good at it for some dishes, I was total wreck when it came to frying my own crêpes. The dough was not a problem at all. But the frying part… My first tries at frying crêpes were disastrous. I wasted 80% of the dough and just had a couple ugly and too thick crêpes to eat. Pancakes were way easier for me to fry. But with a bit of trying, I finally learned how to properly fry a crêpe. 

Now, most French people will tell you that if there are to be crêpes or pancakes, there must be Nutella around (or at least, my dear cousin Camille for whom I cooked one the first dishes on this blog). Well, believe it or not, I hate Nutella. Or at least, the real one. I love Nocciolata however. But these things are quite unhealthy. So I decided that on this special occasion I would cook my own chocolate spread. This spread has a Christmas taste thanks to the cinnamon and ginger that I added in the end. I love these spices so much that I use them pretty much everyday. The best thing with spices is that they bring your body a lot of good things and are delicious.

But enough talking. Let me give you the recipes!

How to make your own candied orange peel (DIY)

Ingredients:

-        1 orange, peeled (keep the flesh, it will be useful for the pancakes)

-        Sugar

-        Water

Steps:

Gluten free and dairy free orange and coconut pancakes

Ingredients:

-        200 g all purpose gluten free flour

-        6 g baking powder

-        1 egg

-        125 mL orange juice

-        125 mL coconut milk (note that you can increase or decrease the liquid amounts according to your tastes).

-        1 TbS coconut sugar (you can replace it with any sweetener but this one gives a special taste to the pancakes)

-        Candied orange slices to taste

Steps:

Gluten free and dairy free white chocolate spread

Ingredients – makes two jars.

-        1 cup skinned hazelnuts (you can also use simple hazelnuts with their skin as I did if you want a more rustic looking like spread)

-        1 cup cashew nuts

-        2 cups water

-        ½ cup white chocolate

-        Candied orange to taste

-        Cinnamon and other spiced to taste

Steps:

Notes: