Chocolate and Coffee Mousse Cake, St Augustine, and the First Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving will be in just a couple of months, so it is not too early to start thinking and planning for it. In my case, it means getting flights for my sons to come home! But it also means starting to think about delicious meals to prepare while they are home. I think they are going to love this chocolate and coffee mousse cake. It could be made for the big day, but also for any of the other few days they will be home, since each of those days will be precious and celebratory.
Castillo de San Marcos, on Matanzas Bay
The chocolate and coffee mousse cake is a Spanish recipe, but not a very traditional one. Still, and like all the dishes that I make, it is a simple recipe that doesn’t take much to put together, yet looks beautiful and tastes delicious. The chocolate cake base, topped with (more…)
What a whirlwind the last few months have been. There’s been travel (a lot of it!), for celebrations, for vacation and for soccer. But most importantly, there have been milestones and “the last of” for my son David. I’ve been able to prepare a few recipes to share on the blog, but for this post, I wanted a sweet one, coca de pasas y nueces, raisins and walnuts cake, because sweet always means celebration.
I will tell you about some of the trips in future posts, but for now, I want to celebrate David. Because my youngest, the “baby,” is wrapping up his life as a minor (he turned 18 this month!) as a high school student (he just graduated!), and 
Citrus marmalades are my favorite ones and since I already featured the recipe for 
And with this recipe, it’s time to address the beloved and most idiosyncratic meal in the Spanish culture: la merienda.
Galette des rois is not, as the name implies, a Spanish treat but a French one.
The feast of the Epiphany, celebrated on January 6, commemorates the visit of the Three Kings, the Three Wise Men, to baby Jesus in Bethlehem. In Spain, the feast is widely celebrated, marking 
Christmas is just around the corner, and nothing says Christmas more than Christmas cookies! This is at least the case in this part of the world where I live, where cookie exchange parties are common—and where shortbread sandwich cookies will be on our menu this year. Of course, they will share the dessert trays with chunks of 
Coca de llanda is one of the most popular after-school snacks in the region of Valencia homes, what we call “la merienda”.
La merienda —merendar— is that mid afternoon “tentenpié”, a bite to eat between lunch and dinner, sometimes sweet, sometimes savory, a simple but 
Valentine’s Day or, as it is called in Spain, el Día de los Enamorados or Día de San Valentín, is fast approaching, and as the feast demands, I like to make a beautiful dessert that will entice any sweet tooth. These lemon coconut mini tarts with passion fruit frosting spell love, even if they stray away from the customary red and pink.
Pears poached in red wine are one of the easiest desserts to make, and now that I mention it, maybe that’s why 
If you follow Mama Ía blog you may have noticed I’ve been away from this space for a while, but this post hopefully explains why. It’s a good reason, but to make up for my absence, I’ll treat you to a really sweet, beautiful recipe: blackberry tiramisu.
And I know, too, that this is not a Spanish dessert. But I was looking for a beautiful dessert, not only sweet and tasty but pleasing to the eyes, and this one checked all the boxes—and my current taste buds.
A layover of a few hours in Madrid can be very well invested, particularly if, as it happened to me, it was in April and not in June. News has it the wait time for passport control at Madrid airport this summer will not allow me to do this again. Or… it will have to be a shorter, but still sweet visit —just like the lemon tart with strawberry cream frosting (or more specifically, the mini tarts) that accompany this post: small and sweet.
I have been wanting to visit the