A tribute to grandmother…

I am that grandmother.

I would like to take you back to the old days, to my warm home with my husband and three children, two daughters and a son.

Alexandra, the middle child, always had an incredible sweet tooth. So I regularly created new desserts, and one ‘stuck’ forever. It is a traditional recipe that I appropriated over time until it became a secret family recipe. After lovingly raising my children, we opened a small restaurant in the heart of Ghent where we served home-made dishes. My husband manned the wood-grill for delicious meats, poultry and fish, while I reigned over the pots and pans in the kitchen and added the finishing touches. For thirteen years, the dessert was a beloved favorite and never left the menu, it became a modern classic. I attribute this to the pure flavors, ingredients and its artisanal nature. Guests tasted that it was made with love.

After the restaurant closed, I continued making the dessert for family, friends and catered parties. I retired and my dessert faded to the background.

Until Alexandra celebrated her twentieth wedding anniversary and we were looking for an original dessert to serve to more than a hundred people. Given the lack of sweet diversity and since everyone has tasted chocolate mousse and tiramisu, we decided to prepare our success recipe. We put our heads together, dusted off the whisks and reassessed the ingredients to serve the guests a nostalgic dessert to cap that lovely dinner party. Sweet memories flowed and everyone wanted more. Granny’s spoon was born then and there and it became a real family affair. I love the idea of my story becoming a concept and being granted a delectable second-life for generations to enjoy.

It is a classic and traditional dessert, without being old-fashioned! We are opting for sustainability in all its aspects, starting with local ingredients and a small-scale production to social employability and environmentally responsible packaging. It seems so progressive, but when I was young it was self-evident to work in a local, artisanal and sustainable manner. We would like to return to that.

I am a generous person and watching people enjoy themselves gives me great happiness.

I am lovingly sharing Granny’s spoon with you, but the recipe will remain a secret of course. It will be handed down from mother to daughter to grand-daughter, a sweet and heavenly family story with a gilded edge.