Baking Chez Moi – Cornmeal & Berry Cakes

August 30, 2016August 31, 2016 ~ Teresa ~ 6 Comments

Muffins and cupcakes went through faddish phases and now are disdained by those who fancy themselves food sophisticates. But, little cakes have their place. They can be frozen and enjoyed over time. Their single-serving size might suggest individualism, but nothing speaks of sharing as much as a container full of them. A large cake is impressive, but it can also have a gatekeeper (like the poor host who served 1 centimetre by 1 centimetre pieces of cake to people he wanted to insult). Even mini-cupcakes are inherently polite and egalitarian.

They’re especially convenient for someone like me, who gets the urge to bake whether or not there are people to feed. My freezer is filled with projects savoury and sweet, awaiting occasions for sharing or celebration.

Some of these little cakes are going into the freezer, though fewer than usual. Sweet olive oil and polenta cakes are hard for me to resist. These also include a considerable portion of butter and are flavoured with lemon, blueberries, and a pinch of cardamom. The recipe calls for raspberries, but their season is over, so I used blueberries instead. The cardamom was a last-minute addition.

I over-filled the muffin tins, so they’re not as pretty as they might be. I think when people taste them, they’ll forgive me. I also think that those who turn their noses up at little cakes might find themselves betrayed by their sense of smell – I can’t imagine anyone being able to turn these down just because they’re cupcake-shaped, can you?

You can find the recipe here and if you really can’t stand the idea of a small, round cake, fret not – the recipe is really meant for mini-loaves.

You can find the rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie crew’s entries on this recipe here or here, along with posts about July’s other selected recipe, Summer Market Galette. And here’s the link for any other recipes members chose for this week’s Rewind Post.

Cook the Book Fridays – Apricot Crumble Tart

August 5, 2016August 8, 2016 ~ Teresa ~ 27 Comments

How often have I said, today’s assignment is in the oven as I write? Probably a little too often. But, here I am again. I’ve been meaning to make this tart all day, but have fallen down several rabbit holes along the way. First, there was shopping to find the perfect Rosé to go with the pickerel my parents generously shared with me (it’s a Prairie fish – properly called walleye – and one my father particularly loves, so it’s especially lovely that they passed some along to me). After that, there was weeding the garden, and a coffee on the Drive with Kevin.

Then, there was the main distraction of the day. A week or so ago, Melissa of Food Bloggers of Canada asked if any of us used bullet journals. I’d missed the phenomenon entirely and have been spending spare moments trolling Pinterest and Instagram, Boho Berry and Tiny Ray of Sunshine, in a quest to figure it all out. As it turns out, it’s not all that different from the ‘Everything’ books I used to carry around, with less angst and more concision.

I’ve fallen for the trend, more or less, and have started carrying around a Leuchtturm1917. It’s not a bad thing. I’ve never been a good fit for a traditional dayplanner – my work and creative outlets don’t fit nicely into those evenly divided spaces. I’d moved to keeping everything in my phone or in my head, which is convenient, but doesn’t have the satisfaction or brainstorming potential of analogue notebooks. So, this diversion has turned out to be a welcome one.

One of the first things I did was set up a section for blog planning. It’s been a little quiet around here, with many analogue-life upheavals and changes in the works. Things have settled down now and my capacity for writing, cooking, creating, and exploring has returned. So, my new planner is justifying its purchase quite quickly – thank goodness for positive reinforcement.

Even more positive is the return of my desire to get into the kitchen. My parents sent along some beets with the pickerel, I gathered some radishes from my garden, and picked up some mushrooms and new potatoes from the fresh markets along Commercial Drive. The vegan entrée was sage-roasted mushrooms and we shared roasted potatoes, beets, and radishes. Tomorrow, there will be corn on the cob and salad with lettuce, radishes, and cucumbers from my garden. My cooking mojo returned just in time for high summer’s bounty.

And for the next few days, there will be this delicious tart for dessert. Our markets are full of enormous, juicy BC apricots right now and the timing was perfect for this tart. David’s tart dough baked perfectly and the simple crumble topping is all that’s needed to complement the goodness of the apricots.

My mother is coming back on Monday for a visit. I’ll be hard-pressed to save some long enough to share with her.

You can read through everyone’s posts here. And consider joining this community of wonderful cooks and lovely people, as we work our way through David Lebovitz‘ My Paris Kitchen.

A Loaf of Bread

May 17, 2016May 18, 2016 ~ Teresa ~ 12 Comments

Sometimes it’s when my pantry is almost empty that the urge to bake is strongest. At the moment, I’m almost completely out of sugar (both brown and white), there are only a few cups of all-purpose flour left in a cut-down 5 kilogram bag, my store of eggs is dwindling, and I’ve just enough butter to grease a pan or two.

So of course, my head is full of cakes and cookies, muffins and breads. I took stock and realized I had plenty of molasses and a brick of shortening. I reached back to memories of childhood baking and one of the first breads I learned how to make.

No knead bread is quite sophisticated these days, based on sourdough artisan loaves, but when I was a kid it was a simple, old fashioned recipe. My go to baking book back then was Betty Crocker’s New Good and Easy Cook Book, which I pulled down when I wanted to make Snickerdoodles, Chocolate Crinkles, Brownies, or Blondies.

But I also ventured into the savoury baked goods section and the “Easy Oatmeal Bread” was a great confidence-builder for a young baker. My mother made wonderful breads and I often helped her with the measuring, mixing, and kneading. It was a while before I had the confidence to make those breads on my own. This no knead bread was easy enough for me to make after school and have ready before supper.

My mother’s copy was a reprint of the 1962 edition. I found two copies of the same edition at a library sale long ago, kept one for myself, and gave the other to my sister. So, when I’m feeling nostalgic, or when my pantry stores are reduced to the levels of a more frugal era, I pull mine off the shelf.

Tonight, I revisited that oatmeal bread, making some substitutions and additions that helped bring it a little closer to the 21st Century. When you make it, feel free to use butter in place of the shortening. But if you find yourself short of butter, as I did tonight, you might be surprised at how much you enjoy this bread with an old school dose of shortening.

Old Fashioned No Knead Oatmeal Bread

3/4 cup boiling water

1/2 cup rolled oats

3 tbsp. shortening, softened

1/4 cup fancy molasses

2 tsp. salt

1 pkg. active dry yeast

1/4 cup warm water (100°C)

1 egg

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

a pinch of nutmeg

2 tbsp. sliced almonds

1 tbsp. flax seeds

Grease a 9″X5″X3″ loaf pan with butter. Set aside.

Put all-purpose flour into a medium-sized bowl. Then, sift whole wheat flour into the bowl, adding any bran that’s left in the sifter afterward. Lightly whisk the flours together. Set aside.

Fit the paddle attachment onto a stand mixer. Add the boiling water, rolled oats, shortening, molasses, and salt to the bowl of the mixer. Stir together on low, then allow to cool until it’s lukewarm.

Meanwhile, cool 1/4 cup of boiled water to 100°C, then add yeast, stirring until dissolved.

Add yeast, egg, and half the flour to the bowl of the stand mixer. Beat for two minutes on medium speed.

Add the rest of the flour, along with a pinch of nutmeg, and stir until almost completely incorporated. Add sliced almonds and flax seed, then stir until all ingredients are incorporated.

Spread the dough into the prepared loaf pan, making sure the top is even and smooth. Allow the loaf to rise in a warm place for about 1 1/2 hours.

Once the dough has risen, preheat the oven to 375°F. Bake 40-50 minutes. The loaf is done when it is well-browned and sounds hollow when knocked. Remove the loaf from the pan, place on a wire rack, and if you like, brush with melted butter. Cool completely.

Adapted from Betty Crocker’s New Good and Easy Cook Book (1962 edition)

Baking Chez Moi – Jammer Galette

April 27, 2016April 27, 2016 ~ Teresa ~ 19 Comments

If I were a perfumer, I’d take my inspiration from the kitchen. One of the rewards of cooking is carrying away a trace of the scent of the ingredients you’ve been working with, unless it’s something like garlic or onion. But consider lemon, ginger, or tarragon and that’s a different story. Perhaps the best kitchen aroma of all comes from buttery sweet dough, especially if it’s been flavoured with a dash of vanilla.

That’s the perfume filling my house this evening, mixed with traces of pineapple, coconut, lime, and rum. I baked a jammer galette filled with piña colada jam this evening and it tasted just as wonderful as it smelled.

The reward was out of proportion to the work involved – the cookie base and buttery streusel came together quickly and the jam was already on my pantry shelf. The hardest part was waiting an hour while the rolled out dough rested in the freezer. This jam tart is essentially an enormous cookie – much less work than conventional cookies, with an extra reward in its pretty presentation. This is the second giant cookie that Dorie Greenspan has introduced me to and I’m looking forward to more when her new cookbook comes out this fall.

In the meantime, I’m going to work my way through the galette over the rest of the week. It’s my reward for evenings of weeding and digging in new soil into my garden beds. Its butter vanilla scent makes an especially lovely contrast to the heady earthiness of the garden.

You can find the rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie crew’s entries on this recipe here or here, along with posts about this month’s other selected recipe, Cocoa Crunch Meringue Cookies.

Hot Chocolate & Tangerines – A Baking Chez Moi Catch Up

March 29, 2016March 31, 2016 ~ Teresa ~ 12 Comments

We haven’t been enjoying sweet treats nearly enough around here, but I did manage to catch up on two of the selections from Baking Chez Moi over the past few months.

Hot Chocolate Panna Cotta

I drink a cup of hot chocolate or two each winter, especially when it’s time for Vancouver’s Hot Chocolate Festival, but I think I like this method of enjoying it even better than the traditional one. All the flavour of hot chocolate in a creamy dessert and none of the dilemma involved in choosing between it and a cup of tea.

I used an extra-dark chocolate that I like, Denman Island Chocolate‘s Cocoa Loco, and infused the cream with Lady Grey tea. The tea’s clear citrus notes played well against the flavour of the chocolate. The chocolate’s flavour is bolstered by cocoa powder in this panna cotta and I think it’s this addition that makes the flavour so reminiscent of hot chocolate.

This is one I’ll be having again, especially now that I’ve found a nearby source for granulated gelatin and can avoid the awkward conversions involved in using leaf gelatin.

Fluted Carrot-Tangerine Cake

My fluted quiche pan was otherwise occupied, so this cake had to be content with a plain edge. I still think it’s very pretty.

I love my mother’s version of carrot cake, a classic rich rectangle liberally slathered in cream cheese icing, but this cake is one that I can see myself making more often. It’s a much lighter cake, full of ginger and tangerine with an undertone of carrot’s sweetness. I added a tangerine glaze, which made it look festive and boosted the citrus flavour even more. This cake will get you through the worst part of winter, whether you glaze it or not.

I’ll be joining in with the rest of Tuesdays with Dorie’s bloggers at least once in April, so dessert is on the horizon. That’s always a cheering prospect.

Find out what the rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie crew caught up on here: Rewind.

Cook the Book Fridays – Pain d’épices

March 18, 2016March 18, 2016 ~ Teresa ~ 30 Comments

I can appreciate the variations in flavour between buckwheat honey and lavender honey, fireweed honey and blueberry honey. But I’ll take city honey over any of them. City honey’s flavour depends on the gardeners in the neighbourhoods the hives inhabit. It changes across the seasons and reflects the trends in the planted environment.

Best of all, it comes from bees with the best of all possible lives. The nectar sources might have a riotous variety, but the hives are rooted and stable. Cities like the one I live in also have pesticide bans, which is much better for bees and for their honey. And the apiarists range from obsessively careful amateurs to professionals with an interest in helping create a healthy urban ecosystem.

These are the thoughts I turn to when I’m cooking or baking with honey. I have some favourite local honeys, including Mellifera Bees and Hives for Humanity, but there’s also UrbanSweet, Lulu Island Honey, and others.

All of this is to say that this week’s recipe is well-worth using your favourite honey. Pain d’épices looks like it might be a sweet quickbread, but it’s something more elusive than that. It’s full of assertive spices like anise and cloves and is at home with pâté as it is with jam. I like it very much with cultured, salted butter.

The method, too, is fascinating. It starts out as though you’re making a caramel, cooking the honey with brown sugar (and in my case, a bit of molasses, too). Then, that mixture is cooled before it’s added to the dry ingredients and egg.

The result is a dense and tender loaf, that has a texture somewhere between a quick loaf and a true bread. I might have to indulge in some pâté this weekend to try it in a savoury fashion, or pair it with my mother’s plum jelly for a sweet treat. Or, I might just stick to butter. It’s awfully good that way.

Now, if you’re part of the Cook the Book Fridays group, you might be wondering what happened to this week’s primary recipe, Belgian Beef Stew with Beer. This wasn’t a good week for a side trip into cooking with meat in our household, so I’ve decided rack up my very first entry on my ‘catch up’ list for the group. I’ll be glad of the excuse to make this bread again. For now, I’m just glad I have an excuse to go honey shopping, as I used up the last of my current stash with this recipe.

David Lebovitz has one version of this bread on his website, but I’d buy the book if I were you.

You can read through everyone’s posts here. And consider joining this community of wonderful cooks and lovely people, as we work our way through David Lebovitz‘ My Paris Kitchen.

Baking Chez Moi – Odile’s Fresh Orange Cake

March 8, 2016March 9, 2016 ~ Teresa ~ 31 Comments

Happy International Women’s Day, everyone! Here’s to continuing the march toward equality for all women, across the world and at home.

Baking may not seem like a good fit on a day that’s dedicated to women’s equality, but all the activist and community groups I’ve been part of have fuelled change with agile minds and satisfied stomachs. Even cookbooks have been wielded as tools for change by feminists – suffragists used them to spread their message, filling them with recipes and resistance.

So in this spirit, I think it’s fitting that I’m writing about a cake that begs to be shared. Any group of people who were lucky enough to find this orange cake on their meeting room table might find the fortitude to change the world.

I have a special fondness for orange cake – my grandmother used to make it and it was a favourite for everyone in the family. Unfortunately her recipe is lost to us, so I’ve tried any that I’ve encountered in an attempt to find one that measures up to my memory of hers.

That’s the problem, of course – what can measure up to a treasured memory? So, I just enjoy the orange cakes as they come along, noting down the ones that come close, along with those I appreciate just for themselves.

Odile’s Orange Cake falls into the second category. Though I think my grandmother would have appreciated the orange-y, buttery flavour very much, it’s a cake that’s different in kind than the one she used to make. Hers was moist, with a fine crumb, but also sturdier than this cake. That’s no surprise, since this one is soaked in the syrup used to poach the oranges that decorate it. It’s not just moist, it’s suffused with moisture in the best possible way.

There’s something else that’s different about this cake. I used goat butter to make it. It’s a delicious butter that has a different character than that made from cow’s milk. If you’re interested, Chowhound made a short video on the subject.

This recipe was well worth using my tiny stash of goat butter. And I think that if I bring it to my committee meeting tomorrow night, it might be the perfect way to celebrate solidarity amongst a group of women working to benefit our community.

You can find the rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie crew’s entries on this recipe here: Odile’s Fresh Orange Cake.

A Piquant Tomato Tart

January 29, 2016January 30, 2016 ~ Teresa ~ 7 Comments

I received a jar of Maille’s Honey and Modena Balsamic Vinegar mustard from Maille Canada, but received no other consideration. All opinions are my own.

I keep two kinds of mustard in my refrigerator – a Dijon mustard and a grainy mustard. I’ve tried many different grainy mustards, but the Dijon is always Maille. I use these mustards in salad dressings, slather them over lamb and other meats for roasting, and sneak them in as my secret weapon for pan sauces, dips, casseroles, or savoury pies. These dishes are all improved by mustard’s piquancy, but the very best application for quality mustard is in Dorie Greenspan‘s recipe for Gérard’s Mustard Tart. I do not come from a mustard-loving family, but they all ask for seconds when I make this dish.

Since I focus on mustard as an ingredient rather than as a condiment, I haven’t really explored flavoured mustards. So, when Maille Canada offered me the opportunity to try their Honey and Modena Balsamic Vinegar mustard, my mind turned to cooking. The first thing on my agenda was the tomato variation of Dorie’s tart. I swapped out grainy mustard for the balsamic and studded the custard with juicy grape tomatoes. I also added a touch of sage along with the rosemary called for in the recipe.

Since I had the pastry in the freezer, already fitted into my tart pan, this dish took about 30 minutes from cracking the eggs to pulling it from the oven. This is a weeknight supper that looks like it belongs in an upscale buffet. Pair it with a winter salad and you don’t really need anything else. Since it keeps very well, this one will be making a brunch appearance tomorrow, too.

You can find the recipe here for the original version of the tart – to make the balsamic tomato version, swap out the two tablespoons of grainy mustard for balsamic mustard and use sliced tomatoes in place of the carrots and leeks.

The balsamic mustard is mellow, with a sweetness that’s balanced by heat. It’s terrific in this tart, playing against the Dijon mustard, the herbs, and tomatoes. I might just change my mind about mustard as a condiment, if this is on offer. I can imagine putting a layer of this mustard on a bresaola tartine or, even better, a goat cheese and strawberry tartine. It’s mild enough that it’s perfect for all sorts of dishes that straddle the line between savoury and sweet. It’s also going to become a favourite for dressings and marinades.

Maille was kind enough to send along a jar of their Malossol cornichons with the balsamic mustard, but I’m unable to review them. The jar opened in transit and I reluctantly had to compost them. My partner was heartbroken – good cornichons are one of his favourite indulgences.

Luckily, Maille’s gourmet lines can be found at a number of food purveyors, including Urban Fare, which hosted a Maille pop up shop over the holidays. I hope they bring back their mustard on tap to British Columbia soon – I’ve decided that my mustard collection is in need of expansion.

Something Simple

January 26, 2016January 27, 2016 ~ Teresa ~ 4 Comments

There was to be a savoury tart today, but a moment of inattention led to an evening of correcting tart dough instead. My Canadian eyes insist on reading “cup” when they should see “stick” and I put exactly twice as much butter into the dough as I was meant to. Luckily, it was easy to fix, but by that time I’d decided that leftover potato and spinach curry was a better dinner idea.

Now, I have one half of the dough fitted into my tart pan and the other well-wrapped. Both are hanging out in the freezer, awaiting another day.

I was still in the mood to bake – do you find that once you’ve set your mind on it, you’ve got to do it? Perhaps that’s just me.

I decided on drop biscuits, to use up some milk and because they’re perfect for the pot of plum jelly my mother brought over last week.

On Friday, I’ll show you what I had in mind for that savoury tart, with a deliciously piquant post. Until then, I’ll be enjoying warmed biscuits slathered with jelly.

Ginger Snapped

January 15, 2016January 15, 2016 ~ Teresa ~ 4 Comments

Every year during the holidays, there’s always one treat that outshines the others. Some years it’s sucre à la crème, other years it’s Nanaimo bars or butter tarts. This year, it’s ginger cookies that everyone wanted. Early in the season, I resurrected a recipe from the copy of Company’s Coming: Cookies that I received as a gift when I moved out of my parents’ house oh-so-many years ago. I’ve been making batches nearly weekly, ever since.

It’s one of those old-fashioned cookbooks that are worth hanging onto, like the Five Roses or Betty Crocker ones. Though I won’t touch the cake-mix based recipes with a ten-foot pole, there are many reliable, delicious cookie recipes to be found there.

These cookies are sugar and butter bombs, with a deep molasses and ginger flavour and a crisp-but-tender texture that makes them perfect for dunking.

I’m going to keep making them as they are, but I’m curious to see if I can come up with a healthier version, too. Some of my favourite cookie-eaters can’t partake in something quite so indulgent. So, I’m adding it to my investigation pile, along with the perfect gluten-free, vegan peanut butter cookie. Watch this space for developments.

You can find the recipe online if you Google, but it doesn’t look like anyone’s gotten permission, so I won’t link to it here. I’d head down to your local library to check out the Company’s Coming books, instead. A librarian friend of mine says they’re some of the most perennially popular cookbooks they circulate. You might even surprise yourself and buy a copy – sometimes it’s the old-fashioned recipes that satisfy the most.