A good friend of ours had a milestone birthday this week, and to celebrate we got together with a bunch of good people for some Neapolitan style pizza at Pizzeria Prima Strada last weekend. I offered to make Aaron a cake, but unfortunately you can’t take a homemade cake into a restaurant… so instead I made cupcakes that we devoured in the parking lot after dinner.
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I almost never buy buttermilk, but a few weeks ago I had some in the fridge (leftover from making these) and was looking for ways to use it up. Scones jumped into my head because I also happened to have some lemon curd to use up, and there is practically nothing I like better than scones with lemon curd.
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Sarah from All Our Fingers in the Pie was our February 2013 Daring Bakers’ host and she challenges us to use our creativity in making our own Crisp Flatbreads and Crackers!
I had some trouble getting into this month’s challenge. I don’t eat a lot of crackers in the first place, so the desire to make them myself isn’t that strong, I guess. I kind of feel like I phoned this one in, which sucks because I also know how much work our host, Sarah, put into choosing, testing, and presenting the challenge recipes. So please don’t judge this challenge by my lack of enthusiasm. Instead, check out the amazing assortment of crispy, crunchy snacks the other Daring Bakers made this month.
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A few years ago I had lunch with my Mum at an Ethiopian restaurant in Vancouver. Never having had Ethiopian food before, I had no idea what to expect, other than my Mum telling me that we would be eating “injera” made from “teff”, which really didn’t do much to clear things up.
What arrived at our table was a giant, crèpe-like flatbread covered in dollops of several kinds of thick, curry-like stew, to be shared between the two of us. Eating with our hands, we tore off pieces of the crèpe and used it to scoop up the stew, which was spicy and flavourful and incredibly delicious. The crèpe, as it turned out, was called injera, and it was made from a grain called teff (which happens to be gluten-free). It had a pleasant, almost spongy texture and slightly sour flavour, due to it being made with a sourdough starter of sorts. Along with being one of the most unusual eating experiences I have ever had (it’s not everyday in Canada that an edible part of your meal serves as both plate and eating utensil), that lunch was also one of the most memorable and delicious.
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As mentioned in my previous post, I loves me some lemon. Lemon curd is one of my favorite things to spread on toast, dollop on scones, stir into plain Greek yogurt (or layer with granola in a dessert-for-breakfast parfait), or just eat straight off a spoon. It’s also darn good in a tart shell or as a Danish filling, which is the reason I came across this particular incarnation.
Greek yogurt, lemon curd, and granola parfait
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Valentine’s Day. An excuse for heart-shaped baking. I’m in!
Lemon is my favorite sweet/dessert flavour second only to chocolate, but it’s hard to buy decent lemon baked goods. I hate fake lemon even more than I love real lemon, and unfortunately most of the time, store-bought lemon-flavoured things are pretty dreadful. So in the case of lemon, it’s best to take matters into your own hands.
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There is a restaurant in Victoria called Pagliacci’s that is famous for its focaccia bread: light, fluffy, chewy, flavourful, and baked in olive oil so that the crust is both crunchy and almost buttery at the same time. I know several people who go there just for the bread (myself included), and it stands to reason that making a Pagliacci’s taste-alike focaccia was on my List.
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This Christmas I asked Santa for a waffle iron (mainly so I could make Belgian Liège waffles, which I plan on doing soon), and he delivered! I christened it by making a totally wonderful waffle recipe that yielded over a dozen gigantic waffles – luckily they froze well! These are not those waffles (that recipe is coming though, I promise!), but they are just as good. I’ve been collecting lemon ricotta pancake recipes for years – ever since having some of the lightest, most delicate and delicious pancakes at a bed and breakfast – and a week or so ago I happened to have both lemons and ricotta on hand… and a new waffle iron! A quick Google search revealed this lemon ricotta cornmeal waffle recipe, and I was on my way…
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I always forget about Bread Baking Day, but this month it is being hosted by Jenni of the Gingered Whisk, so I made the effort to participate. The theme Jenni chose this month is bread with a decorated crust. I’ve been inspired by the gorgeous loaves of bread on this blog for a long time so this was the perfect opportunity to give it a try.
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Francijn of Koken in de Brouwerij was our January 2013 Daring Bakers’ Hostess and she challenged us to make the traditional Dutch pastry, Gevulde Speculaas from scratch! That includes making our own spice mix, almond paste and dough! Delicious!
I had just posted about the speculaas I made for Christmas, so it was like déjà vue to read that the Daring Bakers challenge this month was speculaas. But these ones are different: they are gevulde speculass, which means they are stuffed with almond paste to make more of a dense, crumbly cake than a cookie. Interestingly, the dough for gevulde speculaas is essentially the same as the dough as for making speculaas cookies, but you end up with something completely different. And as much as I like regular speculaas, turns out that I loooooove gevulde speculaas, and I implore you to make these as soon as possible!
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