Shawnigan Sourdough Bread

September 11, 2012 By Korena in the Kitchen 26 Comments

While I have been keeping my sourdough starter pretty busy baking with Sourdough Surprises every month, it occurred to me that I haven’t actually used it to make a lot of bread, especially considering that I bake bread at least twice a week to keep us in sandwiches and toast. Lately I have been making some variation of Jim Lahey’s no-knead bread (that famous one that was in the New York Times), using yeast and just throwing a little bit of sourdough discard in with the dough for some added flavour, but not actually using the sourdough starter for its leavening power. I really really love Lahey’s no-knead bread (even more than the 5 Minutes a Day bread) so I decided to try to convert it to sourdough. This in itself proved to be a learning process, because it meant converting the recipe from volume measures to weight, and it involved percentages and math, which is not really my strong suit. But I must have done something right because, lo and behold, it worked! The bread came out beautifully crusty, with a soft, chewy, light interior crumb and a nice full flavour thanks to the starter.

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Neapolitan Macarons

September 8, 2012 By Korena in the Kitchen 9 Comments

Since making macarons for the first time last Christmas, I have been saving egg whites in the freezer to make them again. I promised myself before we moved (twice in 6 weeks actually, ugh!) that I would only bring those frozen egg whites to the new house if I made macarons ASAP. So I did.

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The Fair

September 5, 2012 By Korena in the Kitchen 13 Comments

The weekend before last, there was a fair in the area. It reminded me a lot of the Fall Fair in my hometown: baking, canning, fruit, and vegetable exhibits, livestock, sheep dog demos, horse shows, a midway, and all kinds of fair food. When I was a kid I used to enter stuff in the Fall Fair baking contests all the time. Once I entered a cake decorated like a locomotive, and didn’t get a prize because the judge suspected that I’d had an adult help me with it. (I hadn’t, I was just that good. Haha. 😉 ) Seeing all the baking entries made me wish I’d had the time to enter something this year, but being that it was only the week after we moved into our new house, that’s just crazy talk. But I’m already planning what to enter next year!! And I picked up an entry form for a pie contest later this month…

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White Chocolate Blueberry Bars

September 2, 2012 By Korena in the Kitchen 16 Comments

Remember the amaretti that I made accidentally? When I made them, what I actually meant to make was amaretto cookies to turn into crumbs for the base of these white chocolate blueberry bars (which I made a few weeks back but am only just getting around to posting about).

My oven was being a beast and the amaretto cookies came out sort of burnt, and there was nothing particularly spectacular about the homemade version, so next time I’ll just use store bought (I don’t say that often – maybe I just needed a different recipe?). However, regardless of the provenance of the cookies in the cookie crumb base, these bars are fantastic and perfect to make in the summer because they are no-bake (especially if you don’t do anything silly like baking your own amaretto cookies) and they feature delicious summer berries. Press a cookie crumb base into a pan, scatter over some blueberries, top them with a white chocolate ganache, and chill….

Kanelbullar and a New Kitchen!

August 30, 2012 By Korena in the Kitchen 22 Comments

Big announcement time: Nate and I bought a house!!

We moved in the middle of August and have settled in pretty quickly – we love it here. We are in Shawnigan Lake, about 40 minutes from Victoria where we both still work, but we traded up for lots of privacy and green space. 🙂 Plus the Cowichan Valley has a seriously thriving local food scene, which I am very much looking forward to exploring!

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Daring Bakers: Cream Puff Swans!

August 27, 2012 By Korena in the Kitchen 41 Comments

Kat of The Bobwhites was our August 2012 Daring Baker hostess who inspired us to have fun in creating pâté à choux shapes, filled with crème patisserie or Chantilly cream. We were encouraged to create swans or any shape we wanted and to go crazy with filling flavors allowing our creativity to go wild!

Challenges like this are the reason I joined the Daring Bakers: ridiculous, whimsical, finicky, cream-filled pastries. I LOVE IT!

Seriously though, why NOT make cream puff swans? They are super tasty and anyone who sees them will be very impressed. They won’t be able to help it….

Grilled Pizza with Smoked Salmon, Goat Cheese & Arugula

August 22, 2012 By Korena in the Kitchen 13 Comments

This summer has been all about pizza for me – and the perfect summer pizza is a grilled pizza. This one is topped with smoked salmon, goat cheese, red onions, capers, and arugula. So good! Head over to the SeaChange blog for more pictures and a full recipe tutorial. 🙂

Cherry Blossom Pie with Sourdough Crust

August 20, 2012 By Korena in the Kitchen 27 Comments

When I saw that this month’s Sourdough Surprises project was pie dough, I got very excited. So excited that I actually made this pie back at the end of July because I just couldn’t contain myself. Fruit pies are one of my very favorite things to bake and I was stoked to see a recipe for a pie crust using sourdough starter. And after making and eating this pie crust, I can officially say that my favorite way to use my sourdough starter is in sweet pastries, such as pie or danishes. The starter gives such a richness and complex flavour to pastries that for some reason I don’t taste as much in other applications, and the smell of it baking in the oven is mouthwatering….

Accidental Amaretti

August 15, 2012 By Korena in the Kitchen 13 Comments

I made these amaretti by accident.

Actually, I don’t think making something that tastes this good really qualifies as an “accident”, but I meant to make amaretto cookies to use in another recipe, not amaretti cookies. However, if you Google “amaretto cookies”, what comes up is a bunch of recipes for amaretti, and not knowing that there was a difference (there is*), I opted for the best sounding and easiest recipe. It wasn’t until after I’d baked them that I realized they weren’t the kind of cookies I was expecting….

Cocoa Shortbread Cookies

August 11, 2012 By Korena in the Kitchen 18 Comments

There has been an absence of chocolate around here lately, which is kind of surprising because I’ve found myself craving it often. I somehow have no chocolate in the house (probably because I ate it all the last time I was craving chocolate) other than the unsweetened baking kind and cocoa powder. Anyway, my point is: more chocolate….