Lemon Curd Macarons

January 2, 2015 By Korena in the Kitchen 14 Comments

Lemon Curd Macarons | Korena in the Kitchen

Happy New Year, friends! Here’s to 2015 being the sweetest year yet, and what better way to start a sweet year than with a lemon curd macaron? Given that you can buy lemons and oranges year round in any grocery store, it can be easy to forget that citrus is in fact a winter fruit. However, the explosion of different varieties of lemons, oranges, and grapefruits during the colder months of the year proves that nature still works on a schedule, and that schedule clearly states that citrus coincides with winter, making a lemon curd macaron a perfectly Christmas-y (I made these as part of my Christmas Baking) or New Years-y thing, indeed.

Lemon Curd Macarons | Korena in the Kitchen …

Linzer Cookies

December 23, 2014 By Korena in the Kitchen 2 Comments

Linzer Cookies | Korena in the Kitchen

If you’re looking for the perfect Christmas cookie, I think I may have found it: the Linzer cookie. Last year I made a Linzer torte – rich walnut pastry spiced with cinnamon, cloves, and lemon zest filled with raspberry jam – that ended up being my favourite item on the Christmas Baking List, and I couldn’t wait to try it in cookie form. They have that traditional Old World Christmas feel thanks to their Austrian roots, and are just fussy enough (rolling the dough, cutting out the cookies, assembling them, etc) to fall into the “special occasion” category.

Linzer Cookies | Korena in the Kitchen …

Classic Molded Shortbread

December 21, 2014 By Korena in the Kitchen 3 Comments

Classic Molded Shortbread | Korena in the Kitchen I’ve had this post “on deck” for about two weeks now but just haven’t been able to find the time to add the pictures and actually publish it. I remember when I was posting three times a week on this here blog – now I’m lucky if I can manage three posts a month! However, with it being the 2014 Christmas Baking Season, and with all the blog-worthy baking that has been coming out of my kitchen, and fact that I’m off work for a few weeks over the holidays, maybe I’ll actually be able to get it together to post a few more times before this month is over…

Classic Molded Shortbread | Korena in the Kitchen …

Cocoa-Cinnamon Palmiers {and what to get the foodie on your list}

December 12, 2014 By Korena in the Kitchen 2 Comments

Cocoa Cinnamon Palmiers | Korena in the Kitchen As the foodie in my family and circle of friends, over the years I have received a good amount of useful, useless, awesome and/or strange kitchen gadgets for Christmas. And while I always appreciate a gift and the fact that someone thought of me when they saw those silicon pot holders or these teeny tiny tongs or this decorative cheese knife or that Slap Chop (OK, so maybe the Slap Chop ended up at the thrift store…), there’s only so much room in my kitchen. In my case, the kitchen gadgetry gifts are combined with being “the one who likes cats”, which explains how I came to own not one but TWO cat-shaped ceramic creamers.

cat creamers | Korena in the Kitchen …

Salted Caramel & Chocolate Rice Crispy Squares

April 7, 2014 By Korena in the Kitchen 10 Comments

Salted Caramel & Chocolate Rice Crispy Squares | Korena in the Kitchen

Two weekends ago I went on a canoeing/camping trip in the Gulf Islands, where I was specifically tasked with bringing dessert for one of the evenings. My plan was to make “campfire fondue”, which consists of melting a handful of chocolate chips in a little package of foil beside a campfire, and then dipping fruit (oranges and banana chips in this case), squares of pound cake, and toasted marshmallows in it. Alas, we ended up waiting out high winds for two nights on Portland Island where fires are not allowed, and then had to cut the trip short by a day because the wind was only supposed to get worse (it was a very exciting journey home!), so unfortunately my campfire dessert never happened. Which meant that I had a whole bunch of marshmallows and chocolate chips on my hands after the trip.

Salted Caramel & Chocolate Rice Crispy Squares | Korena in the Kitchen …

Fudgy Cocoa-Quinoa Brownies

February 25, 2014 By Korena in the Kitchen 20 Comments

If I told you that some of the best brownies I’ve ever made were gluten-free and didn’t actually contain any chocolate, would you believe me? (I wouldn’t lie about something like this, I promise.)

Let me explain. A few weeks ago, I came across Alice Medrich’s Cocoa Brownies on Food52, which are made with a hefty dose of cocoa powder rather than chocolate – helpful because if there is chocolate in the house, I usually eat it before I can bake with it, whereas cocoa powder is much less pleasant to eat straight. Then I saw Christina’s red wine cupcake version of that dynamite quinoa chocolate cake (seriously, if you haven’t made it yet, what are you waiting for?), and I started wondering if you could make brownies with quinoa, being that it makes such a rad chocolate cake. I turned to the Google machine and found that yes, it’s been done, but that all the recipes very closely resemble the quinoa chocolate cake rather than a true brownie, and while the quinoa chocolate cake is an awesome cake in its own right, it’s not a brownie. So I set off to experiment with Alice’s cocoa brownie recipe and some cooked quinoa to come up with my own formula.

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Christmas Baking 2013: Chocolate Cardamom Orange Ribbon Cookies

December 30, 2013 By Korena in the Kitchen 4 Comments

Every year I spend several hours composing a list of the Christmas cookies I will bake, and inevitably once it’s “complete”, I come across a new recipe that I have to try, and the list gets edited once again. This was one such recipe. I love the orange chocolate combination as well as the chocolate cardamom combination, and these cookies contain both. Plus they are quite pretty with their stripes of different coloured dough. The flavours are subtle, but they have a great crisp texture and as I mentioned, they look really great. Definitely a welcome addition to this year’s Christmas cookie tins.

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Christmas Baking 2013: Almond Roca Shortbread Squares

December 16, 2013 By Korena in the Kitchen 6 Comments

At my staff Christmas party on Friday, three of my gentlemen co-workers made it clear that they were extremely disappointed in the amount of Christmas baking that I had brought in to work this holiday season, ie: zero. Sensing that my reputation as “the girl who bakes” was in jeopardy, I got down to it in earnest this weekend.

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The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap 2013: Cranberry-Orange Christmas Jammers

December 11, 2013 By Korena in the Kitchen 20 Comments

This year I am thrilled to be part of the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap, wherein food bloggers from all over the globe bake cookies and mail them to each other. It’s a fun way to “meet” other food bloggers, and really, what better thing is there to receive in the mail than a package of homemade cookies?

Right?!

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Pumpkin Cheesecake Brownies

October 13, 2013 By Korena in the Kitchen 12 Comments

The first weekend of October was another epic Girls’ Weekend on Salt Spring Island with my best ladies. This time, along with talking, stuffing our faces, and drinking a lot of sangria, we also visited Salt Spring Vineyards for a winery tour and wine tasting.

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