Blue-Barb Custard Pie with Oatmeal Cookie Crust

February 23, 2017 By Korena in the Kitchen 5 Comments

From the depths of winter, I am particularly grateful to my past self for having cut up and frozen the bag of rhubarb that I recently unearthed from the back of my freezer. My normal go-to for rhubarb is a crisp or crumble of some kind, but I remembered the custard-topped rhubarb pie I’d seen Julie make. Rhubarb and custard are a classic pairing, and this particular pie combines them with a cinnamon and brown sugar-kissed oatmeal cookie crust. So basically all the best parts of a rhubarb crisp with vanilla ice cream – aka frozen custard – composed in a such a way that when you cut slices you end up with these lovely layers.

Blue-barb Custard Pie with Oatmeal Cookie Crust | Korena in the Kitchen

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German Apple-Quince-Almond Cake {Apfel-Quitte-Marzipan-Kuchen}

November 20, 2016 By Korena in the Kitchen 4 Comments

I’ve been eagerly anticipating Luisa Weiss‘ new book, Classic German Baking, ever since she first started sharing her adventures in recipe development about a year ago. I have yet to get my hands on the actual book, but since its release, several recipes have popped up online, including one for a completely gorgeous apple-marzipan cake, which is described as “epic“. In the fall, I’m a sucker for anything apple, and almonds are quickly becoming my favourite flavour for almost everything, so this cake was immediately added to my weekend baking list.

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Apple, Pear and Quince Speculoos Crumble

November 16, 2016 By Korena in the Kitchen Leave a Comment

I got Dorie Greenspan’s Baking Chez Moi for my birthday this summer and spent about three days straight reading it from cover to cover. By the time I was done, I had bookmarked so many recipes that it looked like this:

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Vanilla Poached Quince

November 11, 2016 By Korena in the Kitchen 4 Comments

A few weeks ago, my kitchen was overrun with apples, pears, green tomatoes, and quince. Apples and pears are fairly routine autumnal fruit to deal with (I made apple sauce and dried pears, among other things) and the green tomatoes became green tomato mincemeat, but the quince left me at a bit of a loss: up until my Mum delivered them to me in a box, I’d never even seen one in person, let alone cooked one. Quince are a rather unusual fruit in the same family as apples and pears – in fact, they look like a cross between the two, only their waxy yellow skin is also covered in peach-like fuzz. They have a delicate floral – almost tropical – smell that is incredibly deceiving, because they are totally inedible raw – hard, woody, and mouth-puckeringly tart, even when ripe. When you go to prepare them for cooking, they are very difficult to cut and core, and their flesh oxidizes and and turns brown almost immediately.

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Apple Pies and Pastry Tricks

September 23, 2016 By Korena in the Kitchen 3 Comments

Now that it’s officially fall, part of me is like, “where the heck did summer go so fast?” and the other part of me (the part that prefers slippers to shorts and likes putting on a jacket to go outside) is all, “FALL! I’VE BEEN WAITING SO LONG!” Other than the wardrobe options, I love this season because pretty much every year, someone or other gives me a bunch of baking apples from their tree or their parent’s tree or their cousin’s neighbour’s son’s teacher’s tree. Everyone has apples to give away and I will happily take them all, because it means I can make apple pie, and that is about my favourite thing to make.

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Poached Plum Pavlova with Spun Caramel

September 4, 2016 By Korena in the Kitchen 4 Comments

I have majorly fallen off the Daring Kitchen challenge bandwagon (the last challenge I did was in May!), and even now, my attempt to jump back on is a week late. But better late than never, right? August’s challenge, set by Marcellina, was the pavlova: a crisp meringue base filled with whipped cream and fruit. While both New Zealand and Australia claim to be the originator of this dessert, it is named after the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, because the billows of meringue and cream are supposed to resemble her tutu. That might be a bit of a stretch, but I completely understand why Australia and New Zealand are fighting over it, because DANG, pavlova is delicious! I’ve made several in the past, and for a while the header image on my blog was a pavlova, but somehow I’ve never actually posted a recipe. So finally, here it is….

White Chocolate Grapefruit Poppy Seed Cake

February 14, 2016 By Korena in the Kitchen 5 Comments

This is not technically a Valentine’s Day post – February 14th just so happens to be the day I’m pressing “post” on something I’ve been working on veeeeeeeery slowly for the past 2 week. The only thing vaguely Valentine’s-y about it is that the inside is a little bit pink, but the point of today’s post is this: If you’re looking for a cake to put underneath your white chocolate peony, look no further. Without the peony, this cake looks plain on the outside but it is actually anything but – starting with the fact that it is flavoured with grapefruit. Lemon, orange and lime usually get all the citrus attention in baking, but replacing the lemon in lemon poppy seed cake with grapefruit and pairing it with white chocolate mousse frosting is pretty brilliant.

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Jamie Oliver’s Charming Eccles Cakes

November 24, 2015 By Korena in the Kitchen 3 Comments

We recently upgraded our cable TV situation and we now get a channel that plays a lot of Jamie Oliver shows, which is just fine by me. A little while ago we watched the Jamie’s Great Britain episode where he visits Yorkshire and makes eccles cakes: little puff pastry rounds traditionally filled with currants. Normally this kind of thing doesn’t appeal to me – too mincemeat-y – but I remembered back to the tiny delicious eccles cake I had at Abkhazi Garden and how it tasted exactly like Christmas, and suddenly I was consumed by the desire make Jamie’s eccles cakes, which include apples and a good dose of spice and citrus zest.

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Apple Strawberry Custard Tart

October 6, 2015 By Korena in the Kitchen 5 Comments

I’m going to say it: fall is my favourite season. I know everyone loves summer because SUNSHINE, but I love fall because SWEATERS, and SOUP, and CRISP MORNINGS, and FIRES IN THE FIREPLACE. Fall fees like a relief after a long, hot, parched summer – at this time of year, the weather is still pretty gorgeous but we’ve had a bit of rain so everything is green again, just in time for the riot of fall colours as the leaves start to turn. Not to mention the absolute bounty of fall produce. I’ve been at the local farmers market every Saturday for the past three weeks, just soaking in the gorgeous fall veggies, filling my cloth bags to the brim with massive heads of broccoli and cauliflower, big orange squash, peppers, kale, chard, and salad greens. Of course there are apples, but to my surprise, there is also one stand that is still selling local strawberries in October!

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Perfect Plum Cake

September 18, 2015 By Korena in the Kitchen 1 Comment

Sorry for the complete lack of posts this month – I have a pretty good excuse, I promise (more on that to come!). To make up for it though, I bring you cake. And not just any cake: a gorgeously pink-tinged cake full of plums, which are fast becoming my favourite fruit for baking.

I’ve always had a soft spot for cooked plums – I love how they sweeten as they slump into themselves and turn that gorgeous jewel-toned garnet colour – and especially plums in cakes. Earlier this summer I came across a recipe for a plum cake with – get this – plum caramel, and I started pulling out ingredients the second I finished reading those two words. Plum caramel is a genius combination of cooked sugar mixed with pureed plums instead of heavy cream, and it is every bit as delicious as it sounds. I highly recommend you make some, immediately.

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