Korena in the Kitchen

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Christmas Baking 2011: White Chocolate Cranberry Almond Biscotti

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This past week has been a flurry of butter, sugar, flour, parchment paper, the whirring of the KitchenAid mixer, and the beeping of the oven timer. I’ve made five kinds of cookies, chocolate truffles, macarons, and stollen dough. I’ve been baking before work and after work, and when bedtime rolls around, my back and feet are killing me and I spend the night dreaming of cookies. But it’s all good. I love it. Baking cookies is what my Christmas is all about :). This biscotti recipe is one of my favorites to bake at Christmas, because it gets awesome reviews from whoever receives them – especially Lynette, who asks, “Are you making the biscotti?” every year ;).

I first discovered this biscotti (from the Baker’s Best Chocolate Cookbook) in “Cafeteria” class in grade 10 or 11 (essentially pre-cook’s training). They were SO GOOD that I asked my Mum for the cookbook just so I could have the recipe. The first time I tried them at home, I burned them. I remember having dozens of slightly charred biscotti in the freezer because my Mum wouldn’t let me throw them out after putting all that white chocolate and fruit and nuts in them. Sigh. But obviously, I didn’t let that burnt experience stop me from trying again ;).

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Apple Struesel Cake with Creme Anglaise

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Last weekend my friend Katheryn had me and some friends over for a calamari feast – which actually meant that we had to disembowel and clean 5 lbs of raw squid! But really I loved every tentacle-y, slimy minute of it ;). I offered to bring dessert – which actually meant that I phoned Katheryn and announced, “I’M BRINGING DESSERT! … oh, you need lemons and parsley? Yeah, I guess I can bring those too…”.

Anyway, we all know that dessert is the most important part of any meal, so let’s focus on that: I made an apple cake using my favorite one-bowl butter cake recipe, topped it with brown sugar struesel, and served it with creme anglaise, which is pretty much the best sauce ever – it tastes just like melted vanilla ice cream only better. It was all super delicious, and the cake actually tasted even better the next day – I guess the apple and cinnamon flavours had more time to develop or something. It was also a nice cozy thing to eat in the fall – very comforting and homey. So without any further ado, here’s how to make it!

Apple Struesel Cake

Adapted from the “Melt-and-Mix Butter Cake” in Modern Classics Book 2 by Donna Hay (I love her!)

Preheat oven to 325˚F. In a medium bowl, stir together:

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1 3/4 tsp baking powder

2/3 cup granulated sugar

a pinch of salt

a few dashes cinnamon

1 apple, peeled and chopped

Add:

1/4 cup milk

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1/2 cup melted butter

1 tsp vanilla

Stir everything together until there are no dry patches. The batter will be quite thick – almost more like cookie dough than cake batter. Spread the batter into a 9″ greased cake pan, lined with parchment paper. Arrange 1 peeled and sliced apple over the top. To make the struesel topping, mix together:

1/4 cup flour

1/4 cup brown sugar

a few good dashes of cinnamon (about 1/2 tsp)

1 tbsp melted butter

Stir until crumbly. Sprinkle over the cake (you probably won’t need all of it). Bake the cake at 325˚F for 40-45 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out with only a few moist crumbs sticking to it. Allow to cool in the pan for a few minutes, then invert the cake onto a plate, remove the pan and parchment paper, and revert (re-invert? un-invert?) onto a cooling rack. Slice into wedges and serve warm or at room temperature in a puddle of creme anglaise (recipe follows).

Creme Anglaise

This is a rich, delicious vanilla-scented pouring custard that is a great alternative for anything that you might want to serve with vanilla ice cream. I have no idea where I got this recipe from.

In a heat-proof bowl, whisk together:

3 egg yolks

2 tbsp granulated sugar

Beat with the whisk until very pale and thick, about 5 minutes (a good arm workout).

This should be MUCH paler and thicker – I somehow managed to delete ALL of the dozen photos I took of this stage!

Meanwhile, in a small pot, scald:

1 cup whipping cream

1/4 cup milk

(or you can use all milk – whole or 2% probably for best results)

When the cream/milk is scalded (ie, almost-but-not-quite boiling), whisk a very small amount into the egg yolk mixture to temper it (ie, so it doesn’t make scrambled eggs), then slowly add the rest of the milk/cream mixture, whisking constantly. Pour everything back into the pot and heat over medium-low heat, stirring constantly in a figure-8 motion, until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon (ie, you can drag you finger through it and it leaves a clean trail without the sides running into it). Don’t let it boil! While all this is happening, place a sieve over a small bowl that is sitting in an ice bath (ie, in a larger bowl of water and ice cubes). When the mixture has thickened, pour it through the sieve into the small bowl. This will make sure the creme anglaise is smooth and the ice bath will stop the cooking process. Stir in 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, then cover the creme anglaise with plastic wrap, pressing it right onto the surface so it doesn’t form a skin. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Daring Bakers: Povitica

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The Daring Baker’s October 2011 challenge was Povitica, hosted by Jenni of The Gingered Whisk. Povitica is a traditional Eastern European Dessert Bread that is as lovely to look at as it is to eat!

My first thought when I saw this month’s challenge was, “What the hell is povitica?”. When I found out that it was a walnut-filled bread, I have to admit that I was not super excited about it – we had just done croissants last month, and I was hankering for something drenched in chocolate. However, once I started seeing some of the beautiful loaves showing up on the Daring Baker’s members’ forum and reading all the various iterations of, “OH MY GOD THIS IS SO GOOD!!!”, I decided to pull up my socks like a big girl and get over my attitude problem. And I’m really glad I did, because this is a beautiful, delicious bread!…

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Pear-Filled Vanilla Birthday Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

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One of my co-workers recently had a birthday and a cake was requested, so I obliged with a vanilla cake filled with pears and frosted with chocolate buttercream. It went over really well at work (someone actually said, “This is the best cake I’ve ever had!” 🙂 ) so I have a feeling I’ll be making more. This will continue the trend of me having made more cakes in the past six months than I have in the past six years, but that is totally fine with me ;).

The slightly battered piece I brought home for Nate

This vanilla cake (aka yellow cake, because it contains egg yolks) is super easy to make and comes out fluffy, moist, and delicious. It’s my favorite plain cake recipe because it doesn’t require any fancy ingredients and it could easily be jazzed-up-up with lemon or orange zest or something. I baked it at a slightly lower temperature than the recipe stated and wrapped the pan in strips of damp towel to insulate it against getting a big domed top, and the cake came out perfectly baked and perfectly level. I wanted to fill it with something fruity, and over Thanksgiving my mum gave me a big bag of gorgeous pears from her pear trees, so I sautéed some in butter and brown sugar and spread it between the cake layers. I also wanted to try proper Swiss meringue buttercream frosting after the cream cheese frosting fiasco, and it came out awesome! Fluffy, buttery, and not too sweet. I can’t wait for an excuse to make it again in another flavour. Plus it was really fun to decorate with :).

Pear-Filled Vanilla Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

Because of all the butter in the frosting, this cake should be stored in the fridge, but let it come to room temperature before serving – the texture of the filling will be much better, and cake tastes best when it’s not cold anyway!

Yellow Vanilla Cake

Modified slightly from A Passion for Baking by Mary Goldman.

Can be baked as a sheet cake in a 9″x13″ pan, as a circular layer cake in two 9″ round pans, or as 24 cupcakes. The original recipe says to bake at 350˚F, but I had success with 325˚F.

Preheat oven to 325˚F. Spray/grease your pan(s) and line the bottoms with parchment paper.

In a mixer bowl, cream together:

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

Mix until light and fluffy, then add:

3 eggs (one at a time, mixing after each)

1 tsp vanilla

Mix until well blended.In a bowl, combine:

3 cups all purpose flour

4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix on low speed while slowly pouring in:

1 1/2 cups warm milk

Blend until the batter is smooth. Pour into prepared cake pan(s) and spread the batter evenly. Wrap the pans in a strip of wet towel to insulate the edges of the cake from cooking faster than the middle and creating a domed top. Bake at 325˚F for 35-45 minutes, until lightly golden brown on top, slightly springy when touched, and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out with no crumbs (check after 35 minutes). Cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then invert onto a wire rack, peel off the parchment paper, and cool completely. Split, fill, and frost as desired (it’s easier if the cake has been chilled before splitting it).

Pear Filling

In a large skillet over medium heat, melt:

3 tbsp butter

Add:

3 cups finely diced pears

Sauté until softened. Add:

3 tbsp brown sugar

a dash each of nutmeg and salt

Cook until the pears are very soft and the juice is syrupy. Stir in:

a squeeze of lemon juice

Remove from the heat and let cool before filling the cake. The butter in the filling will solidify if kept in the fridge, so serve the filled cake at room temperature (it’s fine to store it in the fridge though).

Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream Frosting

From Sweetapolita. For a detailed tutorial on making Swiss meringue buttercream, click here.

Makes about 5 cups of frosting, enough to frost the outside of a 9″x13″ cake, to frost and fill a 9″ round 2-layer cake, or to frost 24 cupcakes. Best made in a stand mixer because it requires a lot of beating!

Cut 1 pound (2 cups) of butter into cubes and leave at room temperature to soften slightly. Pour a splash of vinegar or lemon juice in a mixer bowl and wipe out with a paper towel to remove any traces of oil. Also wipe down the whisk attachment with vinegar/lemon juice. This ensures that there is no oily residue that will prevent the egg whites from whipping up.

In the perfectly clean mixer bowl (not attached to the mixer), combine:

5 egg whites

1 cup + 2 tbsp granulated sugar

Make a bain marie/double boiler by placing the mixer bowl over a small pan of simmering water (make sure the bottom of the bowl is no touching the water). With the whisk attachment, stir the egg white-sugar mixture until it comes to 140˚F, or use your (clean) fingers to feel that the sugar is totally dissolved in the egg whites and the mixture is hot. Note that you are stirring to keep the mixture from turning into scrambled egg whites, not to incorporate air. Attach the mixer bowl and whisk to the mixer and beat the egg whites at medium high speed until stiff peaks form. Continue stirring on low speed until the egg whites are COMPLETELY cool – the side of the bowl should be cool to the touch.When the egg whites are cool, it’s time to add the butter. Switch the whisk for the paddle attachment, and mixing on low speed, add in the cubes of butter, one at a time, allowing the butter to incorporate before adding the next cube. The egg white meringue will fall and go through various stages of looking weird and curdled as you add the butter – this is all okay. When all the butter is added, the mixture will probably look quite clumpy, curdled, and thick. Keep stirring on low and after a few minutes it will emulsify and smooth out into a thick, creamy, fluffy frosting.Add:

2 tsp vanilla

dash salt

3/4 cup chocolate chips, melted and cooled

Stir well to incorporate the chocolate.Keep the frosting at a cool room temperature to frost the cake.

To Assemble the Cake:

Split the cooled cake in half horizontally and place the bottom layer on a cake board, protected by 4 strips of waxed paper. Pipe a wall of frosting around the edge of the layer, and spread the cake with the pear filling. Place the second layer on top, and coat the cake with a thin “crumb coat” of frosting. Refrigerate for about 15 minutes, until the frosting is set, then frost with a thicker layer. Decorate as desired – this frosting is great for piping.

Maple Coconut Pumpkin Pie with Spelt Shortbread Crust

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Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! I still can’t believe it’s October and, according to all the store displays and lifestyle/cooking magazines, the beginning of the holiday season. Where the heck did summer go so quickly?

I’m enjoying fall though – I love the cooler weather, the coloured leaves, and the abundance of delicious, harvest food – and maybe I’m okay with the holiday season starting. Heck, I’ve bought my first holiday cooking magazine and I’m already thinking about Christmas baking. Yeah, I’m totally okay with it ;). For me it’s mostly about the food anyway, and a Thanksgiving meal is a great way to kick it all off.

I’ve been in charge of holiday desserts in my family ever since I can remember, so this is the pumpkin pie I took to my parents’ house for Thanksgiving dinner. By the way, my mum is a turkey super-star – it is always juicy and awesome. And it has bacon on it. That’s all you really need to know.

The real turkey bacon

Anyway, back to pie. This recipe comes from my trusted friend Martha, and this is the second year I’ve made it. What sets it apart from other pumpkin pie recipes is the crust, which comes out tasting more like a shortbread cookie than regular pie pastry. Rather than rolling out the pastry, you just press the crust right into the pie plate and then blind bake it. This is definitely the easiest and best recipe/method I have come across for blind-baked pastry, because it doesn’t shrink or bubble up like other pastry often does.

The pumpkin filling, while quite tasty and nicely spiced, was not particularly special or unique as far as I could tell the last time I made it, so I cut out the regular white sugar and used maple syrup and brown sugar instead. I also added a splash of maple syrup to the whipped cream – because what’s pumpkin pie without whipped cream?

Because my mum can’t eat wheat or dairy, I used whole spelt flour in the crust and coconut milk instead of cream in the pumpkin custard filling (she missed out on the maple whipped cream though – next year I might try this coconut whipped cream recipe). The spelt flour gives the crust a slightly toasted flavour, and the coconut milk (which might sound weird) actually pairs really well with the pumpkin, maple, and spices. You can substitute heavy cream if you want, but I would recommend trying it with coconut milk even if you don’t have a dairy allergy!

Maple Coconut Pumpkin Pie with Spelt Shortbread Crust

Modified from Martha Stewart; makes one 9-inch pie

Spelt Shortbread Crust

A note on baking with spelt: spelt flour is a cousin of wheat flour, but is lower in gluten so it behaves a little differently in baking – basically, it absorbs less liquid and often turns out a bit crumblier. I usually think of it as similar to cake and pastry flour, but I’m not sure how accurate that actually is. In most cases, to substitute spelt for wheat flour, just increase the amount of flour by 25% (or, you can decrease the amount of liquid by 25%, but this sometimes also decreases the volume of whatever you’re making, so I usually go with the other method). However in this recipe, because there is no liquid added to the crust, a straight one-to-one substitution works.

Preheat oven to 375˚F.

In a bowl, cream together:

4 tbsp unsalted butter or margarine, softened (I used dairy-free margarine to accommodate a dairy allergy)

3 tbsp white granulated sugar

Stir in:

1 large egg yolk

Add:

1 cup whole spelt flour (or all purpose wheat flour, or 1/2 cup each all purpose and whole wheat flours)

1 tsp coarse salt

Stir until the mixture is uniformly crumbly – it should clump together easily when squeezed between your fingers. Press it evenly into the bottom and just over an inch up the sides of a 9-inch pie plate. Freeze until firm (20 minutes – I forgot to do this and it turned out fine), then bake in a 375˚F oven for 15-20 minutes, rotating half-way through, until golden brown. Let cool while you prepare the pumpkin filling.

Maple Coconut Pumpkin Filling

Preheat oven to 325˚F.

In a medium bowl, whisk together until smooth:

1 14-0z/398 ml can pure pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)

3/4 cup coconut milk with a high fat content (ie, not light – the one I used had 14 grams of fat per 1/3 cup – and make sure you shake the can well)

1/3 cup pure maple syrup (the darker the better – darker = more flavour)

2 eggs, beaten slightly

2 tbsp dark brown sugar (demerrara if you can find it)

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1 tsp coarse salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp ground allspice

1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

1/8 tsp ground cloves

Pour the filling into the prepared pie crust. Bake the pie at 325˚F  for 65-70 minutes, until the filling is slightly puffy and just set (it should still jiggle a bit). Cool completely on a wire rack, then refrigerate, uncovered, for at least 6 hours. Serve with maple whipped cream (1 cup whipping cream + 1 tbsp maple syrup).

Carrot Coconut Cupcakes

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We were supposed to visit Nate’s parents for his mum’s birthday a few weeks ago, and Nate asked me to make a birthday cake, which I happily agreed to. Sadly the visit got canceled, but I already had my heart set on carrot cake, so I made it anyway as cupcakes rather than a layer cake. This is the carrot cake recipe from the rebar cookbook, and it is the best carrot cake I have ever had. I like my carrot cake with lots of stuff in it, and this one delivers: carrots, coconut, pineapple, pecans, and dates, along with a good hit of spices. Moist, crumbly and delicious – this is definitely a cake that requires a fork and a napkin. The icing that goes along with it in the cookbook is an incredibly sweet cream cheese white chocolate icing, but I decided to try this cream cheese frosting from smitten kitchen because it contains maple syrup, and in my mind, you can’t go wrong with maple syrup! Unfortunately, things did not work out so well. I’m pretty sure I used all the right amounts of everything, but the frosting remained runny and soupy (albeit delicious – sound familiar?!) no matter how much extra icing sugar I added or how long I chilled it. It tasted great – not too sweet, with a good tang of cream cheese, although not as much maple flavour as I was hoping for – but it just slid right off the cupcakes. I had to add double the amount of icing sugar to make it stay on at all, and even then there’s no way I could have piped it into spikes like I was supposed to! I must have bad cream cheese frosting mojo, because after this round the score is cream cheese frosting: 2, Korena: 0. (And I swear this was a completely different recipe and method than that damn wedding cake frosting!). Nonetheless, the cupcakes were (messily) enjoyed, and this is definitely a carrot cake to try. I am including the original cream cheese white chocolate icing because I know that it actually turns out. If you are brave, try the maple cream cheese frosting – maybe yours will work out better than mine did!

Happy Belated Birthday, Kathryn! I owe you a cake 🙂

rebar Carrot Coconut Cake

From the rebar modern food cookbook

Preheat oven to 350˚F. Butter and flour two 8″ round cake pans, or line 12 muffin tins with cupcake liners.

In a bowl, combine:

1 1/2 cups grated carrots

3/4 cup drained crushed pineapple

3/4 cup unsweetened shredded or flaked coconut

3/4 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

1/2 cup chopped dates

In another bowl, combine:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp allspice or cloves

In the bowl of a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat until light and fluffy:

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup white sugar

3 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

With the mixer on low, slowly pour in a thin stream down the side of the bowl:

3/4 cup vegetable oil

Mix to blend.

Gently fold the flour mixture into the egg mixture, then fold in the carrot mixture. Scoop the batter into your prepared pans and bake at 350˚F for 25-30 minutes (cupcakes will still take at least 25 minutes), until a toothpick inserted in the centre of the cakes comes out clean. Cool in the pan for about 10 minutes, then remove and cool completely on a wire rack. Frost when totally cool, and garnish with toasted coconut or nuts (pecans/walnuts), if desired.

Cream Cheese White Chocolate Icing

In the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat until smooth and fluffy:

8 oz brick cream cheese, soft

1/4 cup unsalted butter, soft

1 tsp vanilla

Add:

3 oz white chocolate, melted and cooled but still liquid

Scrape down the sides, then slowly add:

3 cups icing sugar

Beat on high for about 3 minutes, until the icing sugar is well mixed and the icing is fluffy. Makes enough to frost 12 cupcakes, or fill and frost a two layer, 8″ cake.

Daring Bakers: Homemade Croissants!

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The Daring Bakers go retro this month!  Thanks to one of our very talented non-blogging members, Sarah, the Daring Bakers were challenged to make Croissants using a recipe from the Queen of French Cooking, none other than Julia Child!

I have been wanting to try making croissants for a long time, so this was the perfect challenge! It became immediately apparent, however, that croissants can be very finicky. To make then, you encase butter in dough and then roll it out and fold it and let it rest and roll it out and fold it and let it rest and repeat several more times, all the while making sure that the butter in the dough doesn’t get too soft and melt or get too hard and shatter and that you keep it evenly layered, so that in the end you hopefully end up with beautiful, flaky, light crescents of buttery, airy, honeycomb-textured pastry. No wonder croissants are considered daunting by many home bakers!…

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Blackberry Summer, Part 1: Galettes and Scones

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This weekend being Labour Day weekend, the unofficial “last weekend of summer”, I decided to put it to good use and go blackberry picking. When I was a kid, at least once a summer I would arm myself with a bucket and a stick and get dressed in long pants and sleeves to tackle the blackberry patch in one corner of our yard. I don’t remember doing anything special with the berries once I had picked them, but I just know it doesn’t really feel like summer until I’ve gone blackberry picking – something about the smell of the sun on the brambles, the sticky purple juice on my fingers, and the scratches as proof that I picked these berries myself. So, on Saturday I took a bowl across the park to the neighbourhood blackberry bushes, and about 30 minutes later I had almost two litres of ripe, juicy, black fruit. And I knew exactly what I was going to do with it!Inspired by my friend Frances, I made a galette (actually I made two) – a fancy sounding French name for a rustic, single crust tart. I love making galettes, especially with blackberries, and this is the perfect opportunity to share my favorite, fail-safe pastry recipe (interestingly, both my pie crust and Frances’ buck tradition by incorporating softened butter into flour, rather than the usual method of cutting in cold butter).Frances also pointed out the Amateur Gourmet’s Revelations of the Kitchen Freezer, where Adam shares the idea of freezing things like unbaked scones to be pulled from the freezer and baked at a later date – fresh, hot scones whenever you want them, without any prep! So I also made a batch of blackberry scones, some of which I baked immediately and some of which I froze for later.

Blackberry Galette

Perfect Pastry

Recipe from Canadian Living. I first made it quite a few years ago for an apple pie, and I have not looked at another pie crust recipe since. The only thing it’s not great for is pre-baking without a filling (ie, for a quiche) – because it’s got a lot of fat in it, it tends to shrink and melt down the sides of the pie plate, unless it has a filling to hold it up. As I mentioned, this recipe involves stirring softened butter/shortening into the flour rather than cutting it in cold – not a common pastry-making method, but one that has produced a delicious, flaky, easy-to-work-with pastry every single time I’ve made it, including a variation using ground hazelnuts. The original recipe calls for 3/4 cup shortening and 3 tbsp butter, but feel free to use more butter/less shortening/all butter – the total amount of fat required is 1 cup minus 1 tbsp (or 15 tbsp). I used shortening because I had some leftover from this frosting.

Makes enough pastry for one double crust pie, or two single crust pies/galettes.

In a medium sized bowl, combine:

3/4 cup shortening, soft

3 tbsp butter, soft

Beat until smooth. Add:

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

3/4 tsp salt

Stir into the butter until it looks ragged. Pour in:

1/2 cup ice water

Stir gently until a loose dough forms. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and if necessary, knead very gently to incorporate any dry flour from the bottom of the bowl. Gather the dough into two balls and press each into a 3/4 inch disc. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 1 hour, or until well chilled.

The Filling

I had pastry for two crusts, so I made two galettes: a small blackberry-peach one for just me and Nate, and a larger blackberry-apple one to share with friends. I used slightly more fruit in the blackberry apple one, but the same amount of pastry for both, so you can be as generous or not as you want with the fruit – just roll the pastry out larger or smaller as need be. As a guide, these are the amounts of fruit that I used.

Blackberry Peach

2 cups blackberries

1 peach, peeled and sliced

1/4 cup granulated sugar, or to taste (was a bit tart – maybe 1/3 cup, depending on the sweetness of the berries)

1 tbsp flour

Blackberry Apple

2 generous cups blackberries

2 cups peeled, sliced apple

1/2 cup granulated sugar, or to taste

1 heaping tbsp flour

Gently mix together the fruit, sugar, and flour – try not to mash the blackberries.

To Assemble the Galette

Preheat the oven to 425˚F.

Roll out a disk of pastry on a lightly floured surface into a 10″-12″ circle. Transfer the pastry to a parchment paper-lined baking sheet and pile the fruit filling in the middle of the pastry. Fold the edges of the pastry up over the fruit… …or make pleats by crimping the pastry with your fingers.Brush the pastry lightly with heavy cream or an egg beaten with a splash of milk, and sprinkle the whole thing with a little bit of sugar. Bake at 425˚F for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 325˚F and bake for 50-60 minutes, until golden brown and bubbly. Cool slightly before serving.

Blackberry peach

Blackberry apple

Blackberry Scones with Whole Wheat and Honey

These are a variation on my trusty Home Ec scones.

Preheat the oven to 425˚F.

Mix together:

2/3 cup all purpose flour

1/3 cup whole wheat flour

2 tsp baking powder

pinch salt

Cut in 3 tbsp cold butter with a pastry cutter until the mixture resembles fine bread crumbs. Toss in a handful of blackberries and stir gently to coat them in flour. Mix together:

1/2 cup milk

1 tbsp liquid honey

(Don’t worry if the honey doesn’t totally dissolve.) Pour the milk into the flour mixture and stir briskly with a fork until it all comes together in a wet dough. Try to incorporate all the flour without smushing the berries too much. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, sprinkle it with more flour, gently pat it down, and fold it in half on itself. Repeat two to three more times, then shape the dough into a circle about 3/4 inch thick. Cut it into 6 wedges and place them on a baking sheet. Brush the tops with a little cream, sprinkle them with sugar, and bake at 425˚F for 10-12 minutes until golden, OR stick the whole baking sheet in the freezer until the scones are solid, then store them in a freezer bag to pull out whenever the craving for freshly baked scones hits you – just bake them for a few extra minutes. (I baked two and froze the remaining four.) Serve hot, slathered with butter and honey.

Happy summer!

The Wedding Cake

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To recap the journey thus far…

Wedding Cake Dilemma

Wedding Cake Trial

Cake for 60

Cream Cheese Swiss Meringue Buttercream: an Exercise in Perseverance

A few days before the wedding, I took the frozen cakes, icing, and all other bits over to Vancouver, then layered/filled/frosted the individual cake tiers at my grandparents’ house the day before the wedding. The morning of the wedding I recruited Lynette to babysit the cakes in the back seat of the car as I drove carefully across town (thank goodness it was cool in the morning and there was very little traffic!), where I assembled and decorated the cake at the wedding venue (The Beach House Restaurant in West Vancouver, overlooking the water – beautiful!). The whole time I was praying that the cursed frosting wouldn’t melt off the sides of the cake, but despite all the trouble it gave me, it held up just fine (even after sitting out unrefrigerated for several hours during the wedding reception) and tasted fantastic. However, it was so impossible to work with that I will not be using that particular frosting recipe again. 🙁

In the end, the cake as a whole turned out beautifully and it was delicious – and it didn’t melt or fall over or anything! I was hoping to get some pictures from the wedding photographer of the bride and groom cutting the cake (during which I had my fingers AND toes crossed and a horrible grimace on my face because I was terrified the whole thing would collapse!) but apparently the photos might be a while, so a) stay tuned! and b) I don’t have any pictures of what the inside looked like – but just know that this was a lemon cake with raspberry jam filling (a very easy, very delicious freezer jam – I used half a batch to fill the cake) and the-most-frustrating-but-nonetheless-delicious cream cheese Swiss meringue buttercream frosting, and everyone agreed that it tasted wonderful. 🙂

I got most of my wedding cake assembly tips from my trusted friend Martha, and some frosting tips from Zöe Francois’ blog post and video on frosting a cake. I would highly recommend a revolving cake decorating stand for easy frosting, as well as a large offset spatula – these were the two most useful tools I used….

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Banff Cobbler

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Yesterday was my first day back at work after four months off, and in answering the inevitable “what did you do this summer?” question several times, I realized that I had a jam-packed summer: a ten-year high school reunion, a trip to California, a concert in Vancouver, a stagette and two weddings (the wedding cake post is coming, I promise!!), and a road trip to Banff, Alberta, with Lynette – not to mention a ton of cooking and baking in between it all. No wonder it’s been a while since my last post!

The Banff road trip was an almost-2000 kilometer round trip across British Columbia and into the Rocky Mountains to visit our friend Tangle and her boyfriend Tyler.

Banff is really beautiful, even without the fancy iPhone camera filter

It was a beautiful drive (but looooong), and the visit was full Disney musical singalongs, mountain climbing, picturesque views, and great food courtesy of Tyler.

Dinner one evening

Breakfast the next morning (notice the icing sugar heart!)

On our last day there, we picked up some raspberries and blackberries at the Farmer’s Market, and the fruit guy threw in a slightly bruised peach for free. Another friend gave us some more raspberries from his garden (of both the red and pale yellow “Champagne” variety), and we decided that we needed to make some kind of berry dessert. Quite frankly, I was dying to get into the kitchen myself, and my uncle had sent me a link for a berry cobbler that I wanted to try, so I eagerly volunteered to make a raspberry-blackberry-peach cobbler as the dessert course to our meal of elk and bison steak.

A cobbler is sort of like a crumble, only the topping contains an egg and baking powder along with the flour, butter, and sugar, so you end up with a layer of cookie-crossed-with-biscuit on top of the fruit. The filling is just fruit and sugar but it thickens up during baking so that you end up with juicy (but not runny) fruit topped with a buttery, sugary, crisp pastry. The only thing that would have made it better was a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a drizzle of heavy cream. My advice is to make and eat this RIGHT NOW – it’s perfect for all the fruit and berries in season!…

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