Chocolate Peppermint Pinwheels

December 23, 2015 By Korena in the Kitchen 3 Comments

I took these photos at 8:30 pm on December 21, literally the darkest day of the year. It’s awfully difficult take take natural light photos when you never see your house in the daylight during the week. Blogging is such hard work!

I plunged into the Christmas cookie madness with both feet last week and spent every evening after work baking cookies. I think I was averaging two recipes a night in preparation for our annual pre-Christmas trek to Vancouver to see family, which coincided this year with my remarkable grandfather’s ninety-eighth (!!) birthday. These cookies in particular are a re-make of a childhood favourite that I remember asking my mum to make every year. Something about the spiraled layers of different coloured dough mixed with the flavour of peppermint and chocolate makes me feel all nostalgic.

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Lemon Pistachio Biscotti

December 16, 2015 By Korena in the Kitchen 2 Comments

I had a jarring realization this past weekend that we were less than two weeks away from Christmas and that I hadn’t started any Christmas shopping – or worse, any Christmas baking. But then I remembered that I had actually baked and sent off holiday cookies for the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap several weeks ago, so all was not lost. I participated in the Cookie Swap in 2013, then missed the sign-up deadline last year, so I was pretty excited to be part of it again this year. Participants pay a small entrance fee to raise money for the Cookies for Kids Cancer campaign, and then are matched up with three food bloggers to send cookies to. In return, you receive cookies from three other bloggers. These are the goodies that I got in the mail:

Vegan candy cane shortbread from Kacey of The Cookie Writer
Vegan snickerdoodles from Lisa of The Viet Vegan
Three different kinds of brown sugar cookies from Allison of The Bacon Eating Jewish Vegetarian

Merry Christmas to me, indeed!

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Chocolate-Bottomed Maple Bourbon Pecan Pie

November 14, 2015 By Korena in the Kitchen 6 Comments

I made this chocolate, bourbon and maple syrup-laced pecan pie about a month ago for Canadian Thanksgiving after finally admitting that I don’t like pumpkin pie all that much – I mean, it’s OK, but I can think of probably a dozen other desserts I’d rather eat. And after tasting this pie, all I can ask myself is, “why was I holding on to pumpkin for so long?!” Gooey maple custard, crunchy pecans, a good dose of bourbon, and some dark chocolate to cut through the sweetness: now THAT is a pie worth making every year. It sounds like a lot of things going on in one pie, but they are all the perfect complement to one another. The only thing that could have used some work was my pie crust, which – to be honest – has never been the tender, flaky masterpiece I’ve always wanted it to be.

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Daring Bakers: Lamingtons

May 30, 2015 By Korena in the Kitchen 7 Comments

Classic Lamingtons | Korena in the Kitchen For the May challenge Marcellina from Marcellina in Cucina dared us to make Lamingtons, an Australian delicacy that is as tasty as it is elegant.

The story goes that these little treats came about after a serving maid dropped some squares of sponge cake in chocolate icing, and her boss, Lord Lamington, Governor of Queensland, suggested that rather than throwing them out, she roll them in coconut “to avoid sticky fingers”. I’m not entirely sure that this story is water-tight, however, as the Lamington is also claimed by New Zealand and is known as cupavci in Bosnia. But regardless of who came up with them, they are a good idea.

Classic Lamingtons | Korena in the Kitchen

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The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie

May 5, 2015 By Korena in the Kitchen 13 Comments

I’ve been looking for the “perfect” chocolate chip cookie for about as long as I’ve been baking cookies. What I wanted was a fairly straight-forward method that didn’t involve a complete re-design of the chocolate chip cookie or an overnight rest in the fridge (because when I want chocolate chip cookies, I want them now, not tomorrow). I’ve tried the original Toll House recipe, dabbled in thin/crispy versions, large/cakey versions, changed baking times and temperatures, and tried different flours, all of which promised to give the “perfect” cookie but just… didn’t.

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Chocolate-Dipped Vanilla-Almond Sourdough Biscotti

April 20, 2015 By Korena in the Kitchen 5 Comments

Chocolate-Dipped Vanilla-Almond Sourdough Biscotti | Korena in the Kitchen

After making a chocolate-hazelnut sourdough biscotti a few years ago, I concluded that sourdough biscotti was just a novelty and not actually a practical way to make biscotti or use sourdough. So I’m not sure what it says about me when I decided to participate in this month’s Sourdough Surprises project, which was – you guessed it – sourdough biscotti, AND decided to use the same recipe as the base. I guess maybe it says I’m drawn to novelty and prone to impracticality. But whatever: I have biscotti.

Chocolate-Dipped Vanilla-Almond Sourdough Biscotti | Korena in the Kitchen

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Cocoa Cardamom Crunch

April 4, 2015 By Korena in the Kitchen 4 Comments

Cocoa Cardamom Crunch | Korena in the Kitchen My daily breakfast is Greek yogurt with fruit and homemade granola, and I look forward to it every morning. However, my last few batches of granola have been a little lackluster, so I was pretty excited to discover a new kind of yogurt-appropriate topping called “nutmeg crunch“, a combination of oats, almonds, honey, coconut oil, and a hefty dose of nutmeg blitzed in the food processor, the resulting crumbles of which are spread on a cookie sheet and baked until toasty and crisp. These little oatmeal clusters are totally delicious, not to mention incredibly addicting. One recipe makes enough for a week’s worth of breakfasts, but my first batch only lasted about three days because I was eating the stuff by the handful. I immediately began thinking of all the variations one could make to the recipe: vanilla bean and almond, cinnamon and pecan, cocoa and cardamom…

Cocoa Cardamom Crunch | Korena in the Kitchen

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Melissa Clark’s Devil’s Food Cake with Black Pepper Buttercream

February 14, 2015 By Korena in the Kitchen 10 Comments

Melissa Clark's Devil's Food Cake with Black Pepper Buttercream | Korena in the Kitchen I’ve been trying to write this post about this Devil’s Food Cake with Black Pepper Buttercream for three days now but seem to be experiencing writer’s block, so in an attempt to get something down on the page so that I can share it with you in time for Valentine’s Day (because nothing is more appropriate than chocolate cake on Valentine’s Day), I give you the following Reasons You Should Make This Cake:

1) It has not one but two kinds of frosting: Swiss meringue buttercream filling laced with vanilla and cracked black pepper (yes, pepper), and the most divine whipped chocolate fudge frosting on the outside. Black pepper might sound like an odd thing to pair with classic chocolate and vanilla, but it’s not odd – it’s very, very good.

Melissa Clark's Devil's Food Cake with Black Pepper Buttercream | Korena in the Kitchen

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A New Year, A New Look {Alice Medrich’s Chocolate Truffles}

January 11, 2015 By Korena in the Kitchen 15 Comments

Alice Medrich's Chocolate Truffles | Korena in the Kitchen
My blog turns four years old this month, and instead of a cake, I decided on a complete overhaul. I moved from WordPress.com to a self-hosted platform (apologies to anyone who tried to access my blog last Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday – I was having some technical difficulties) and as you can see, I installed a new theme (which includes a functioning recipe index!!). I’m still figuring a few things out and making some tweaks here and there, so if you run into any issues, please let me know. Otherwise, I hope you like the new look as much as I do!

Now, on to more important matters: these chocolate truffles. I make truffles every year as part of my Christmas baking, but this year I decided to a try an unusual recipe. Instead of a classic ganache made with chocolate and cream, the base for these truffles contains chocolate, butter, and – here’s the weird part – tempered egg yolks and water! The recipe and technique come from chocolate legend Alice Medrich, so I was confident that the truffles would be good despite their unorthodox ingredients. I wasn’t quite prepared for just how good, though: so chocolatey, so silky smooth, so melt-in-your-mouth amazing.

Alice Medrich's Chocolate Truffles | Korena in the Kitchen

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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 …