Daring Bakers: Chocolate and Candy!

August 27, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 15 Comments

The August 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge was hosted by Lisa of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives and Mandy of What the Fruitcake?!. These two sugar mavens challenged us to make sinfully delicious candies! This was a special challenge for the Daring Bakers because the good folks at http://www.chocoley.com offered an amazing prize for the winner of the most creative and delicious candy!

Did I mention that right now, Nate and I have sworn off refined sugar six days a week? Oh man, this challenge came at the wrong time! But it was also so, so right…

The premise of this month’s challenge was to have all us Daring Bakers learn to temper chocolate, and then use it in our candy creations. To temper chocolate, you heat it, cool it, and heat it again to specific temperatures in order to create small, uniform crystals of cocoa butter in the chocolate so that it stays nice and shiny when it hardens and has a good snap when it breaks. It also gives a thin, even coating to things like dipped candies. Untempered chocolate will have a mottled, dusty look when it hardens, and will crumble rather than snap cleanly when broken. For chocolate making, couverture chocolate is the gold standard – this is chocolate with a high percentage of cocoa butter that, when tempered properly, results in a shinier, snappier, mellower finished chocolate. Lisa and Mandy provided chocolate tempering instructions plus a ton of chocolate and non-chocolate candy recipes, and to be eligible for the Chocoley contest, we had to make two kinds of candy: one chocolate, and one of our choice (chocolate or otherwise).

I started out with a non-chocolate candy: sponge toffee.…

Dobos Torte Birthday Cake

July 21, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 8 Comments

I’m back from California, and after I recover from the travel part (which was horrendously awful) and get a chance to go through all the photos I took of food, I’ll have some posts about the awesome restaurants I visited in California… but in the meantime, you can hear all about my birthday cake 🙂

I turned 28 a few weeks ago, and it required a cake. Since baking is pretty much my favorite pass-time, I was more than happy to bake it myself – it meant I got exactly what I wanted and I also got to have the fun of doing it. I came across this recipe for Dobos Torte on Smitten Kitchen, where Deb had made it for her own recent birthday, and I immediately promised I’d make it for myself. So I did 😉…

Cake Madness!

July 7, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 4 Comments

The power cord for my laptop is busted and I’m waiting for a replacement to be shipped, so I have been unable to update the blog… Also the batteries in my camera died and I’ve been too lazy to replace them… However, I got this fancy iPhone which lets me both take photos AND write (short) posts, so here’s a teaser for what’s to come once my computer is back up and running 🙂

First of all, this week I did a small trial run for the wedding cake I’m making. The overwhelming majority of people voted for the lemon cake with raspberry filling and cream cheese icing, so that’s what I’m going with. There’s going to be a whopper of a post about this one, but here’s a picture in the meantime:

Also, today is my birthday, so I spent the day making myself a birthday cake – a Dobos Torte, to be precise. I first heard of Dobos Torte via the Daring Bakers and it was something I wanted to try, and then I saw this recipe on Smitten Kitchen (she made it for her own birthday) and it looked so good I knew I had to make it. A Dobos Torte consists of several layers of thin sponge cake spread with buttery, creamy, chocolatey frosting and topped with a caramel-sponge cake layer. I’m having some friends over for a birthday dinner tomorrow and I can’t wait to try the cake!

So that’s two cakes in a week, which works out to a lot of cake. Stay tuned for the details 🙂

Daring Bakers: Baklava with Homemade Phyllo Pastry!

June 27, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 37 Comments

Erica of Erica’s Edibles was our host for the Daring Baker’s June challenge. Erica challenged us to be truly DARING by making homemade phyllo dough and then to use that homemade dough to make Baklava.

Did you read that? Homemade phyllo pastry… do you have any idea how thin that stuff is? It’s really really thin!!

Anyway. Baklava! I love it, but I’d never made it myself, so I was excited to give it a try. The challenge this month was in making the dough, and we could be as creative as we wanted with the baklava. I’ve had my eye on a cherry chocolate baklava recipe from Canadian Living for a long time, so I knew I wanted to try that flavour profile.I also wanted to do a more “traditional” one (based on the conversations in the Daring Bakers’ forums, there are many different traditional versions of baklava!), so I followed the suggested recipe and used walnuts, pistachios, and almonds.
And then, of course, I had to get creative with the shape. I did the traditional flavour in the traditional stacked layers, and the cherry chocolate one in a roll.I made a 9″x5″ pan of each kind – turns out that one pan would have been plenty! And after spending 3 HOURS rolling out enough dough for two half batches, it was definitely enough!! This was a fun challenge though, and making something like homemade phyllo is exactly why I joined the Daring Bakers – but be warned: it is very time-consuming! I’m pretty strong and I’m actually quite handy with a rolling pin, so it wasn’t a question of me being wussy or too weak to roll out the dough. The rolling plus the stretching just took forever! And now my hands feel bruised and I won’t need to do any push-ups for a week……

If you have a chocolate craving…

June 21, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 6 Comments

… these chocolate-mocha-nut cookies will satisfy it. And if you’re like me, you crave chocolate on a near-daily basis. (This is why I exercise every day!) I was reminded of the awesomeness that are these cookies the last time I was on Salt Spring and Lynette’s mum, Elaine (of banana bread fame), made them… and I knew I had to make them myself, and soon! Luckily I already had the recipe, it just took me nearly two weeks to get my act together and actually make them! But the wait was worth it. They are SO GOOD.These cookies are super chocolatey, with a chewy, fudgy texture, a good hit of mocha, and a nice crunch from the nuts. One batch gave me 18 large cookies, and they barely lasted past the first day. Seriously, if they last longer in your house, I take my hat off to you and your iron-clad will power!The original recipe calls for walnuts, but I’ve had these cookies with almonds, and I made mine with pecans, so use whatever you prefer. The only changes I made to Elaine’s recipe were to toast the nuts and reduce the sugar by a little bit. I used chopped chocolate because I had a massive bar of dark chocolate in my baking cupboard, but chocolate chips are fine too. Now go make these!…

Daring Bakers: Mexican Chocolate Marquise

May 27, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 22 Comments

The May 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Emma of CookCraftGrow and Jenny of Purple House Dirt. They chose to challenge everyone to make a Chocolate Marquise. The inspiration for this recipe comes from a dessert they prepared at a restaurant in Seattle. Check out the challenge details and all the other Daring Bakers’ interpretations of it at the Daring Kitchen.

Last week Nate and I agreed that we’d been eating like crap lately – too much sugary junk, not enough vegetables – and we made a pact to eat better. Then the next day I started making this Daring Bakers Challenge, which is definitely sugary and doesn’t contain any vegetables, unless you count cocoa or tequila as a vegetable.

They were both vegetables/plants, once upon a time, right? Right?!

Oh well. Our fridge is overflowing with lettuce right now, so we’ll make up for it in salads 😉

This is a complicated looking dessert that is actually fairly straight forward, once you get your ducks in a row. The original recipe comes from a restaurant in Seattle, and the yield was for 18 servings!! Thank you Audax Artifex for cutting it down to a more reasonable 6 servings – although this could have easily made 8 servings. It was so rich that only Nate and I managed to clean our plates – everyone else tapped out, so next time I’ll definitely serve smaller portions!…

Daring Bakers Challenge: Maple Syrup Mousse in an Edible Container

April 27, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 11 Comments

I recently joined an online cooking challenge group called the Daring Bakers (their website, the Daring Kitchen, is also home to the Daring Cooks). Every month members are challenged to make a certain recipe, showcasing their creativity and skills to interpret it. The members keep it a secret (no blog posts or online mention of the challenge) until the 27th of the month, when everyone posts a write-up on their blog, recounting their kitchen adventure with that month’s challenge recipe. April was my first Daring Bakers’ Challenge, and it was a good one!

The April 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Evelyne of the blog Cheap Ethnic Eatz. Evelyne chose to challenge everyone to make a maple mousse in an edible container. Prizes are being awarded to the most creative edible container and filling, so vote on your favorite from April 27th to May 27th at http://thedaringkitchen.com!

I have to admit that I was a teensy bit disappointed because mousse isn’t exactly a challenging baking recipe, and the previous months’ challenges had definitely employed more advanced baking skills (including a Jaconde sponge/entremet and a yeasted meringue coffee cake, both of which I want to try out at some point!). However, the edible container part was intriguing, and gave me a chance to try two things that I have wanted to make for a long time: tuile cookie cups and chocolate cups using water balloons. I got over my initial disappointment pretty fast after that, because I love maple syrup (and coincidentally, I had just bought a litre of it for a relatively good price!) AND because Evelyne suggested incorporating bacon into the edible container – and who doesn’t love bacon? Plus the maple/bacon combination is just so delicious…

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The Best Banana Bread in the Entire World. Ever.

March 28, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 12 Comments

You may suspect that I am employing hyperbole in the title of this post. My friends, you are incorrect! This actually IS the best banana bread in the entire world. Ever. This recipe comes to me via my friend Lynette’s mum, Elaine, and it has attained legendary fame by all who have tried it as being absolutely fan-freakin’-tastically delicious. This banana bread comes out light and fluffy, sweet and moist, and is likely to disappear in a shorter amount of time than it took you to bake it. The first time I tasted it, Elaine had made a double batch, and it was absolute torture smelling it as it baked. Lynette and I then devoured an entire loaf, hot and steaming from the oven.

I have made this recipe a billion times, and I’ve played around it it a bit, so that my typical banana bread comes out slightly different from Elaine’s original recipe. I add an extra banana and some vanilla, and to convince myself that it’s a little bit good for me, I usually substitute in some whole wheat flour. Then I also usually add a bunch of chopped chocolate or chocolate chips, which effectively cancels out any health benefits the whole wheat flour might add… But whatever. It tastes divine….

Power Truffles

March 18, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 6 Comments

These are inspired by a blog post I came across on the lululemon website with several recipes for “energy balls”, but somehow that just doesn’t sound appetizing… so I’m calling my version “power truffles”. These are very tasty, packed with peanut butter, nuts, and seeds, and will be a great post-workout snack, which is what I made them for… but they would be equally good as just an afternoon snack 😉

To boost the energy content a little more, the rolled oats could be replaced with quinoa or amaranth flakes, both of which are high in protein. The cocoa powder makes these a little bit chocolatey, and due to the peanut butter and honey in them, they taste slightly like peanut butter and honey on toast, which I quite enjoy. To change things up, they would also be good with almond or cashew butter and perhaps agave syrup, which I haven’t experimented with yet. Oooh, I can imagine a version with almond butter, cocoa powder, and dried cranberries instead of raisins… or dried cherries maybe? Yum!

I made these in about 15 minutes total – no baking required. The most time-consuming part was rolling them, and even that was pretty darn easy.

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Macarons from Paris

February 13, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 1 Comment

My aunt recently spent a month in Paris (lucky!), and she sent me a box of culinary goodies, the contents of which included some crystallized sugar, sea salt “pearls” (which apparently form naturally into these large, pea-sized balls – I’m not too sure what to do with them, but they’re cool!), green tea “dust” for sprinkling on baked goods, and – drumroll! – French macarons.

For those of you unfamiliar with the macaron, it is essentially an almond meringue petit four sandwich cookie, made of ground almonds, icing sugar, egg whites, and a delicious filling. The outside is crunchy, the inside is slightly soft and moist, and it all melts deliciously on the tongue. Macarons come in as many flavour and filling combinations as you could possibly think of, from ketchup (yes, ketchup!) to pistachio to chocolate. They are an essential French pastry, and I don’t think I have had one since I was in Paris myself 9 years ago. They were pretty much my favorite part of the trip, and as I mentioned, they come in almost every flavour imaginable, so there is no way you can get tired of them. Or, at least, I can’t.

Anyway. The macarons sent by my aunt were from Ladurée, a French tea salon that also has stores in London, Switzerland, Monaco, and Tokyo (just in case you are ever in those areas of the world and are craving a French macaron). The flavours in the box were Chocolate, Caramel with Salted Butter, Rose, and either Raspberry or Blackcurrant Violet – I’m not sure which. Despite the fact that they were a tiny bit stale and a tiny bit crumbly from being mailed, they were delicious. The Caramel was devine – the salted butter was just the right note against the sweet and toasty caramel flavour – and I also really liked the Raspberry/Blackcurrant Violet one – it was the most amazing purple colour. The Rose was interesting – I bit into it thinking it would be strawberry, and then got this floral aroma on my tongue that took me a minute to place, as rose isn’t usually something you taste. And the Chocolate… well, I love chocolate. That’s about all that needs to be said.

Oh, and did I mention that I’m still doing this 30 days of no refined sugar thing? Yeah, that went out the window for the macarons. They wouldn’t keep for another week (when the 30 day challenge ends), and there was no way I wasn’t going to eat them!

There are tons of websites and blog posts dedicated to perfecting the art of the macaron, which apparently can be quite tricky. David Lebovitz has an extensive resource list for macaron making on his blog, along with a delicious-sounding recipe for chocolate macarons. My trusted friend Martha also has a basic recipe with several flavour variations (such as saffron with chocolate ganache, black tea with sweet mango filling, pistachio with orange floswer cream, and chocolate with lavendar ganache) in the 2010 Martha Stewart Holiday Cookies magazine. So there is lots of inspiration floating around…

I’m planning on making them myself some day. Stay tuned.