Daring Bakers: Chocolate Peppermint Whoopie Pies

December 27, 2013 By Korena in the Kitchen 14 Comments

The December Daring Bakers’ Challenge had us all cheering – the lovely and talented Bourbonnatrix of Bourbonnatrix Bakes was our hostess and challenged us to make fun, delicious and creative whoopie pies! Delicious little cake-like cookies sandwiching luscious filling in any flavors we chose… What else is there to say but “Whoopie!”

So, I’ve been meaning to post about Christmas cookies for the past two weeks… but I’ve literally been too busy baking the things to post about them at all. Now that Christmas 2013 has passed (MERRY CHRISTMAS, by the way!), when I finally do get around to writing about them, you can consider it extremely early preparation for next year… ;)…

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.

…

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?!

…

Speculaas and Happy New Year!

December 31, 2012 By Korena in the Kitchen 17 Comments

Speculaas Cookies I can’t believe it’s the end of 2012 already. How did that happen so fast? A lot has happened this year, including Nate and me becoming homeowners. We celebrated Thanksgiving in our new house with both of our families, I baked a bazillion Christmas cookies in our new kitchen (see one last recipe below), and we made plans to buy a new oven. 2013: Year of the New Oven! (Hopefully, anyway!)

Everyone seems to be posting a year end round-up today, so I’m jumping on the bandwagon to share some favorites from my blog this year. Which are, in no particular order…

Brain Cupcakes – outrageously chocolatey cupcakes with creamy, smooth vanilla buttercream. Chocolate and vanilla are a classic combination for good reason.

Cream Puff Swans – yup.

Mint Chocolate Chip Battenburg Cake – such a fun cake. I need to revisit this with another flavour combination.

Sourdough Danish Pastries – possibly my favorite post this year. I was so proud of those!…

Salted Caramel Macarons and Mexican Chocolate Macarons

December 30, 2012 By Korena in the Kitchen 12 Comments

Macarons are definitely my current favorite thing to make: somewhat finicky, infinitely variable flavours, and SO TASTY and worth every minute of trouble. I made two kinds this Christmas: salted caramel and Mexican chocolate. Since making a salted butter caramel apple strudel not so long ago, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the caramel sauce, and the resulting macaron was probably the biggest hit of Christmas Baking 2012. Deeply caramelly, crunchy-buttery-sweet, and just so, so good!

…

Daring Bakers: Chocolate Orange Panettone

December 27, 2012 By Korena in the Kitchen 33 Comments

Chocolate Orange Panettone

The December 2012 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by the talented Marcellina of Marcellina in Cucina. Marcellina challenged us to create our own custom Panettone, a traditional Italian holiday bread!

Happy post-Christmas, everyone. I hope you ate a lot of good food and were surrounded by the people you love. I still have a bunch of Christmas baking recipes to post, so here we go…

I had just added panettone to this year’s Christmas baking list and was looking for recipes when this month’s Daring Bakers pannetone challenge was announced. Perfect timing/serendipity/coincidence, once again. I really wanted to try a sourdough version (which is apparently the traditional way of making panettone) but holy cow is the process ever involved, and when I looked at my calendar I realized that I just didn’t have enough time. So I went with the recipe provided by Marcellina instead, switching out the raisins and candied citrus for chocolate and candied orange. The final product tastes like a Terry’s Chocolate Orange and is terribly addicting. Nate and I ate almost half a loaf in one sitting (actually we were standing in the kitchen, tearing veraciously at the panettone, but that’s just a technicality).

…

Chocolate Hazelnut Sourdough Biscotti with Orange and Cinnamon

December 20, 2012 By Korena in the Kitchen 24 Comments

Chocolate Hazelnut Sourdough Biscotti with Orange and Cinnamon Christmas Cookie Post Numero Dos!

I’ve only ever made one kind of biscotti before: white chocolate cranberry almond, which I make every year from Christmas. The Sourdough Surprises project this month was sourdough cookies, so I decided to try the suggested sourdough biscotti recipe and ended up with these dark chocolate, hazelnut, orange, and cinnamon lovelies.

…

Shortbread, Two Ways

December 17, 2012 By Korena in the Kitchen 14 Comments

Shortbread, 2 ways Every year at Christmas, I go a little bit cookie-crazy. This year is no exception, so here comes Christmas Cookie Post Numero Uno. Stay tuned for many more.

Shortbread is kind of synonymous with Christmas. I don’t have one shortbread recipe that I re-make every year (unlike this biscotti), but I always make shortbread in some form or another. In the past this has included piped coffee kisses and hazelnut shortbread, both of which are totally delicious, but I wanted to emulate the more traditional chunky rectangles of Walker’s shortbread this year.

…

Daring Bakers: Christmas Cookies

November 27, 2012 By Korena in the Kitchen 51 Comments

Holiday season is the time for sharing and Peta of Peta Eats is sharing a dozen cookies, some classics and some of her own, from all over the world with us.

Christmas cookies have a very special place in my heart. I’ve written about this before, but suffice to say that the Christmas season starts with me buying the latest Canadian Living Holiday Cookie magazine, making list after list to refine my exact cookie offering, baking and baking and baking until I have stacks of Tupperware containers full of cookies, and then finally, packaging the cookies into tins and boxes to give away to family and friends. This month’s Daring Bakers challenge, which was all about Christmas cookies, fed right into my obsession!…

Christmas Baking 2011: Eggnog Macarons

December 25, 2011 By Korena in the Kitchen 5 Comments

Merry Christmas! Here’s another way to enjoy some festive eggnog ;).

As I have previously mentioned, my first encounter with macarons was in Paris with my aunt when I was 18. I immediately fell in love, but I resigned myself to the fact that I would probably have to come back to Paris to ever taste them again, which would either be a) never, or b) a very very long time off. It never even occurred to me that I could make macarons at home – they seemed like some kind of impossibly complicated, intricate pastry that only the French could create – until I started noticing them popping up on food blogs a few years ago. However, it was also noted that the homemade macaron was a highly temperamental creation, and that the very techniques and methods that some people swore by were the same techniques and methods that others blamed for their macaron disasters.

Armed with the knowledge that macarons were possible in my own kitchen, I set out to scour the internet and learn as much as I could about making them. This may have been a mistake. Sometimes it’s better to go into things a bit blind, because you aren’t aware of every little thing that can go wrong and therfore totally paranoid about them. The whole process became overwhelming and a bit intimidating, so I put off making macarons for fear of failure.

…