Harvest Apple and Almond Tart

November 11, 2013 By Korena in the Kitchen 11 Comments

The Canadian Food Experience Project began June 7, 2013. As we share our collective stories through our regional food experiences, we hope to bring global clarity to our Canadian culinary identity. Visit Valerie’s blog, A Canadian Foodie, on the 15th for a round-up of this month’s posts.

As usual, I’m a few days late with this month’s Canadian Food Experience Project post… but it’s because I wanted to get this recipe right before sharing it. This month, Valerie has asked us to talk about the Canadian harvest and what it means in our lives. For me, the harvest means apples. For as long as I can remember, autumn has brought with it falling leaves and a large box of apples sitting in one corner of the kitchen, perfuming the house with their sweet-tart scent, until either my Mum finally got around to making apple sauce or apple crisps, or I baked them into pies. When I was young, the apples came from my grandparents’ trees, and in more recent years they came from friends of my parents. This year, I scored some truly gigantic Bramley apples from a co-worker’s trees.

…

Daring Bakers: Pastel de Tres Leches

September 27, 2013 By Korena in the Kitchen 28 Comments

Inma of la Galletika was our Sept. 2013 Daring Bakers’ hostess and WOW did she bring us something decadent and delicious! Pastel de Tres Leches or Three Milk Cake, creamy yet airy, super moist but not soggy… just plain delish!

The first time I made a pastel de tres leches, or “three milks cake”, I honestly thought there was a mistake in the recipe when I read the part instructing me to pour close to three cups of milk over the beautiful sponge cake I had just taken out of the oven. But since it was a recipe from my trusted friend Martha, I took a deep breath and poured that milk over that cake… and was amazed to see it all soak in within minutes, resulting in one of the moistest, most delicious cakes I’d ever had. Consequently, I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to make another one!

…

Daring Bakers: Mawa Cake

August 27, 2013 By Korena in the Kitchen 18 Comments

Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen was our August 2013 Daring Bakers’ hostess and she challenged us to make some amazing regional Indian desserts. The Mawa Cake, the Bolinhas de Coco cookies and the Masala cookies – beautifully spiced and delicious! 🙂

I love Indian food but I’ve never done any Indian baking, so this was an eye-opening challenge in that respect. Aparna set us a beautiful challenge to make a cake (the Mawa cake) and one of two kinds of cookies/biscuits. Never one to turn down an opportunity for cake, I made it early in the month… and then ran out of time for the second half of the challenge, ie: the cookies. 🙁

…

Blackberry Lime Coconut Macaroon Bars

August 15, 2013 By Korena in the Kitchen 13 Comments

Blackberries are a sure sign of summer to me. I usually go berry picking towards the end of August, but all the sunny hot weather we had in July means that the earliest berries are ripe, so over the weekend I was out with my bucket, lurking in the neighbourhood ditches, picking blackberries. The berries right now are still quite small, with a good tart pucker to go with their sweetness, and if the unripe berries on the bushes are anything to go by, it’s going to be a great blackberry year.

…

Chocolate and Caramel Tart with Hazelnuts (Daring Bakers: Pies, Part III)

June 29, 2013 By Korena in the Kitchen 20 Comments

Rachael from pizzarossa was our lovely June 2013 Daring Bakers’ host and she had us whipping up delicious pies in our kitchens! Cream pies, fruit pies, chocolate pies, even crack pies! There’s nothing like pie! 🙂

As promised, the third and final installment of this month’s Daring Bakers pie challenge. I think my inner chocolate lover unconsciously saved the best for last. (Part I and Part II, for your reading pleasure.)

This tart has a buttery, crisp pastry shell, a thin layer of deeply flavoured caramel, and a thicker layer of dark and velvety smooth chocolate mousse. It is pretty decadent but so worth it. I added some ground hazelnuts to the crust and topped the finished tart with hazelnuts dipped in caramel for added drama. Not that a tart this good needs extra drama, but the fact that I lead a fairly drama-free life makes me feel the need to bring the drama sometimes – if only to dessert.

…

Shaker Lattice Strawberry Rhubarb Pie with Buckwheat Sourdough Pastry (Daring Bakers: Pies, Part II)

June 28, 2013 By Korena in the Kitchen 30 Comments

The title of this post is a bit of a mouthful, but there’s a lot going on in this pie (which is the second pie I made for the Daring Bakers Challenge this month). There’s perfectly ripe strawberries and rhubarb, a pâté brisée crust enriched with sourdough starter and buckwheat flour, and a funky lattice pattern.

…

Maple Hazelnut Blondies

May 31, 2013 By Korena in the Kitchen 4 Comments

Maple Hazelnut Blondies | Korena in the Kitchen While perusing the delicious brownie and blondie offerings from May’s Sourdough Surprises, I realized that I’d never made a blondie, let alone eaten one, and it became clear, based on the delicious recipes I was seeing, that this needed to change as soon as possible. A blondie is essentially a brownie made without chocolate, instead employing brown sugar for a caramel-toffee flavour. Imagine a square with the texture of a fudgey, chewy brownie and the taste of chocolate chip cookie dough (minus the chocolate chips) and you’ve got a blondie. And if you’re like me, you will feel compelled to make a batch as soon as you come to this realization.

…

Daring Bakers: Prinsesstårta

May 27, 2013 By Korena in the Kitchen 63 Comments

Korena of Korena in the Kitchen was our May Daring Bakers’ host and she delighted us with this beautiful Swedish Prinsesstårta!

Yup, I was the Daring Bakers host this month, and I can’t tell you how much fun I had! I was pretty nervous putting a recipe out there for hundreds of people to bake – what if it didn’t work? what if they thought it tasted awful? – but the feedback was pretty positive and the recipe was a success, save the pastry cream, which curdled for some people (I’m so sorry, those people!). A big humungous THANK YOU to all the Daring Bakers who baked along with me this month, and please PLEASE check out the Daring Bakers blogroll to see this month’s seriously amazing results – so many delicious variations and flavour combinations and beautifully decorated cakes! 🙂

…

White Chocolate Raspberry Swirl Brownies {with sourdough!}

May 20, 2013 By Korena in the Kitchen 24 Comments

Of all the things I imagined making with a sourdough starter, brownies were not one of them. This month Sourdough Surprises showed me otherwise. Silly me.

…

Daring Bakers: Strawberry Savarin

April 27, 2013 By Korena in the Kitchen 48 Comments

Natalia of Gatti Fili e Farina challenges us to make a traditional Savarin, complete with soaking syrup and cream filling! We were to follow the Savarin recipe but were allowed to be creative with the soaking syrup and filling, allowing us to come up with some very delicious cakes!

Before this month, I had of course heard of the great epicure and gastronome Brillat-Savarin, but not of this cake by the same name – which is quite unlike any other cake I’ve ever made. It starts with a rich brioche dough baked in a ring pan (there are special Savarin pans, but a bundt or angel food cake pan works too). The baked cake is soaked in a flavoured syrup, which it soaks up like a thirsty sponge, and then the hole in the middle is filled with pastry cream and topped with fruit. Savarin is very similar to baba au rhum, which is soaked in rum syrup and usually made into individual cakes, and both baba and Savarin are somehow related to Polish babka (sort of like this babka – it’s all one big extended brioche family).

…