It’s hot here in Nova Scotia, but I’m still baking occasionally anyway. Well, almost every evening. Reading piles of books and eating cookies coated in sweet cinnamon sugar is my way of beating the mid day heat. If you’d like to make some too, click here for my recipe.
Happy Baking!
A motel used to stand here a few years ago. All it took was a couple years of growth for the wildflowers to take hold and thrive.
Homemade Chocolate Cake with Berry Buttercream
To show that I care I decided to make the people in my life something special, a Moist Chocolate Cake filled and frosted with Fresh Berry Mousseline Buttercream. I put raspberries between the layers as well as on top for decoration. The decoration is very simple, I used the buttercream I had left to pipe some quick rosettes, and then placed a raspberry on top of each one. The little hearts were made the same way you’d make snowflake winter decorations, by folding paper and cutting small notches out of the folded edge.
I wish I had more photos, but the whole purpose of making this cake was to enjoy it with the people I hold dear, and we couldn’t wait to eat it.
The buttercream recipe I used is here:
http://gateauxrose.blogspot.com/2010/07/strawberry-vacation-cakes.html
It’s raining here in Nova Scotia, which is usual about this time of year. I love rainy days, personally. The plants are vibrant, and the birds are singing, even the teeniest patch of moss turns lush and green. I love the sound of rain pouring down, and the smell of wet earth, growing leaves and woods.
Today seems like a good day to tend to seedlings indoors and do some slow things in the kitchen, I’ve decided to infuse olive oil with herbs and try my hand at making some kind of cheese.
My rosemary and oregano plants are growing fresh leaves again (they slowed down during the winter months) and it is time to take off some of the older growth. I have a big can of cold pressed extra virgin olive oil, corks and glass bottles, so now I’m ready to go. I keep glass bottles from sauces and other things, which I wash and save for projects like this. Sometimes being a pack rat pays off. I found a really sweet champagne cork in my stash, turns out they fit and look great in sauce bottles.
In the end I made five kinds of infused olive oil; oregano, rosemary, lemon pepper, orange basil and garlic. Using my own herbs gives me a lot of pleasure, they seem to grow back just as fast as you pick from them (if done properly) and I know they are grown without pesticides and harmful chemicals. This is the time of year to start seeds or buy young plants from nurseries if you want to start your own kitchen herb garden.
You can make your own oils easily as well. All you need to do is mix herbs and cold pressed, extra virgin olive oil in clean bottles. Simple. Makes great gifts too.
To make the citrus infused oils add the zest from one orange or lemon, along with peppercorns and herbs, to your olive oil. You can substitute dried herbs for fresh. I like to use some sort of oil drizzler, or something with a small opening in the cap to keep whole peppercorns from escaping from the lemon version.
These take some time to infuse, but you can go ahead and taste some right away if you’d like, just top it up bit more cold pressed, extra virgin olive oil. The garlic will taste strong enough by the next day, the others might take a week or two. Enjoy it on bread with balsamic vinegar. (After a few weeks the leaves in some of my first infusions went a bit dark and off, so I now recommend straining the oils after a week or two).
I also recommend you use a funnel, because the first time I tried this I made an oily mess. (I really didn’t want to waste the olivey goodness, so I sopped it up with a piece of cheese cloth and kept the whole thing in a jar to throw in my bath later. It makes a wonderful moisturiser and hair detangler too. When life gives you lemons… =)
Bread being made with Oregano oil
The only crocus in sight.
This photo is from last month, but I forgot to post it. Ooops =P
I like to try a new muffin variation every few days. I recently whipped up these chocolate orange chocolate chunk muffins for Dan as a celebratory treat. He just found out he got a new job, so I decided to make these a bit more special and cake-ish by baking them in colourful paper liners and adding a glaze.
It is a simple orange glaze, if you’d like to glaze yours, stir together a little confectioners sugar and 2 -3 tbsp’ of orange juice in a small bowl. Once the muffins are cool dip the tops in the mixture, letting some of the glaze drip back into the bowl (so it doesn’t run everywhere), and set them aside to dry.
Minneola Tangelo zest is what gives these muffins a rich orangey flavour, this sweet citrus fruit pairs well with deep dark chocolate. The fruit itself is actually a cross between a Duncan grapefruit and a Dancy tangerine. They are very juicy, easy to peel and the zest is my favourite to use in baked goods, or any recipes that require orange zest really. They are sometimes refered to as a honeybell as well.
For dinner the other night I made a spinach salad with poppy seed dressing, dried cranberries, toasted walnuts and juicy minneola tangelo pieces. I don’t like to waste the wonderful minneola tangelo zest, since it is really flavourful. So before I cut the citrus fruit I zested them and set the zest aside in a bowl to flavour these muffins. The scent of the citrus zest and the fruits sweet oil was fresh and delightful. Make these muffins and your kitchen will smell delicious as an added bonus.
I make muffins an awful lot and I usually use this method because it is so simple. Just whisk up the dry and wet mixtures separately and then gently fold them together. This recipe makes exactly 12 muffins.
Ingredients:
dry:
1 2/3rd’s cups all purpose flour,
1/3 cup cocoa
1 1/2 tsp baking powder,
1/3 cup + 1/4 cup raw cane sugar of sugar,
1/4 tsp sea salt,
about 150g of dark chocolate chunks
wet:
2 minneola tangelos worth of zest,
1/2 cup of oil,
2 eggs,
1/2 cup of milk or soy milk (I use soy),
1 tsp vanilla,
1/3 cup maple syrup
Whisk together the dry ingredients in a large bowl and set the mixture aside.
Zest the oranges into a medium size bowl, be careful not to add any of the bitter orange pith (white part). It is best to use a really fine grater for this, I use an acid etched micro plane. It’s definitely a kitchen tool worth buying as it it useful for many things, does a fine job and stays very sharp (be careful with them though, for this reason).
Add the oil, eggs, vanilla, maple syrup and milk and whisk the wet mixture together.
Form a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet mixture.Stir everything together gently until it is just mixed together.
Fill muffin cups nearly to the top. Bake at 350f until the tops are solid and they spring back when touched.
Enjoy.
(I swear I do make healthier muffins without chocolate sometimes, but I am a little chocolate crazy, so that’s that. I’ll post a recipe with nuts and fruit soon.)
These are so easy to make, and super yummy too. Bet you can’t eat just one. ; P
Ingredients:
dry:
2 cups all purpose flour,
1 1/2 tsp baking powder,
1 cup of sugar,
1/4 tsp sea salt,
about 150g of chocolate chips (half a bag)
wet:
1/4 cup of natural peanut butter,
1/4 cup of oil,
2 eggs,
1/2 cup of milk or soymilk,
1 tsp vanilla
Whisk together the dry ingredients in a large bowl and set the mixture aside.
Place the natural peanut butter and the oil in a separate bowl. Warm this in microwave for a few seconds, just until the peanut butter whisks together easily with the oil. Add the eggs, vanilla and milk, whisking after each addition.
Form a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet mixture. Stir everything together gently until it is just mixed together. (Peanut butter tends to vary in consistency and oil content. If your peanut butter is a bit thick, the batter may end up a bit drier. You may need to add an extra tbsp of milk or soy milk to make the batter come together in that case.)
Fill muffin cups about 3/4 of the way. It makes about 11-12 regular size muffins. Bake at 350f until the tops are golden and they spring back when touched.
Enjoy.
These are great for packing in a lunch, and can be frozen if you want to eat them later in the week. I doubt very much they will last more than 24hrs though, they get gobbled up pretty fast around here.
Show someone you think they’re swell with sweet sugar cookies.
I made these buttery heart shaped cookies for Valentine’s day. They are great for sharing with the people you love any time of year. Cherry juice gives the icing a subtle flavour and a lovely pink colour. They are pretty, keep and transport well, and are fun and easy to make.
Sugar Cookie Dough:
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour,
1/2 tsp salt,
2/3rd cup fine sugar,
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla,
1 lrg egg
Whisk together the flour and the salt in a bowl (or sift the mixture) and set it aside.
Cream the unsalted butter and sugar until it is light and fluffy. This will take several minutes with an electric mixer. Add the vanilla and the egg and mix well. Finally stir in the flour and salt.
I usually roll it out and use it right away, but you can roll it out and put it between layers of parchment paper if you want to chill it or make it in advance. It will be fine in the fridge for a day or so, but if you intend to make it further in advance than that, you should freeze it.
Cherry Icing:
Ten ripe cherries, chopped,
1/4 cup of water,
1 pkg of confectioners sugar
Chop the cherries and put them in a small saucepan with the 1/4 cup of water. Simmer over medium heat until the cherries release most of their juices into the water and become soft. Strain out the fruit and set it aside. Reserve the juice for the icing. Throw a tablespoon or so of sugar over the remaining fruit and store it in the fridge (spoon the fruit over toast or vanilla ice cream later).
Pour some of the cherry juice into a bowl and slowly stir in some confectioners sugar. Add more juice and more sugar, adjusting your consistency until it is quite thick. You can test you consistency by turning a cooled cookie over and dipping its surface into the icing. Hold it above the bowl and let the excess run off back into the icing. The icing should be thick enough to coat the cookie well and not look translucent. If it looks too thin, add more sugar. If it won’t stick or is too thick, just add more juice and adjust. A little liquid goes a long way, so make adjustments slowly.
To finish up the cookies, dip the surface of each one in the icing, smooth out any spots that didn’t quite get covered with a spatula as you go. Return them to the cooling rack so the icing can set up. It can take a few hours or up to a day or so for the icing to set all the way. Even though this icing is quite sweet it ends up only being thin layer on top of the buttery cookie, so don’t worry about adding too much sugar and enjoy.
Happy Baking!
xo
kelly
I’m not sure if it was Karyn or my mother who suggested that I make a black forest whoopie pie, either way I am glad they did because these turned out so delicious.
The Black Forest Cake we are most familiar with here in the west is a chocolate cake with whipped cream, dark chocolate shavings and maraschino cherries. I will eat the occasional maraschino in a cocktail or something, but I never bake with them. They are too processed for my liking, and nothing beats the flavour of fresh cherries anyway. Good quality chocolate, fresh cherries and cream are key to making this recipe work.
I decided to use half my cherries to make a cherry sauce, the other half I pitted and quartered and added to the sauce after it had cooled. This worked out wonderfully, the cherry sauce was colourful and juicy but still had the flavour and texture of fresh cherries too. Yum.
This is very easy to make, you can make the cakes a day in advance and make the sauce and cream as they bake. Assemble them right before serving. =)
Equipment to have on hand: an electric mixer or stand mixer, a pastry bag with a large round tip, parchment paper for lining pans, and a small kitchen scale for weighing ingredients.
Cherry Sauce:
250g fresh cherries, pitted and chopped into medium size pieces.
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup of sugar
250g cherries cut into quarters (reserve to add to the cooled sauce)
Combine the first three ingredients in a small saucepan with a heavy bottom and stir over medium heat until the sugar has dissolved, turn the heat down to medium/low and stir occasionally as the sauce bubbles and reduces. It is done when the cherries have become soft and the sauce has become bright red and thickened to the consistency of a light syrup . You can drop a few drops on a plate and put it in the fridge to see if it is ready or not.
Remove it from heat and pour it into a heatproof bowl, let it cool a few minutes on the counter and set it in the fridge to cool completely. When it is no longer hot you can stir in the remaining prepared fresh fruit. Set aside until you are ready to assemble your cakes.
Cream:
1/2 cup whipping cream (250ml) + 2 tbsp sugar or maple syrup
Place the cream and sugar in a bowl, whip with an electric mixer until it is thick and delicious.
Chocolate Shavings:
Use a vegetable peeler to shave little shavings or curls off a good quality dark chocolate bar. Do not use baking chocolate. It only takes a little chocolate to make these desserts, so use a good quality chocolate bar (like Lindt, Just us, or Callebaut.)
Chocolate Cake:
I’ve been using the cake recipe of Claire Ptak of Violet cakes, it’s the best. If you like this I highly recommend you check out her new book “Whoopie Pies”. It’s lovely and the recipes are great. The only thing I do differently is use pastry flour rather than all purpose.
100g cocoa
175g pastry flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
125g unsalted butter, softened
200g sugar
1 large egg
225ml buttermilk
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Line baking trays with parchment paper and trace out hearts or 2 ” circles on the underside with a pencil. Cookie cutters make great templates.
Whisk together the flour, cocoa, salt and leaveners in a bowl, set aside.
Cream the softened butter and sugar until light and fluffy with the paddle attachment of a stand mixer or an electric hand mixer . Mix in the egg until just combined, followed by the buttermilk and vanilla mixture (make sure it’s room temp). If it curdles a little it’s not the end of the world, it will work out just fine. (If you have a little kirsch on hard you could also add a tsp of this to the batter to give the chocolate cake a hint of cherry flavour as well.)
Add the flour/cocoa mixture and mix until just combined. Do not over mix.
Spoon into a pastry bag and pipe onto the parchment paper. Bake at 350f until the cakes are almost set, when you touch them they should get a slight indentation. This doesn’t take long, so keep an eye on them. It is important not to over bake them. Set finished cakes on a cooling rack to cool completely.
Assembly:
Spoon a generous amount of cream onto the flat side of a cake, top with a spoonful of cherries and sauce, make sure there is enough sauce to run down the sides and onto the plate. Sprinkle with chocolate shavings and top with a matching cake top. Decorate with a little dollop of whipped cream, a sprinkle of chocolate, a couple of juicy cherry pieces and a teaspoon or so of cherry sauce.
Since I’ve been enjoying her new book so much, here is a little video to introduce you to Claire and her shop Violet. (If you are in anywhere near London you should go! If not you can order her book online.) Finally here is a super cute video of Claire Ptak baking whoopie pies and talking about her new book.
This month I’ve been testing out all sorts of recipes from Claire Ptaks new book “Whoopie Pies”, so far I have loved every one, not once have they let me down. The book is mostly a variety of recipes for whoopie pies (a cross between a cake and a cookie) paired with delicious fillings. There is also a small section at the end with other sweet treats like peanut butter sandwich cookies, peach cobbler and brownie sundays. Crystal and I both think it is a wonderful book, it is available through amazon.
I tend to pick up the book and flip through it for ideas when I have a craving.
We were snowed in by a winter storm for a couple of days and it seemed like the perfect time to whip up something sweet to have with hot cups of coffee. So, as per usual I perused the book, when I saw the peanut butter cream filling I was set on making the sandwich cookies (the boys were upstairs playing synthesizers, and I knew they’d like something peanut buttery too). I set to mixing and measuring straight away and due to my enthusiastic haste I failed to notice that I had ran out of all purpose flour and roasted nuts, both of which I needed to complete her version of the recipe.
In the end I improvised, I used 100g of pastry flour and 80g of whole wheat flour. I also threw in 40g of rolled oats for good measure, and because I love those packaged “pirate” cookies when I was younger and while I am not sure of their ingredients list, I remember the flavour of oats in the cookie somewhere. Since I didn’t have a packet of salted nuts, and my peanut butter contained no salt I added a 1/2 tsp of fine sea salt to the batter. I think if I were to make them again I’d throw in a hand full of crushed salted peanuts next time and lower the salt accordingly, but I must say they were really yummy regardless!
To make these cookies you will need a scale, the whoopie pie book is from the UK so all the measurements are in grams. I use a small, inexpensive scale, its not fancy or digital, but it does the trick and I am so very glad I have it. Not only does it allow me to make European recipes, it helps me bake with more precision in general. Baking is a science, and there is a big difference between the mass of a packed cup of flour and a sifted one. Enough of a difference that it could make or break finicky cake recipes. I highly recommend the use of a kitchen scale.
I piped the cookies onto parchment paper with a very wide, round tip. You could pipe them into heart shapes for valentines day and pack them up in boxes for the people you love.
Peanut Butter Cookies:
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
100g pastry flour
80g whole wheat flour
40g rolled oats
200g natural peanut butter (room temp/ softened)
225g butter softened
200g brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 whole egg (lrg)
1 egg yolk
-Preheat oven to 350f and line trays with parchment paper.
-In a small bowl whisk together the flours, baking soda, oats and salt.
-Cream together the softened butter and sugar until it is very light and fluffy, this will take several minutes with an electric beater. Add the eggs and mix well, then add the vanilla and peanut butter and mix until completely incorporated.
-Add the flour mixture last and stir gently, just until it is all incorporated.
-Scoop into a pastry bag fitted with a wide round tip and pipe into 2″ circles or heart shapes. Bake until the middle is slightly set and the edges are a touch golden.
-Set on a cooling rack to cool. When they are completely cool you can use a spatula or a piping bag to fill them, (the latter is a little neater, but the spatula makes it look more “home made”, either way they are delicious).
Claire Ptaks Peanut Butter Cream:
225g unsalted butter, softened
250g peanut butter (she called for crunchy, but all I had on hand was creamy)
300g icing sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
Make sure everything is at room temperature and whip it all up in a stand mixer or with an electric beater. It is done when it is fluffy and light.
