Pumpkin Loaf, and Fun New Jobs.

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I think it’s safe to say that I always have a project on the go. I’m adding new things to roster all the time, and currently I juggle 6 jobs. Some of them pay, some of them don’t, some of them are things I love, and one of them, serving at a restaurant, is something I do just to make ends meet. It’s a hectic life. But it’s a fun one.

One of the best parts about it, is that I am always meeting new people, doing new things, trying new recipes. And one of my favourite projects right now is with my friend Brett Holland. He is an exceptionally handy guy, who built a solar powered coffee food cart on wheels, that he bikes throughout the city, selling great coffee, and some darn good pastries, if I do say so myself. It’s called On the Grind Cafe

As he’s working out the kinks of the cart, he’s parking at the corner of Union and Jackson (right on the Strathcona bike path!), and if you’re passing by the area, you should probably pop by, drink some coffee, and perhaps get a pastry that I’ve baked.

Right?

And if you don’t live close by, and can’t get a slice of my pumpkin loaf, you should definitely make some yourself.

It is so moist, and so simple to make, and it just feels like fall. It makes a great breakfast with a coffee in the morning, but it’s also darn good slightly warmed before bed, with a cup of tea.

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Pumpkin Loaf

Loosely adapted from Smitten Kitchen

1 1/2 cups AP Flour (or whole wheat pastry flour)

1 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp Cinnamon

1/2 tsp Nutmeg

1 cup Pureed Pumpkin

1/2 cup Olive Oil

1 1/4 cup Brown Sugar

2 Eggs

Coarse Sugar to sprinkle on top.

Preheat oven to 350F

Line loaf pan with parchment paper.

In a large bowl mix together to the oil and sugar.

Add in the eggs.

Mix in the pumpkin.

Gently stir the dry ingredients in until just combined.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and level with a spatula.

Sprinkle the coarse sugar on top and cook until an inserted skewer comes back with only a few moist crumbs- about 30 minutes.

Allow to cool before removing from pan.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4CFG6c9YO0

I recently made some cakes and wrote about it for a new online magazine called Decor Addict, and I made a little stop motion video of setting it all up for you guys! Hope you like it- and don’t forget to pop over to the site to see more pictures. xo

(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)

Olive Oil Banana Bread with Pecans and Chocolate

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When you work at a high end restaurant you have to have everything available at all times. I once worked at a restaurant that required me to make ceasar dressing from scratch every 3 days in case someone came in and ordered a caesar salad, a dish that was assuredly not on the menu. This always struck me as a bit wasteful, but that’s the way it is in fine dining. You have to be prepared.

A couple of years ago, when I worked at a high end resort, it was the exact same, but much trickier because, as we were on a remote island, you had to order everything in advance and usually in huge quantities. One such thing was bananas. They weren’t on the menu, but if someone wanted a banana with their yoghurt in the morning we had to be prepared. I think we were asked twice in 6 months for a banana.

The real problem with this was that we could only order them in in 20kL boxes.

So every two weeks 20 kilos would come in, and somehow I was in charge of dealing with them. Lord knows why.

Fact: I hate bananas. Like, seriously, truly hate bananas. I hate their texture, I hate their taste, and I hate the way they smell. They are, indesputably,the worst fruit.

My theory on this hatred is that I got strep throat to often as a kid, and as such had to take too much banana flavoured liquid penicilin. But that is just a theory, and I know people who loved that medicine when they were little. I was not one of those people.

So when I realized that part of my job description was to cook up something with that many bananas every, well, let’s just say I was less than pleased.

But here’s another fact. I love cooked bananas. Everything I hate about them raw becomes a totally different thing when they are cooked up. When they are mixed with sugar and flour and scented with cinnamon they are just about the best things ever.

I have made a lot of banana breads in my life, so many when I was at the resort in fact, that at the end of the season everyone on staff (all 60 people!) got to go home with a banana loaf that I had frozen. It was a bit nuts.

I’ve made ones with chocolate, ones with nuts, ones with icing, ones with crispy bits of brown sugar in the center. But I had never tried making it without butter, until now. I’m never going back guys. Olive oil is the perfect tamer for banana bread.

This is my new standard banana bread recipe, it is the moistest, softest, most beautifully flavoured banana bread I have ever made.

Olive Oil Banana Bread with Chocolate and Pecans

2 cups AP Flour

3/4 cup Brown Sugar

3/4 tsp Baking Soda

1/2 tsp Salt

1 cup coarsely chopped dark chocolate

3/4 cup Toasted pecans, coarsely chopped

1/3 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

2 large Eggs

1 1/2 cups mashed very ripe bananas

1/3 cup Yoghurt, or buttermilk

1 tbsp Vanilla Extract. 

Preheat your oven to 350F

Butter and flour a baking pan, I used a bundt pan, but you could easily use a loaf pan. 

In a large bowl mix together the oil and sugar.

Stir in the eggs one at a time until they are totally incorporated.

Add in the bananas, vanilla, and yoghurt. 

Sift in the flour, when it is nearly combined add in the nuts and chocolate. Stir to comine being careful not to over stir. 

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and baked until an inserted skewer comes out with only a few moist crumbs, about 30-45 minutes. 

Allow to cool at least 10 minutes before eating. 

Spiced Honey Cake with Fresh Figs

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Oh. Finally.

You know that feeling when everything might just be going a little too well? Something has to mess up and stress you out just to restore the balance of the world?

I have a had a great few weeks. Really, truly, great few weeks. My boss at the restaurant I serve at said he would like me to start doing the pastries at both his restaurants! Yes! My editor at Edible Vancouver promoted me to associate editor! Yes! It was Jordan’s birthday, we had a super fun party! Yes!

So of course my site had to go down. It had to go down when my graphic designer was hiking the volcanos of Iceland, largely out of internet range.

If you could see the emails I was writing to the tech support at all the different places that might be able to help, you would be amazed, and also surprised at how polite I was given how completely pushed around I was. I am Canadian I suppose.

So thanks friends, who came and checked even though there was nothing to look at for weeks, and thanks for your patience. I am so very very grateful for it.

I am also grateful for this fig cake. Because when one is mostly happy, but also deeply frusterated, the only thing I know that works, is cake.

Fresh Fig Honeyed Jewel Cake.

1 3/4 cup AP Flour

3/4 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Baking Soda

1/2 tsp Ground Cinnamon

1/2 tsp Ground Ginger

2 Eggs

1/2 cup Sugar

1/4 cup Brown Sugar

1/2 cup Honey

1/2 cup Milk

1/2 cup Vegetable Oil

1/4 cup Coarse Sugar, for sprinkling on top.

10-13 Plump Fresh Figs, cut in half

Preheat oven to 350F

Butter and flour a 9 inch Cake or tart pan.

In a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment cream together the oil, sugars, and honey

Add in the eggs one at a time beating well between each addition and wiping down the sides of the bowls with a spatula to make sure it is all evenly combined.

In a separate bowl sift together the dry ingredients.

Add in one third of the dry ingredients and mix until barely combined. Add in half the milk. Keep repeating until all the ingredients are incorporated being careful not to mix too much as that will make your cake tough.

Pour cake evenly into pan and smooth out with an inverted spatula.

Place figs in a concentric circle starting from the outside and moving in.

Sprinkle with coarse sugar and bake until an inserted skewer comes out with only a few moist crumbs, about 25-30 minutes.  

S'mores Cupcakes- the redo!

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My summer of weddings is officially over. The chaos, the running around, the making cakes in hotel rooms is done. But I can’t say that I didn’t go out with a bang because 2 weeks ago I made an entire dessert buffet in a tiny hotel room with an even small kitchen- although, thankfully, a full oven. There were tears, there were mere hours of sleep, there were sunrises being watched, but it all worked out in the end, out of some miracle.

This last wedding was that of my beautiful friends Jordan and Lonny (who we affectionately call girl-Jordan in my house to distinguish from my boyfriend Jordan). It was a wedding full of breathtaking scenery, beautiful handmade details, and lots of love. And lots of dancing. Of course.

I didn’t bring my camera to the actual wedding, so I have seldom few pictures of that, but I did get some nice ones of the dessert buffet, and along with it, I am going to post my recipe for S’mores Cupcakes again, because it remains on of the most looked at pages on this site, and has some of the worst pictures! So I thought that should be remedied.

Recipe Adapted from Bon Appetit

Graham Cracker Cupcakes:

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs (about 15 crackers)

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1 tbsp Baking Powder

3/4 cup Brown Sugar

2 Large Eggs

1/2 cup Butter, softened

3/4 cup Milk or Buttermilk

Ganache:

3/4 cup Dark Chocolate

2/3 cup Heavy Cream

Marshmallow Topping:

3 Large Egg Whites

2 tbsp Sugar

1/2 cup Water

3/4 cup Sugar

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Decorate with

Broken pieces ofGraham crackers

2 Bars of Hersheys Chocolate

To make Ganache

Bring the cream to a boil

Pour on top of chocolate

Stir until smooth 

To Bake Cupcakes

Preheat oven to 350F

Line with cupcake liners or butter and flour 1 dozen cupcake tins, or 3 dozen mini cupcake tins.

Whisk together your dry ingredients

Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add in the eggs one at a time beating well between each addition.

Alternate in the dry ingredients and wet ingredients beginning and ending with the dry.

Spoon the batter 3/4 of the way up the cupcake liners.

And bake them until they’re beautiful and slighly browned and an inserted skewer comes out with only a few moist crumbs, about 20 minutes for full sized cupcakes

To Make Marshmallo Topping

Put 3/4 cup sugar and water in a pot over medium heat and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Remove spoon and bring to a boil and with a candy thermometer let it comet ot he firm ball stage, 246Degrees F.

While it’s boiling put the egg whites and the vanilla in the bowl of a standing mixer with the whisk attachment. Whisk on high speed until soft peaks form. Add in the 2 tablespoons of sugar slowly until stiff peaks form.

When the sugar is up to temperature slowly pour it into the whites while whisking on high speed. Keep whisking until the bowl is cool and the meringue looks very marshmallowy, this will take about 8-10 minutes and the meringue should be mostly wrapped around the beater in a ball, and little should be on the sides of the bowl.

Put into a piping bag right away.

To Assemble:

Turn on the Broiler.

With a pairing knife cut a little hole out of the middle of the cupcakes.

Put the ganache into a piping bag and pipe it into the holes in the cupcakes (the consensus was that there wasn’t enough chocolate in the ones I made so don’t hesitate to load em up!)

Pipe the marshmallow topping on top of the whole thing!

Now throw the whole things under the broiler for a couple minutes until the tops just get golden.

July 24, 2011
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Blackberry Slump

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There is something deeply nostalgic about blackberries for me. As a kid we never bought the berries they were always picked. They were grabbed along the sides of trails by my grandparents house in Nova Scotia and beside the dirt road that led to the cottage. We found them on hiking trips and they covered the sides of rivers we canoed down in Maine. Blackberries taste like summer vacation and freedom, and they taste a little bit like the fear of bears.

Blackberries might be my favourite berry but I feel pretty strongly that they shouldn’t be turned into anything fussy, blackberries should be rustic and simple and mostly just show off how perfect they are just on their own.

For me this blackberry slump is just the ticket. The berries are cooked until they just start to get soft and the pastry on the top both gets crisp and soaks up the juice and turns into something that tastes like home.

4 cups Blackberries

1 cup Sugar

2 tbsp Corn Starch

3/4 cup AP Flour

1/2 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Baking Soda

1/4 tsp Salt

4 tbsp Chilled Butter

3-4 tbsp Buttermilk

3 tbsp Coarse Sugar

Preheat the oven to 375F

In a 8 inch casserole dish mix the blackberries, sugar and corn starch.

In a separate bowl mix the remaining dry ingredients except the coarse sugar. Add in the butter and break it into pea sized pieces.

Carefully mix in the buttermilk adding more if necessary until the dough is quite soft. Do not over mix.

Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and with your fingers press the dough into the shape of the casserole dish.

Place the dough on top of the fruit and sprinkle the sugar on top.

Bake the slump for 45 minutes or until the sugar on top has started to caramelize, and the blackberries have started bubbling up around the edges.

Cardamon Spiced Apricot Cake

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At the very first restaurant I worked at I was incredibly lucky to have been taken under the wing of the chef, who was unbareably talented. I’m fairly certain it had nothing to do with any talent I might have had and more to do with my bubbly 17 year old personality and my eagerness, my excitement, my glee to work 15 hours a day for well below minimum wage, but whatever the reasoning I will always be grateful.

I worked at the “garde manger” section, the cold side, the appetizers station, chopping vegetables, making aoilis and, joyfully once a week, I worked with the only other women in the kitchen in pastries.

But most days I was generally doing bitch work, except when this kind chef would come over and ask me questions and make me think deep and hard about what I was doing, how it all tasted, and why things worked that did. It was during one of these conversations I learnt about the amazing combination of apricots with cardamon.

In fact, I had actually brought up the two together on a whim, and then he drilled me on my choice and made me very insecure, but when we made the cooked down the apricots, pushed them through a seive, sweetened them with honey and added some crushed cardamon pods I knew I was onto something. At that restaurant we smeared some of this jam on a plate and toped it with foie gras, but these days, simpler days, I just bake it all in a cake.

Cardamon Spiced Apricot Cake

1/2 cup Butter

2/3 cup Sugar

1/3 cup Honey

2 Eggs

1 1/2 cup AP Flour

1 tsp Cardamon

1/4 tsp Cinnamon

1/2 tsp Baking Powder

1/4 tsp Baking Soda

2/3 cup Milk

10 Apricots, cut in half lengthwise and then each half cut into 3rds lengthwise

Preheat the oven to 325F

Butter and flour an 8 inch round baking pan.

In a medium bowl sift together the dry ingredients

In a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment cream the butter, sugar and honey together until light and fluffy.

Add in the eggs one at a time beating well between each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat for another minute.

Turn the mixer to the lowest setting and mix in one third of the dry ingredients. Stir until just combined then add half the milk. Continue like this until all ingredients are incorporated.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth out with a spatula. Put the apricots on the top of the cake in a flower pattern- starting from the outside and working in.

Bake the cake until an inserted skewer comes out with only a few moist crumbs, about 35 minutes.

Allow to cool in the pan, carefully remove it, sprinkle with icing sugar and enjoy!

Chocolate Raspberry Buckwheat Cakes

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My love of flour is very well documented here, I am not, nor will I ever be, the sort of person who sneaks in a bunch of whole wheat flours and pretends that the dense slighly soggy texture that nearly always happens when you substitute whole wheat for all purpose, doesn’t exsist. I’m just not that girl. I hope you all know that by now.

The glorious exception to this rule, is almond flour. Chalk full of nutrients, and proteins, even some iron! And while it can definitely not be substituted for good old AP, it can produce the sort of rich, thick tasting baking that I covet. But this sneaky little recipe does both- it uses almond flour to help out with the meltingly tender crumb, but it also throws buckwheat flour into the mix. Buckwheat flour, if you’ve never used it is a gluten free flour with a soft nutty flavour, that is common in both France (galettes!) and Japan (soba noodles!) and isn’t the sort of flour you could ever accuse of trying to be something it’s not (I’m looking at you quinoa).

All of which is a very long way of saying that these chocolatey morsels are basically health food compared to what I normally post up here. They are also creamy and slighly gooey, and all that is cut by the raspberries that have baked just enough to start to soften inside the batter. And the hint of nuttiness from the buckwheat turns out to be just what you never knew you needed.

Chocolate Raspberry Buckwheat Cakes

(Adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

7 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus extra for buttering pan


3 1/2 ounce Bittersweet dark chocolate

4 large eggs


1/2 cup Granulated or blond cane sugar


A good pinch Salt


1 tbsp pure vanilla extract


1/4 cup Buckwheat Flour

1/4 cup Almond meal


1/2 pint Raspberries

Preheat the oven to 300F

Grease your pans, I used these little 2 inch square pans but you can easily bake this in an 8 inch round pan.

In a medium sized bowl set over a pot with an inch or two of simmering water, melt the chocolate and the butter.

In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the whisk attachment beat the eggs until frothy. With the mixer still on high slowly add in the sugar tablespoon by tablespoon and let the motor run until the eggs are pale and thick and take a moment to smooth out into the bowl if you pick some up. 

Fold in the chocolate and butter. 

Add in the vanilla, then the almond meal and the  buckwheat flour. Pour batter into your pan and smooth with a spatula. Place berries on top and bake for 20-30 minutes, or until the top has barely set but is still a little soft to the touch. Allow to cool, sprinkle with icing sugar and enjoy!

Rhubarb Breakfast Cake with White Chocolate Yoghurt Ganache

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I am about to write the most pretentious thing I can think of. Are you ready? Are you sure? I just happened to have some white chocolate yoghurt ganache in my fridge. I know. Who am I?

In my defence it was there because I had failed miserably at making some macarons that I had been planning on filling with said ganache, but none the less. I happened to have some white chocolate yoghurt ganache in my fridge. Oy.
I have never been a huge white chocolate fan, unless your buying the really pricey stuff that is way out of my league, it’s just very sweet. Too sweet I think, but the yoghurt really mellows it out and brings in enough acid that makes you want to lick the spoon. It’s sort of like grown-up cream cheese icing.

So with this glorious stuff in my fridge, I made a very simple rhubarb cake, a buttermilk breakfast cake not to sweet with a wonderful crumb and slathered this ganache on top. Just enough to make you want to eat the top first and be a little spiteful of the bites that didn’t get any.

Rhubarb Breakfast Cake with White Chocolate Yoghurt Ganache

1/2 cup Butter

11/2 cup Sugar

1 egg

1 tbsp Vanilla Extract

Zest of 1 lemon

2 cup AP Flour

2 tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp Salt

1/2 cup Buttermilk

3 cup Rhubarb cut into 1 inch pieces

1/2 cup Yoghurt

4 oz White Chocolate

Preheat oven to 350F

Butter and flour a bundt pan or a 9 inch square pan.

Put the rhubarb half a cup of sugar and 1 cup of water into a small pot and simmer it until it is soft, about 10 minutes. Strain out rhubarb. The syrup will make fabulous drinks if you wish.

Meanwhile in a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Add in the egg slowly and mix until totally combined. Scrape down the edges of the bowl.

Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl.

Alternate adding the dry and wet ingredients starting and finishing with the dry. When the last batch of dry ingredients has almost been combined add in the rhubarb and gently mix by hand. Do not overmix it or it will get tough.

Pour the batter into prepared pan and bake until an inserted skewer comes out clean, about 30 minutes.

While the cake is in the oven you can make the ganache:

Place the chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Place the bowl over a pot filled with about an inch of simmering water. Melt the chocolate, stir it regularly because white chocolate has a tendancy of burning.

Once the chocolate is fully incorporated add in the yoghurt and stir to combine.

Once the cake is cooled you can pour the ganache on top or spread it on with a spatula. And c’est finis.

Brown Butter Apple Cake

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Most people who have ever talked to me for more then 5 minutes has probably heard be complain about my landlord. He is a glorified slumlord, who fixes nothing and does nothing and is exceedingly cranky more often then not. He doesn’t do a good job when problems arise and so they keep happening over and over again and he blames you for his shotty work. 

I am not a fan.

However, since Jordan has moved in, my gay landlord has been much more open about fixing a few things up. Apparently my charm is useless on him, but my handsome man is getting things done. 

It has been a crazy couple of weeks, but my apartment is now the proud owner of new dark laminate flouring, a glorious step up from the heinous 70’s grey industrial carpeting I’ve been living with for years. But heres the thing about putting in new flouring, you basically move. Everything you own has to be put into boxes and moved somewhere else and it is a hassel my friends. 

Now we’re starting to paint and put things together and, thankfully, my kitchen is back and working, and Jordan is so good looking we even got a new fridge! Miracles do happen friends.

So a couple days ago when everything was covered in dust and it reeked of paint fumes and all my books we’re in boxes and I was starting to go crazy, I did what I always do when I’m stressed, and I baked a cake. 

A wonderful cake too, rich from brown butter and brown sugar sauteed apples on the top. Most cakes get their moist crumb from lots of butter and sugar but this cake gets it form the buttermilk so it’s not to sweet ot two heavy. It also uses whole wheat pastry flour, which is very uncommon for me, but it adds a pleasant nuttiness without feeling too healthy. The top has some coarse sugar and salt so it gets a bit of a crunch when you bite in. 

The best part though; it doesn’t need a mixer, you put it together like a muffin base, just mix wet with dry, so it doesn’t dirty up the kitchen too much.

And then, with cake in hand I cleaned, and dusted, and gathered bags and bags to give to charity and felt like things would be okay. 

Brown Butter Apple Cake

Adapted from 101cookbooks. 

2 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup butter, melted and cooled a bit
zest of 1 lemon

1 tbsp Vanilla Extract
1 large apple, or 2 small guys, peeled and sliced.
3 tablespoons large grain raw sugar
1 teaspoon large grain salt

Preheat oven to 325F

Butter and flour an 8 inch cake pan.

In a small sauce pan on medium heat melt the butter. Keep it on the heat after it melts until it bubbles and gets frothy and starts to get a sweet nutty smell, and you can see little brown bits at the bottom. Set aside.

In the same pan add the apples and 1/4 cup of the brown sugar and sautee until the apples are translucent and soft- about 10 minutes. 

In a large bowl mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt making sure there are no lumps of brown sugar.

Mix together the butter, buttermilk, eggs, zest and vanilla and then add it to the dry ingredients being careful not to over mix. 

Pour the batter into the pan and use a spatula to level it. Carefully place the apple slices in a nice pattern on top. Sprinkle the coarse sugar and salt on top.

Bake for about 30 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out with only a few moist crumbs. 


Pumpkin Muffins

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A couple nights ago I put on black tights under my dress and put on a scarf and a sweater before leaving the house. Around midnight the rain started. I guess that means it’s fall.

I’m not quite ready for it yet, to give up the beach and the warmth, but none the less I find myself looking longingly at apples and argyle sweaters and knitted blankets. I want to go apple picking and drink mulled wine and wear thick knitted socks and brown leather boots. But instead, as I was by myself for the day without a car, or the budget to go boot shopping, I made pumpkin muffins.

Soft, warm, buttery pumpkin muffins that long for hot chocolate and a good book. And with the rain pouring, sitting in my little apartment, I drank hot chocolate and finished my book, and welcomed in Fall.

Pumpkin Muffins,

Loosely adapted from Smitten Kitchen

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, or whole wheat pastry flour (which is what I used)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup canned solid-pack pumpkin
1/2 cup Butter

1 cup Brown Sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon Nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Coarse sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 350F

Line a muffin tin with liners of butter and flour them.

In a small frying pan over medium low heat brown the butter- melt it and then continue to cook it until the milk solids turn brown and it develops a nice hazelnut smell. Be careful not to burn it.

Meanwhile measure all the dry ingredients into a large bowl and make a well in the middle.

Pour the eggs and pumpkin and butter into it and mix it quickly to make sure the butter doesn’t cook the eggs.

Mix until just combined- do not over work it.

Spoon the batter into the tins, filling them up 3/4 of the way up.

Sprinkle sugar on top, bake until an inserted skewer comes out clean, about 15-20 minutes.

S'Mores Cupcakes

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A few years ago, after working at a very good restaurant for an extremely talented chef who made me cry every day for 8 months, I took a hiatus from cooking. To pay the bills I took a job as a hostess for a summer. The catch was that they promised me full time work and only gave me two shifts a week, which would have been way more manageable except that then I got dumped. And that would have been easier if I had lived in the city for longer and had more friends but I didn`t. And so I spent my days applying for jobs and not getting the jobs I`d applied for and crying, and feeling rejected and just generally having a really rough go. And so everyday I woke up and made cupcakes. Everyday. Compusively. I made blueberry cupcakes, raspberry caramel cupcakes, dolce de leche cupcakes, maple pecan cupcakes. I made an insane amount of cupcakes. I gave them to people at work (which might be why they ended up giving me more shifts) and I gave them to my one good friend (who obliging took them everyday, even though shes very food concious) occasionally I gave them to boys I went on dates on, but they were rarely worth it. Fortunately that phase is through and my life has sorted itself out and I have since decided I am over cupcakes. I am cupcaked out. But today I had to go to a beach party and bring dessert, and I realized why people started making cupcakes in the first place. It`s cake, that doesn`t involve cutlery, or plates. And then I realized there was one kind of cupcake I`d never made before. S`mores cupcakes. I`m telling you, you really ought to make these. Yes there are multiple steps and yes it`s a little time consuming, but really. It`s S`mores cupcakes. You know you`re going to.

Graham Cracker Cupcakes:

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs (about 15 crackers)

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1 tbsp Baking Powder

3/4 cup Brown Sugar

2 Large Eggs

1/2 cup Butter, softened

3/4 cup Milk or Buttermilk

Ganache:

3/4 cup Milk Chocolate

2/3 cup Heavy Cream

Marshmallow Topping:

3 Large Egg Whites

2 tbsp Sugar

1/2 cup Water

1/2 cup Corn Syrup

3/4 cup Sugar

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

To make Ganache

Bring the cream to a boil

Pour on top of chocolate

Stir until smooth (sorry! i forgot to take a picture of this step!)

To Bake Cupcakes

Preheat oven to 350F

Line with cupcake liners or butter and flour 1 dozen cupcake tins, or 3 dozen mini cupcake tins.

Whisk together your dry ingredients

Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add in the eggs one at a time beating well between each addition.

Alternate in the dry ingredients and wet ingredients beginning and ending with the dry.

Spoon the batter 3/4 of the way up the cupcake liners.

And bake them until they’re beautiful and slighly browned and an inserted skewer comes out with only a few moist crumbs, about 15 minutes for mini cupcakes.

To Make Marshmallo Topping

Put 3/4 cup sugar, corn syrup, and water in a pot over medium heat and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Remove spoon and bring to a boil and with a candy thermometer let it comet ot he firm ball stage, 246Degrees F.

While it’s boiling put the egg whites and the vanilla in the bowl of a standing mixer with the whisk attachment. Whisk on high speed until soft peaks form. Add in the 2 tablespoons of sugar slowly until stiff peaks form.

When the sugar is up to temperature slowly pour it into the whites while whisking on high speed. Keep whisking until the bowl is cool and the meringue looks very marshmallowy! Put into a piping bag right away.

To Assemble:

Crank up the oven to 425F

With a pairing knife cut a little hole out of the middle of the cupcakes.

Put the ganache into a piping bag and pipe it into the holes in the cupcakes (the consensus was that there wasn’t enough chocolate in the ones I made so don’t hesitate to load em up!)

Pipe the marshmallow topping on top of the whole thing!

Now throw the whole things in the oven for a couple minutes until the tops just get golden. If you leave them to long they will not only burn but shrivel up a bit as the night goes on, so don’t worry about leaving them fair.

Cherry Jewel Cake

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Cherries are the only reason I know that is is summer. Truly.

The rain and the 15 degree weather are not convincing me that it is July. I am hesitant to believe it, but cherries do not lie.

They are only here for a few short months, and they are here now.

So, because it`s normally too hot to bake in my tiny apartment in July, I am experimenting baking with cherries this year. I am doing this because it`s very cold in Vancouver right now, and it`s actually nice to turn on my oven and have it heat the place up.

And it`s nice to have a warm piece of cake on a cold rainy day. And this cake is especially nice. I made it last night and brought it to a girls night potluck, and I was running terribly behind schedule so as soon as it was out of the oven I put it on a cloth bag and ran out the door, so it was still warm when we ate it. And we were fighting over the last piece, literally. It`s not to sweet, and has the perfect crumb, and of course, the most wonderful sweet cherries just bursting inside. It`s almost good enough to make me want to clouds to stay, so I can make it again today. Almost.

Cherry Jewel Cake

1/2 cup Butter, soft

1/2 cup Brown Sugar

1/2 cup White Sugar

2 Large Eggs

1 tbsp Vanilla, or seeds from 1 vanilla bean

Zest of 1 lemon

1 cup All Purpose Flour

1 tsp Baking Powder

2 tbsp Raw Course Sugar, or brown sugar

2lbs Cherries, pitted (you can either use an olive pitter for this, if you have one, or cut them in half and push out the pit!

Preheat your oven to 325F

Line an 8 inch pan, preferably with a removable bottom with parchment paper, or butter and flour it.

Cream the butter and the sugar together until light and fluffy.

Add in the eggs one at a time beating well between each addition. Scrape down the sides and beat on medium high speed for about a minute.

Fold in your dry ingredients, it’s quite a dry dough but don’t worry.

Spoon the batter into your prepared pan and smooth it out, then carefully layer in your cherries in a circle pattern.

Bake for about an hour, or until an inserted skewer comes out with only a few moist crumbs,

How to Bake and Ice a Cake in Under an Hour.

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Scenario Number One:

You got stuck working late/in traffic and now you need to leave the house in 2 hours to get to a birthday celebration and you promised to bring a cake, you should bring a present, and you deffinately should shower, straighten your hair and look nicer.

Scenario Number Two:

You forgot it’s your friends birthday and only remembered after you’d phoned her to bitch about your day. You told her your running a little behind but of course you didn’t forget, you have a cake waiting for her in your fridge! Only to realize that the bakery across the street is closed for renovations.

Scenario Number Three:

Your dog has an alliance with your cats, who pushed the cake off the counter so he could eat it. I actually watched my pets do this once, so I know it happens. Now you’ve got one hour to reproduce a cake nice enough to serve for the birthday your throwing your friend, who used to date your husband and you want to show up, just a little bit.

I have an answer to all your problems! Well, not world peace, or a million dollars, but cake problems I have you sorted on.

The answer is, cake mix.

No no, not Betty Crocker just add water cake mix. Home made cake mix. Mix that you just throw together in a bowl with things you already have in your pantry. Your going to use half of it in the cake that your going to produce in seconds flat and the other half you’ll put in that mason jar that you got pickles or over priced jam in, tie a ribbon around it and then you have a present too.

Preheat your oven to 350F

flour and butter 3 8 inch cake pans.

Make this lovely cake mix,

Cake Mix:

5 cups sugar

7 cups Flour

3 tbsp Baking Powder

*optional, you can add in 1 cup of cocoa powder to make it a chocolate cake mix.

Save out 3 1/2 cups of the mix and package the rest up however you like.

Add to the reserved mix

4 eggs

1 cup milk

1 cup veg oil

*if you’ve added the cocoa powder to the mix make it 1 1/2 cups milk.

Mix that together and there’s your batter.

Pour it into the pans and bake for about 25 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out with only a few moist crumbs.

While your cake is in the oven your going to take a quick shower, wash your face, and moisturize. Then, you take the cake out of the oven and while its cooling you’ll pick and outfit, dry your hair, and whip together this until it holds stiff peaks:

2 cups of whipping cream

2 tbsp Icing sugar

1 tsp Vanilla extract

*optional, if you have a cup of creme fraiche, mascarpone, cream cheese or even sour cream you can add that in too. Lemon zest is also a nice addition if you have a lemon kicking around.

Now you’ll slice up

2 cups of fruit,

maybe it’s berries, maybe it’s pears, maybe it’s grapefuit segments. Canned peaches would be excellent. What ever you have on hand will be delicious.

Now for the cake.

Unmold it and put the bottom layer on the plate or cake stand.

Then you can blob some of the cream on it and push it to the edges without having it drip over.

Now add some fruit placing it in a single layer. Put the next layer of cake on top and repeat. Don’t fuss to much, this is a rustic cake, don’t break hairs over it.

Instead, pop it in the fridge and go make your hair look nice, throw some make up on, and then take your cake in one hand, and use your other to wave down a cab while all the cute guys within a ten block radius come to check out the cute girl with the awesome looking cake who looks so effortless about it all.

Strawberry Buttermilk Tart

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I have a very vivid picture in my head of going strawberry picking with my Dad and my sister when I was, oh maybe 6 or 7. My dad, the doctor, decided to go a scientific experiment of what size and shape of strawberry tasted the best.

He conducted this experiment scupulously and with the utmost precision, by moving lying down in the middle of 2 rows of strawberries and eating and eating and eating, moving about a foot every 20 minutes or so.

The verdict of his research was that the small to medium ones that were sort of bell shaped, were the best. Sweet, but not sugary, soft, but not mushy, and also, pleasing to the eye.

So the other day, when Jordan and I were driving past a strawberry farm we pulled in, sadly without enough time to pick them, but I knew we had to buy lots when I went over to the plants and they were nearly all that perfect medium sized bell shape.

We’ve been back to that farm a few times now, for berries for jam, and for shortcakes, but the other day, when my apartment heated up to some where high in the thirties, I used some for a tart that hardly takes any cooking, but tastes wonderful.

I made a graham cracker crust because I didn’t want it in the oven on for long but I think the crumbly texture works nicely against the smoothness of the buttermilk mousse. And the strawberries that were so ripe and juicy were completely perfect and not to sweet. This tart looks like a bit of work, but it is really easy, and a perfect ending to a summer meal, light and fresh, but still with a bit of substance.

Graham Cracker Crust

1 3/4 cup Graham Crackers

3/4 cup Butter, Melted

Buttermilk Mousse Filling

1 cup Buttermilk

1 cup Whipping Cream

Zest of 2 Lemons

Juice of 1 Lemon

Half a Vanilla Bean, or 1 tbsp Vanilla Extract

1 tsp Gelatin

3 tbsp Sugar

Strawberry Topping

3 cups really good Strawberries, cut in half, or quarters depending on the size.

1/4 cup Really good Strawberry Jam.

Preheat oven to 350F

Mix the graham cracker crumbs and the butter until totally combined.

Press it down into a 9 inch round tart shell or pie pan.

Bake about 15 minutes or until the crush has begun to set, but not so that it’s coloring.

Pull out your tart shell and allow to cool. Your done with the oven now to so you can turn it off! Yes!

While it’s cooling whip up 3/4 cup of heavy cream until its at stiff peaks. Put it back in the fridge to keep it cool.

In the meantime sprinkle the gelatin over the lemon juice in a little bowl. Let if soften ther for 15 minutes

While thats sitting Mix 1/4 cup of the cream with the sugar  and the vanilla bean in a small pot and put it over medium heat and stir it until it’s dissolved.

Stir in the gelatin mixture and stir until that’s dissolved too.

Pour the cream and gelatin mixture into a bowl and stir in the buttermilk and the lemon zest. Put this in the fridge for about ten minutes, until it’s just about cool. The gelatin will start to set up and you don’t want it too firm, you still need to add in the whipping cream, BUT if you add the whipping cream in while it’s still warm the bubbles you’ve whipped into the cream will collapse. So just open the fridge door every couple of minutes and give it a stir. Once you notice it sticking to the sides a bit, you can carefully fold in your whipping cream.

And now pour it into your tart shell!

Now put it in the fridge for about 20 minutes until it is set up nicely.

In the meantime mix your berries and your jam. You might find it easier to warm the jam up in the microwave for a few seconds.

Now gently spoon all the strawberries onto the tart. And there you have a ridiculously good summer dessert! 

Wanting to Travel...

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I love going to cafes and little breakfast and lunch restaurants.

I love sweet little spots with great coffee, wonderful little baked goods, and maybe a sandwich or a salad that tastes fresh and like it was made with love.

I love the places that you don’t feel strange having a bite to eat alone, and that you can sit for an hour with a book and be very content just like that.

Which is to say that when I was in London last fall I fell madly, deeply, overwhelmingly in love with Ottolenghi.

Oh it’s just… just perfect.

It’s clean and crisp, it’s mostly white with some bright read details. It has a large counter filled with the most perfect salads. Ones like Brocolini with Chilis and Almonds, or Braised Globe Artichokes, with Broad Beans, Pink Peppercorns and Preserved Lemons. And then just past the heavenly salads are the baked goods.

The most beautiful Pistachio Cakes, dripping with rosewater icing, and Blackberry Friands, and dense and wonderful Chocolate cake you’ve ever had.

It’s the sort of place you could go everyday for a month and not try the same thing twice.

It’s the sort of place that’s hard not to fall in love with.

And fortunately for those of us not living in London there are cookbooks and a weekly column in The |Guardian for us to steal his recipes and try to replicate it at home.

Which is what I did the other day when I was in dire need of some sweets.

The recipe for these came from the Guardian and it called for blackberries but it’s to early for them here so I went with rhubarb, and then because I love rose so much I put some of that in the icing which really was wonderful.

These cakes are very moist and very rich, thanks largely to the addition of ground almonds in them. Because of that they will stay very moist for several days, so it’s a great cake to make in advance of something, or just to keep in a jar for a week and eat one a day. But they are so pretty, they would also be perfect for an afternoon tea.

Rose Scented Rhubarb Almond Cakes

4 big stalks of Rhubarb, washed and cut into 1centimeter (about 1/2 inch) pieces.

1/2 cup sugar

Cakes:

10 egg whites
100g plain flour
300g icing sugar
180g ground almonds
1tbsp Vanilla extract
⅓ tsp salt
Grated zest of ½ lemon
1 cup unsalted butter, melted and left to cool, plus extra for greasing

Icing:

1 cup Icing sugar

1 tbsp Rose water

1 tsp Lemon Juice

Preheat oven to 400F

On a parchment lined baking sheet spread cut rhubarb out in a single layer and then sprinkle sugar on top. Bake for about 20 minutes or until rhubarb is just beginning to get soft. Take out of the oven and let cool.

Turn heat down to 350F.

Butter mini bundt pans, mini loaf pans, or mini cupcake pans.

Whisk up the egg whites until they’re frothy, but not full whipped.

Add in the lemon zest, melted butter and vanilla.

Sift in all the dry ingredients and fold gently together.

Then fold in the roasted rhubarb and spoon into the prepared trays and bake until an inserted skewer comes outs with only a few moist crumbs, about 15-25 minutes. Allow to cool completely.

To make the icing mix all the ingredients together until smooth. If it looks a little thick, add in some water or more lemon, if it looks thin add in some more icing sugar.

And then drizzle them on the very tops of each, the icing will run down and leave lovely little drips around each of them.

Carrot Cake

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Last summer I spent 6 months working at a resort in a remote island in Northern British Columbia, where I baked the breakfast pastries and generally wished I wasn’t trapped on an island for 25 day stretches.

There was however a few amazing people that I met up there, one of them was a girl named Kelsi. She was witty and sassy and had one of the biggest laughs of anyone I have ever met. She ended up leaving early, feeling the need to get off the rock. She did however, replace herself with her cousin Caitlin. Caitlin has the same sass, the same big heart an eerily similar huge laugh. She now lives a couple blocks away from me and she has become a great friend of mine.

So imagine my excitement a couple months ago when I was invited to her family birthday dinner. More sass? More crazy laughs? I promised to bring cake, and I was in. She asked for

This all coincided with the photo shoot I did for the Order a Cake page on this web site so I thought I would hit two birds with one stone and make a pretty cake to bring to the dinner.

When Caitlin came to pick me up on the way she came in to ogle at the the cuteness of the set up and then, slightly concerned, asked where the carrot cake was. Oh, I said calmly, it’s the three tiered wedding cake.

I’m a keener, it’s true.

BUT, the cake was a great success and I’ve been invited back for dinner since, which is great. Because they’re family dinners involve gay men singing Beyonce, bagpipes and a lot of bourbon. And, of course, a room full of the loudest laughs I’ve ever heard.

I didn’t end up posting about that cake at the time, but Jordan asked for breakfast foods the other day and apparently carrot cake counts (?) so I thought I’d bust out this recipe again. And when he brought some into work and got seriously into the good books of his boss! I love happy endings.

Carrot Cake

2 cups Sugar

1 1/2 cups Vegetable Oil

4 Eggs

2 cups All Purpose Flour

2 tsp Baking Soda

2 tsp Baking Powder

1 tsp Cinnamon

1/2 tsp Nutmeg

1 tbsp Vanilla

3 cups Grated Carrots

Preheat oven to 325F

Butter and flour a bundt pan, or 3 8 inch round pans.

Mix oil and sugar

Stir in your eggs.

Add in the carrots and hazelnuts, if using.

Sift in your dry ingredients and carefully fold them in, being sure not to overmix.

Pour into your prepared pan and bake until an inserted skewer comes out with only a few moist crumbs, about 45 minutes.

Flip out of the pan and allow to cool completely.

Icing

8oz Cream Cheese, softened

1/2 cup Butter, softened

3 cups Icing Sugar

Beat together butter and sugar,

Add in cream cheese until just combined

(Sorry, I forgot to take pictures of this part!)

Now ice it how you like, be it a simple bundt cake or a 3 layer wedding cake.