Spring Coloured Meringues

When I first moved into this little apartment it was all sorts of crazy colours, there was purple, and lots of yellow and the living room was a bright Tiffany’s blue. And I hated all of them, I painted it all white, but the blue. For some reason I just needed the blue. After living here for 5 years, I think I’ve finally figured it out- it reminds me of the sky that we only get a couple months here.

See, Vancouver does this thing, this dreadful thing where it rains all the bloody time. It starts in late September, early October if we’re lucky and it keeps raining until May, or June, or sometimes, even July. I’m not joking, we sometimes only get 3 months of sunshine. Last year was one of those years, and maybe that’s why I feel like I’m struggling so much with it right now.

My saving grace in all this rain is the flower shop I live on top of. It regularly wins best florist in the city and with good reason, it has the most gorgeous blooms in every imaginable colour, all the time. And even when everything is grey and gloomy and damp when I walk out my door I see heaps and heap of fresh flowers. They even take the old roses and sprinkle their petals half way down the block, to bring a bit of colour even further. They really are the best.

So lately I’ve become obsessed with their colours, the soft peachy ranoculous, the bright red of the tulips, and these soft yellow roses, oh those roses. They give me hope that it is sunny somewhere in the world. And so I made these meringues to bring some more of that colour in, because in this dreary grey city, sometimes you just need colour.

Spring Coloured Meringues

6 Egg Whites

1/4 tsp Salt

2/3 cup Sugar

1 cup Icing Sugar

1 Vanilla Bean, OR 1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Food colouring

Preheat your oven to 200F

In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whisk the egg whites and the salt until they hold soft peaks. 

Tablespoon by tablespoon add in the granulated sugar, letting the sugar you added before be mixed in completely before adding in the next. 

Now let it keep running until it holds very stiff peaks, if you’re unsure just keep it on for another 20 seconds or so. It’s very important that it is very stiff. 

Add in your vanilla bean or extract. 

Now dump in all the icing sugar and mix that in- bring the speed down to low so the sugar doesn’t fly everywhere. 

Divide the meringue into as many bowls as you want colours- I did 4. 

Add the colouring and mix until they are all combined, or not and let it be swirly- it’s up to you!

You can use any piping tip you want to here, star tips are popular, so are just a plain circle. It’s up to you!

Now just pipe them onto trays lined with parchment or a silpat (don’t grease the trays though!! Your meringues will ruin if you do!) and bake for about an hour and a half until they are completely dried out. Check them every 25 minutes or so to make sure they aren’t getting any colour. If they are browning turn down the heat and rotate the trays. 

Allow to cool completely then eat, decorate, or put in baggies for gifts- these will store for up to a month in an airtight container. 

The Show Off

 

This is not a cake for the faint of heart. This is not a cake to throw together after work, or a cake to make for a kids birthday. Oh no. It will take several hours to make, and multiple steps and some patience. This cake is a labour of love. But, this isn’t a hard dessert to make, just a time consuming one I promise. And if you time yourself well, and make a few things the night before you won’t hate yourself for saying you’ll make it. And when your friends see the cake you’ve made, they will be intensely impressed. This is a show off cake. This is the cake to make if your boss is coming over for dinner, or for an anniversary. Or if your me, with to much time on your hands it’s what you make when you have friends coming for dinner on Friday night.

Crepe Cake with Dark Chocolate Ganache and Poached Pears

This is a long process, you will want to make the ganache first, because it takes several hours to firm up. Then make the crepe batter, because it will take at least an hour to cool. The poach the pears, then make the crepes. Then assemble it all!

Ganache:

500g Heavy Cream

250g Dark Chocolate, finely chopped

1tsp Vanilla Extract

Bring the cream and vanilla up to a boil

Pour over chocolate.

Let is sit for a couple of minutes, then stir. It may seem to take a while but it will get smooth!

Crepes

6 eggs

7 tbsp Sugar

1tsp Salt

1 1/2 cups Flour

1/3 cup Butter

3 cups Milk

In a pot bring melt the butter. Keep it on the heat until it is very frothy, stirring regularly. In a couple of minutes the milk solids will start to get brown and it will smell nutty.

Immediately pour the milk in and bring it to just belove a simmer.

Meanwhile mix the eggs and the sugar in a mixer with the whisk attachment.

Add in the flour and then slowly pour in the milk and butter mixture.

Whisk until you have nearly no lumps.

Cover and set to cool in the fridge.

Bring a small frying pan, not stick if you have it to medium heat.

Put a small nub of butter into the pan and tilt the pan to either side until the whole pan is covered.

Pour about a quarter cup of batter into the pan. It should spread pretty thin.

Let it start to bubble up a bit the tilt the pan to let excess from the middle spread to the sides.

Carefully, with a rubber spatula, push the edges gently and shake the pan until the whole crepe is moving.

Flip the crepe, with a spatula if your new to this, or with a flick of the wrist if your an old pro, and let it cook another minute on the second side.

 Slide it onto a plate and go for the next! Repeat until the batter is finished, this will take a while.

Poached Pears

5 medium sized firm pears, I used Anjou.

1 cup sugar

1tbsp Vanilla Extract

Zest of an orange, peeled with a vegetable peeler into thick strips

Peel pears.

Cut them into quarters and core them.

Put them into a pot with sugar, vanilla and zest. Cover with water.

Bring to a simmer and gently cook for about 10 minutes or until just becoming translucent and are soft enough to cut with a spoon. Take off the heat and let cool.

Assemble

Slice the pears into thin strips.

Put a dollop of ganache on your plate

Lay a crepe down, spread it with ganache, then layer some pears on top.

Put a small dop of ganache onto the next crepe and place it face down on the crepe before, the ganache will work as glue to keep the layers from separating.

Repeat, repeat repeat.

 I used about 17 layers of crepes, and now I’m writing this while eating the left overs.

I then used some pear slices on top to decorate it and sprinkled some icing sugar on top too.

I hope you make this cake,and I hope you like it as much as we did!

Spring Time!

In Italy they have festivals celebrating asparagus. In the land of slow food and local food, its arrival in the spring means the end to root vegetables. It means soon there will be lettuce and then berries and then fruit. It means good things for the kitchen my friends. We can eat asparagus year round now, it comes from Peru, or Mexico or sometimes Argentina. If I`m lucky I can find some from California but thats as good as it gets here I`m afraid. There aren’t of winter farmers markets here so I don’t get the change to dance about asparagus but let me tell you, what I miss out on with asparagus I make up for with rhubarb.

Rhubarb is glorious. Its one of the first things to pop out of the ground in the spring time and it is the most amazing vibrant pink. It is so sour you can hardly eat it but it is wonderful mounded with sugar. And, perhaps most importantly, it’s not a root vegetable. It hasn’t been sitting in a cellar since October, it doesn’t taste like the rich fall vegetables that met their sweetness from months ripening in the sun. No, it tastes like spring. It tastes like it’s fighting it’s way into the garden eager to be the first. It tastes like new beginnings and it tastes wonderful.

Friends, you are going to get so sick of this blog if you don’t like rhubarb because man oh man am I that rhubarb is around. I wanted to bake with it, and I will, very soon, but first I wanted rhubarb jam.

I love rhubarb jam and it is painfully simple to make, so simple I almost feel bad giving a recipe to it. I didn’t have any pectin so I used half an apple. Apples are chalk full of pectin so it’s an easy way to add a little extra sweetness and get your jam to thicken up. I do to spice it up a little by add the tiniest bit of rose water to it. You want just the tiniest bit because to much will start to taste perfume-y. You just a hint of floral. I had some in my cupboard but you can find it at middle eastern stores, and if you can’t find it, then just go without. I promise, no one will complain.

Rhubarb and Rose Jam

Wash the rhubarb very carefully

Put in in a thick bottom pot with the apple on medium-low heat

Let it slowly simmer

It will start to fall apart

Keep going, it will fall apart more

Once its totally fallen apart add in the sugar.

Turn the heat down to low and stir regularly until the the apple is comlete mush and the jam becomes quite thick.

Add in the rose water. Just a couple drops, taste it, then you can add in more. The rose should be very subtle.

Pour into a jar and think of spring!

An Easy Way To Make Friends

When I was in high school I fell hopelessly in love with a boy. He was handsome and charming and I was smitten from the start. And then I was inconsolably devastated when he suddenly moved across the province leaving me all alone. We ran into each other a couple of years later at a party in and I was once again head over heels. I went to visit him the next weekend in Montreal with my cutest outfits, overwhelmingly high expectations, and a tray of proofing cinnamon buns. I brought the dough and the cinnamon sugar mix on the side and woke up early the next morning to roll and bake them. The whole apartment smelled of fresh bread and cinnamon. Needless to say they were a serious hit.

I learnt 3 things that weekend:

1. There is a big difference between being mysterious and being emotionally unavailable.

2. Montreal is an unbelievably great city.

3. There is no easier way to get in the good books of a guys friends then to bake cinnamon buns in their house.

The boy I was into was not into me. I would be lying if I said there weren’t tears shed on the train ride home, but man oh man, his room mates loved me.

Now, I like to think I am not quite so desperate these days. I have a wonderful man who I’ve been with for nearly 4 years and I am far past the point of trying that hard to make people like me. And yet… This weekend we have one of Jordan’s friends who I don’t know very well staying with us for the weekend and I made cinnamon buns. I guess some things never change.

6 1/2 tablespoons (3.25 ounces) granulated sugar

1 teaspoon lemon extract or zest

1 1/2 tsp Cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup (2.75 ounces) shortening or unsalted butter, room temperature

2 large egg, slightly beaten

3 1/2 cups (16 ounces) unbleached bread or all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons (.22 ounce) instant yeast

1 to 1 1/4 cups (9 to 10 ounces) whole milk or buttermilk, room temperature

3/4 cup Light Brown Sugar

1 1/2 tsp Cinnamon

Fit a standard mixer with a dough hook attachment

Cream butter and sugar together, this will be a little hard with the dough hook so you can get in there with a spatula if you need to.

Mix in your eggs. It will be split and not pretty. Don`t panic!

Just add in all your dry ingredients except the sugar and the cinnamon.

Slowly add in the milk, first 1 cup, then more if you need to.

Work the dough until it comes together and follows the dough hook around. It should still feel a little tacky but if you break a piece off and stretch it should  become transparent. If it doesn`t keep mixing for a while until it does.

Cover the bowl with a cloth. If you plan on baking them today put them in a warm spot to proof. It will take about 2 hours for them to double in size. If you want to bake them tomorrow put the bowl in the fridge.

Roll out the dough. It should be a square about a foot and a half each way. I didn’t roll mine thin enough, I prefer lots of thin cinnamon-y pieces on mine generally. Then cut them into pieces and put into a buttered pan!

Let it proof until doubled in size. If you chilled it overnight it will take about 2 hours, if it`s room temp it should only take about an hour.

Preheat oven to 375F

Bake for about 20 minutes or until just starting to brown on top and your house smells absolutly heavenly.

Spread lightly with Cream Cheese Glaze:

Beat 2 tbsp Cream Cheese with 3/4 cup Icing Sugar. Thin with a tablespoon or two or whipping cream.