Tuesday Tutorials- Ganache and Coconut Truffles

Today, let’s take about Jordan.

He’s handsome, and charming. He’s so kind, sometimes it blows me away. He also has no problem saying no to me, which I find to be an incredibly great thing about him. He will bend over backwards to do anything for me, but if I’m bring a brat, he won’t hesitate to tell me.

He’s tall, but not too tall. He makes great cocktails.

Generally, he is an exceptional guy. I’m very fond of him.

His greatest fault though, is his lack of a sweet tooth. I am constantly shoving pastries around him, and he’ll eat a bite or two, and then move on. He’s supportive, he tells me if it’s great, but he’s not into eating a huge bowl of something.

Unless it’s chocolate. That man can down chocolate. Brownies, ice cream, cookies, consider it gone.  And above all, he has absolutely zero control when it comes to ganache.

He gets a sneaky look in his eye, and if I leave him near a bowl of it for an hour, the bowl will be scraped clean when I return. It’s actually kind of crazy.  And for that reason, I don’t make it often.

Except after Valentines. I always feel like guys have a rough go on Valentines, I mean, no one wants to be told that they have to be extra nice one day or they’ll get in trouble, even though no one really knows why they have to be extra nice. But none the less, off they go. Jord bought me some gorgeous flowers, made me a beautiful meal of pistachio roasted lamb and wild mushroom risotto, and took me to an awesome show. It was a wonderful night. And as such, I made some ganache.

This is the ganache recipe to end all ganaches. It is perfect in every way. I so wish that I had come up with it, but the geniuses at Eleven Madison Park did.

To make a ganache you are basically emulsifying chocolate with fat and liquid, and it can be a bit finicky. This one uses honey (well, if we’re being totally real here it uses cornsyrup, but I use honey because it’s more delicious and non GMO) and it helps the whole thing stay together. The butter we whisk in at the end makes it just the tiniest bit richer, and the whole thing has the perfect consistency for making truffles, or glazing cakes, or eating by the spoonful out of the bowl.

Sometimes, you have to give the man a treat.

 

Honey Ganache

2 2/3 cup Heavy Cream (or Coconut Milk)

1/3 cup Honey

½ cup Butter

4 cups Chocolate chips, 60% cocoa or higher

1 tsp Salt

 

In a medium pot bring the honey, salt, and cream to a simmer.  Milk is apt to boiling over so be mindful.

Pour the cream mixture over top of the chocolate and let sit for 1 minute.

Use a whisk and gently stir the ganache to emulsify it, working just in small twirls in the center of the bowl until it is all mixed in together.

Add the butter piece-by-piece whisking until each piece is emulsified in before adding the next.

Use immediately if you are glazing a cake, if you want to make truffles or use it as a frosting allow to sit, covered with seran wrap at room temperature for at least 12 hours.  For these ones I used coconut milk instead of cream, and rolled the set truffles in toasted coconut. 

Tuesday Tutorial- Vegetable Broth with Shelly from Vegetarian 'Ventures

Hi All! 

I’m so excited today, because instead of me writing for you, you get the fabulously talented Shelly from Vegetarian ‘Ventures is here instead! She’s going to do a much needed Tuesday Tutorial on veggie broth, and next week you can see what I made with it! So here we go. 

Heyyya! My name is Shelly and I usually blog over at Vegetarian ‘Ventures. I’m filling in for Claire today and am going to teach you my favorite kitchen tutorial.

Today I’d like to talk about my favorite winter kitchen secret: homemade vegetable broth! Excuse me while I nerd out a little but this really is one of my favorite kitchen topics. I know, I know - broth?! But really - it’s one of the easiest and most practical ingredients in the kitchen.  How many times have you bought a can of broth only to throw half of it away? Or let those cartons sit in your fridge until they start to expand so much they are going to explode? Well, I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t have to be like that. You can make your own broth by the gallons and freeze it to hold you over all winter. Homemade veggie broth lasts for two months in the freezer! No more letting those cartons explode after a week and a half!

Not sold yet on why this is the best winter kitchen trick? Here is another reason why it’s great: you don’t have to spend any extra money on ingredients (except if you factor in a small part of your water bill). I just freeze leftover veggie scraps (ends of carrots, celery after it’s gone limp, kale stems, slightly wilted cilantro, etc) until I’ve filled up a freezer bag full. Once the bag is crammed with vegetables, herbs, stems, and spices, I know it’s time to whip up some broth.

Use whatever kind of vegetables you have on hand – there are no wrong veggies here! But don’t limit yourself to just vegetables. Here are some non-vegetable ingredients that also add depth to your broth:

- Herbs (or the sprigs from herbs once you’ve used the leaves for other recipes)

- Whole peppercorn

- Garlic

- Tomato paste 

- Bay leaves

Okay, so let’s make some broth! There is no exact science to this and no real wrong / right way. I love the way no two batches of broth turn out the same. In the summer, my vegetable scraps reflect a light broth with red hues from tomato chunks. In the winter, my broths tend to be dark brown with loads of root vegetables and leftover rosemary. As I keep stating, use what you have on hand and experiment. It’s going to turn out delicious no matter what.

Homemade Vegetable Broth

1 gallon-size freezer bag full of vegetable scraps (stems, ends, peels, etc)

1 gallon of water (or enough to cover the vegetable scraps and fill up your pan)

OR

1 pound of carrots, chopped

1 pound of celery, chopped

2 large parsnip, chopped

2 large onion, chopped

2 Tablespoons whole black peppercorn

1 gallon of water (or enough to cover the vegetable scraps and fill up your pan)

And I usually also throw in (just because I can):

Any lingering vegetables in my fridge that won’t be used otherwise

A bay leaf

An assortment of herbs from my garden

A splash of soy sauce (OPTIONAL, to give it a salty tang at the very end)

Place all vegetables in a large stockpot and cover with water. Heat over high until boiling. Lower heat to a simmer and let simmer for one hour. Remove from heat and strain the broth into a large saucepan to let cool. Add a splash of soy sauce if you’d like (completely optional).

Okay, cool - I made vegetable broth! Now what?

Well, let’s talk about freezing. You could freeze it in a block but it sure is a hassle when trying to break off only a cup full. I recommend you freeze it in ice cube trays and then transfer them to zip log bags once frozen. The amount will completely depend on how full you make the trays, but 6 ice cubes = a half cup for me. If you want to figure out an equation for you, fill a measuring cup with 1/2 cup of vegetable broth and pour it into ice trays. Easy. Done. Now you can pull exactly the right amount out next time you are looking to make that certain soup recipe.

You may think ‘well, I don’t use that much broth… there is no way I’ll use up a gallon of it in 2 months.” Oh, you’d be surprised! Especially once you have it on hand and taste how delicious it is. Not only can you incorporate it into warming soups and stews but you can also use it in risotto, pot pies, and even slurp it by itself for an afternoon boost. And now is a great time to make some broth to have on hand for the holidays coming up!

Still need some more inspiration? Check out these delicious recipes from Claire and I that use plenty of broth:

Barley Risotto

Cauliflower Soup with mint Almond Pesto

Chickpea Tomato Minestrone 

French Onion Soup

Thanks so much for reading my rant about vegetable broth! I hope I’ve inspired you to try it out for yourself. Feel free to come visit me over at Vegetarian ‘Ventures if you’d like to be friends!

Tuesday Tutorial- Homemade Ricotta Cheese

,I live in a very Italian neighbourhood, and my local market makes the most outrageously good ricotta cheese. The thickest, creamiest, most glorious ricotta I’ve ever had. It’s so good.

It’s also $12.00 for 500mL. The deliciously is directly linked to the price tag.

I have made a lot of ricottas in my life. Sometimes for restaurants, sometimes for home, and it’s always good. It is. But it’s never as good as the kind I can buy at the market. So I gave up for a while, I didn’t want to go through the trouble. I forked over the cash when I had a craving.

The trouble, is that to fully appreciate ricotta you have to eat it at room temperature, or slightly warmer. When it has just been made, slathered on good bread, and dipped in olive oil and sprinkled generously with maldon salt- it is the best and simplest snack ever. Put a salad beside it and you’ve got a downright brilliant lunch.

So I started experimenting with recipes, trying to make one as good as the Italian brand down the street, but that I could make at home and then eat while warm. Ricotta isn’t hard to make, you just bring some milk to a boil, add in some lemon, stir it until it occurs, and strain it. It’s a funny thing really, because traditionally ricotta is made by reboiling the whey of other cheeses, the whey of course being nearly completely fat free (the word ricotta literally means twice cooked), but ricotta is ever so much more delicious when you add in fat.

A lot of recipes call for 1 litre of milk and one cup of cream, but I add just a half cup more cream, and it makes a world of difference. Such a difference in fact, that I prefer it to the store bought kind down the street that costs twice as much. Small miracles my friends, small miracles.

Ricotta Cheese

1 litre Whole Milk (or homogenized)

1 1/2 cups Whipping Cream

Juice of 1 Lemon

1 1/2 tsp Salt

Line a large sieve with cheesecloth

Bring the milk and cream to a roaring boil.

Add in the lemon juice and stir, still over the heat, until thick curds have formed.

Pour the liquid into the prepared sieve, put the sieve over a bowl and allow to cool at room temperature for about an hour. You can make it a bit thicker by letting it sit longer if you’d like.

Remove the cheese from the cloth, and serve immediately, or store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week.  

Tuesday Tutorial- Quick Puff Pastry

The rains have started. We’ll probably have a couple more sunny days, but mostly it’s Fall here. Our mountains won’t turn red and orange, they’ll stay a blackish green, but the tops will fall under a fog. Even though it’s still warm now, it will be sweater weather soon. As much as I love summer, and I still have a small vacation to take, I’m looking forward to the cold. The cozy feeling of watching the rain fall with a cup of tea in your hands. The gentle scratcing of wool scarves at your neck. New boots.

The time of year to take things a little bit slower, and to make pastries by hand.

This is my absolute favourite kind of dough to make, I remember my mom teaching me as a little girl. Gently breaking up the butter with my hands and kneading the dough were two of my favourite things as a kid. I have since made it hundreds, if not thousands of times in my life. It is the kind of pastry that normally takes a few tries to get right, but this little trick- curtesy of the Tartine Bakery Cookbook- in which you roll the butter, makes all the difference.

I like to call this dough a rough puff pastry, it’s not quite as light as a puff, but it’s not far off, and while the method is closer to a pie dough, it’s much flakier and crisper than that. I rarely have the energy or patience for puff pastry, and almost any recipe that calls for it gets this instead. I use it for pies, tarts, cookies, savoury tarts, mini cinnamon buns. Nearly anything that calls for pastry, you could use this. It’s the ultimate pastry in my books.

Rough Puff Pastry

2 cups AP Flour

1 cup Butter, unsalted, cut into cubes

1 tsp Salt

1/2 cup – 3/4 cup Ice Water

On a clean flat surface sprinkle the flour and salt.

Break the butter apart into the cubes and toss to coat them in the flour.

With your rolling pin begin to roll the butter out. It will stick to your rolling pin and the counter but don’t worry. Use a pastry scraper, or a spatula and scrape the pastry off. Then keep rolling.

Push the butter bits from the outsides in to make sure all of the butter has been rolled into thin strips.

Pour about 1/4 cup of water on top of the flour mixture and, again using the pastry scraper or spatula, fold the dough on top of it’s self.

Add more water, a couple table spoons at a time, and keep folding the dough over, pushing it down, and folding it again until some flour remains on the surface but it’s holding together. It shouldn’t be sticky to the touch but it shouldn’t be falling apart either.

Keep folding the dough, pushing it out, and folding it again. This is putting the layers into your pastry that will make it so light and crisp.

The dough should be soft to work with, as soon as you start to notice it resisting your touch stop.

Wrap with plastic wrap and refridgerate for at least an hour. I usually make two batches and keep one in the freezer, so I always have some on hand.

It will last 2 days in the fridge, or a month in the freezer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MWRcWuL7Qw

Tuesday Tutorial! Here is a quick stop motion video showing you how to ice a tiered wedding cake with buttercream! Hope you like it! xo

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

Tuesday Tutorials- Choux Paste + Strawberry Rose Eclairs

Choux paste is magical stuff. It’s a simple mix of eggs, flour, butter and milk, but the result is glorious. Mix some cheese into it and once it’s baked it becomes gougeres. Boil small pieces of it and it’s Parisienne gnocchi. Add some apples to the mix and fry it and it’s a fritter. Pipe it into little balls and your nearly at a profiterole, or cream puff. Pipe it a bit longer and you’ve nearly made an eclair.

Seriously, there is little that choux paste can’t do. It’s pretty amazing. You should learn how to make it. Stat.

I don’t know if this happens to everyone, but people always make professional jokes about me, the most common is calling me eclair. This is the lame joke that every man over the age of 65 says when I say I’m a baker

“Oh, really? Should we call you Eclair?” No dude, Claire will do just fine.

But to avoid being bitter and I’ve decided I just need to get crazy good at making eclairs. Somehow this feels like retaliation, even if almost no one knows how good I am at them but me. This way I can chuckle to myself and think at how awesome my eclairs are when old men say this to me.

It’s silly, I know it. But it makes me feel better.

This eclairs are pretty fantastic, if I may. They are super fresh tasting, filled with a whip cream that’s spiked with crushed strawberries, and a bit of vanilla. Then they are carefully dipped into fondant that’s scented with rosewater.

These are kind of ridiculously good. I ate an astonishing number of them.

So many in fact, that I lied to my boyfriend about how many I made. And then I felt no guilt. About the eating or the lying. They were that good.  

Rose Eclairs

Adapted from the Bouchon Bakery Cookbook

1 1/4 c AP Flour

2tbsp Sugar

1cup Water

4oz Butter

1 tsp Salt

1cup Eggs

Strawberry filling:

1 cup Whipping Cream

1 cup Strawberries

2 tbsp Icing Sugar. 

Glaze:

1 cup White Fondant

1 tsp Rosewater, or as needed. 

In a medium pot, melt the butter. 

Add in the water and bring to a boil. 

Mix in the salt and flour and stir for about 4 minutes, until it is very thick and the flour is cooked. 

Put the flour mixture into the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. 

Start beating on medium speed. Add in one egg.

Wait until it is fully combined before adding the next, continueing this until all the eggs are combined and the mixture is soft, shiny and smooth. This is your choux paste!

Fit a piping bag with a large star tip, and transfer the choux paste into it. Pipe the shape of an eclair onto your prepared trays, being as careful as you can to make them the same sizes. 

Bake for about 25 minutes, rotating the tray half way through baking. 

Allow to cool. 

Meanwhile make the filling:

Mash up strawberries as finely as you can- this can be done in the food processor or simply with a fork. Strain them through a fine seive. 

Whip the cream to stiff peaks, mix in the icing sugar.  

Fold the strawberry puree in. Transfer to a piping bag with a thin round tip and move to the fridge until ready to use. 

Glaze:

In a double boiler melt the fondant. 

Add in the rosewater and stir to combine. Check for taste. 

Tuesday Tutorials- Gnocchi

I wish that I had a cuter story about gnocchi. I wish my Nona had taught me to rice the potatoes, that she had shown me just how much flour you need to bring the dough together. I wish, to be honest, I could even remember her gnocchi, but I don’t. Although I’ve heard my mom and cousin talking about how incredible they were, the only time I remember her serving us gnocchi I also remember her apologizing for not making them from scratch.

But such is memory I guess, flawed.

So instead I learnt how to make gnocchi from reading the French Laundry Cookbook, where Thomas Keller goes to great length to explain how to make them. There are many ways to make gnocchi, and many debates on how to do it best, should you use starchy russets potatoes, or waxier Yukon golds? Should there be cheese added, or just on the top? If you use another starch, a squash, or a sweet potato, is it still gnocchi?

Over the years since I first forayed into the world of homemade pastas I have tried just about every possible method and every possible ingredient, and this is the recipe I always come back to. I use Yukon golds- waxier, so that you get more control over the starch content, no cheese in the gnocchi, it’s an unnescessary flavour, and it detracts from what is darn close to perfection to begin with. And you can call it a squash gnocchi, or a sweet potatoe gnocchi, but again- if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Gnocchi are surprisingly simple to make, you roast the potatoes, push them through a potato ricer or through a seive, to get very fluffy potatoes, and then you add in a few eggs and a touch of flour and knead it together until it barely forms, and then roll it, cut it, and boil it. It’s also wonderful because it freezes brilliantly, so if you make a bigger batch you can keep some for later.

While it is simple, and just about anyone can do it, I should note that it takes a quick hand, and the first time you do it you should stick to a small batch and just practise the technique. Gluten, the protein in wheat, forms at 55C and you want the dough to come together before it cools down past that temperature, so you must work quickly and keep a cloth over your dough as you go. And always have a pot of water boiling so you can test the little pastas, and make sure the consistently is just right.

,

Gnocchi

Adapted from Thomas Kellers The French Laundry Cookbook

2lbs Yukon Gold Potatoes

1- 13/4cups AP Flour plus lots more for rolling 

3 Egg Yolks

2 tbsp Salt

Preheat the oven to 450F

Poke some small holes in the potatoes with a fork on every side, and then lay them on a baking sheet and bake until an inserted knife goes in and out without any resistance, about 45 minutes to an hour.

Bring a small pot of water to a boil.

As soon as the potatoes have cooled just enough to touch, put a towel over the rest of the potatoes, take one and cut it in half. Without peeling it, put it flesh side down in the ricer and press it in until no more potato comes out. Repeat with the rest. If you don’t have a potato ricer you can take a sieve and press it the potatoes through with the back of a large spoon, this is a bit more time consuming, but totally effective- I have done it many times.

When the potatoes are all riced make a well in the middle of the bowl.

Add in the eggs and a bit of the flour, and the salt. Mix until it has barely come together. If the dough is sticking to your hangs you need some more flour.

Again add in a bit more and check again, making sure your hands are clean.

One the dough is supple, but not sticky your in business.

Take about a cup of the dough out. Put a tea towel over the rest.

Flour the surface of your counter generously and roll out the reserved dough. I roll mine with both hands, and when it starts to feel a bit too long, I just cut it in half and do each hald seperately, the dough will break if you are too rough with it.

With a pastry cutter or a knife cut the dough ito small logs. You can at this point roll them to get ridges on a gnocchi board or the back of a fork but I find this to be not too important. Now put them on a ery well floured tray and shake the tray a bit so that each piece is totally covered in flour. They will stick together if you are not diligent about thi.

Now put a couple in your boiling water to test. If you haven’t added enough flour they may break apart. If they do just mix in another small handful. If they don’t keep going!

Repeat with the rest of the dough until you have lots of lovely little gnocchis all ready to go.

If you are planning on freezing some/all your gnocchi put them in the freezer as they are on the tray covered in flour. After a couple hours take them apart and put them in a freezer bag and put them back.

Bring a very large pot of water to a boil. If you are using frozen gnocchi use the biggest pot you have and do it in batches, otherwise they will bring down the water temperature too much and won’t cook properly.

Salt the water generously and put your gnocchi in!

When they rise to the top they are ready to be put in your favourite sauce and eaten with abandon.

Here I have sauteed some garlic and shallots in some olive oil, added in some pancetta, and topped it off with toasted pine nuts. The simplest and most delicious dinner!

Tuesday Tutorials- Better Than a Restaurant Steak with Wild Mushroom Sauce

About a year ago I wrote an article for a local online magazine on finding the best steak in the city. I ate some great steaks, and had an extremely happy boyfriend who came along with me. But while I was eating my way through the city, I realized something; there is no reason to order steak at a restaurant.

I’m going to tell you something else; I don’t buy expensive steaks.

I’ve never been a big tenderloin fan, I find sometimes the tenderness verges on mushy and that totally freaks my mouth out. I like something with a bit more chew, although not too much. Mostly though, what I like in the cheaper cuts of meat is the flavour.

The rich beefy flavour comes from muscles that have moved and been worked, which means cuts like the flank, the flatiron, the sirloin are all great cuts of meat, if you give them a little love.

And to back up this argument, I encourage you to think of steak frites in France, where the steak is always a bit tough.

The easy way to get the sinue out is to marinade it. It takes nothing but planning your meal 12 hours in advance, which, well, I know that doesn’t always happen. In that case, buy a ribeye.

But if your feeling prepared, and thought about dinner the night before, marinade your steak.

The other thing that is easy to do at home is make a super fantastic sauce. It requires not much money, and about 15 minutes of your time. And the rest, as they say, is gravy. Sorry, I couldn’t help it.

Seared Steak with Wild Mushroom Red Wine Sauce

1 Steak, Flat Iron, Flank, or some Sirloin

2 tbsp Balsamic Vinegar

2 tbsp Soy Sauce

1 tbsp Salt

1tsp Black Pepper

Sauce:

1 pckg Dried Wild Mushrooms (I found dried chanterelles!)

1 lb Cremini Mushrooms, thinly sliced

1 Large Onion, thinly sliced

2 cloves Garlic, minced

1c Red Wine

1 tbsp Flour

3 cups Chicken Stock

2 tbsp Tomato Paste

Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper

Mix all the ingredients in a medium sized bowl. Cover with seran wrap and put in the fridge overnight.

Put the dried mushrooms in a small bowl and cover with 1 cup of water.

In a large saucepan over medium high heat, warm a big glug of olive oil and start sauteeing the cremini mushrooms. You want to get them nice and browned.

When they’re brown push them to the edges to the pot and in the middle, put in the onions and brown them. Add the garlic and the tomato paste and and stir them until the middle as well.

Push that to the outside of the pot and put in another glug of olive oil and the flour. Stir that for a minute.

Now mix it all up and add the red wine and stir to make sure there are no lumps.

Add in the chicken stock.

Season with salt and pepper and simmer for 10 minutes.

Once your sauce is simmering, start getting ready to cook your steak.

Bring a large saute pan on a medium-high heat and let it get hot for about 3-4 minutes.

Pour in a glug of canola oil, and tilt the pan to spread the oil all over the whole pan. Carefully put the steaks into the pan, making sure you face it away from you so no oil will splash at you.

Cook until it is deep brown and then flip it and do the same.

Here is a trick for telling how done your meat it: Relax your hand, and then bring your index finger to your thumb. With your other hand press the meaty bit of your hand at the base of your thumb. That is what your steak should feel like when it’s rare.

When you do the same with your middle finger your steak is medium rare.

When you do the same with your ring finger your steak is medium.

When your do the same with your pinky finger your steak is medium-well

Anything past that is well done.

BUT If your not sure pull it off and let it rest for a minute and then cut into a corner of it.

If your steak is cooked let it sit for at least 5 minutes before you cut.

Then, slice it into thin strips, and serve with your perfect sauce!

Tuesday Tutorials- No Knead Margherita Pizza

I live in what was traditionally Little Italy, an area called Commercial Drive. There are two big pizza places, a divorced couple who hate each other and own two competing, but equally horrible overpriced restaurants across the street from each other. There were a couple cheap slice joints, you those weird ones that put sesame seeds on the crust? Those kinds of cheap slice joints.

Then a couple years ago there was a bit of an outcry that there was no good proper pizza in Vancouver. And then two years ago was the year pizza came to the city. In droves. There is pizza everywhere.

Here’s the thing of it. I love pizza. Good proper Neopolitan pizza is hard to beat. And I eat it all the time.

The best pizza joint in the city is now 3 blocks away from my house. And a totally reasonably good place is 1 block from my house. And it has this lunch special, and I am there all the time. All the time!

And while pizza isn’t expensive, I have decided that this year is the year to not go out for cheapy lunches and to make dinner at home more.

So I’m going to start making pizza at home. Partly to save money, yes, I’ll admit to that, but largely because I can make proper pizza at home. And it’s unbelievably easy.

Heres the thing of it, you don’t knead the dough. And you don’t cook the sauce.

Are you ready to make wonderful pizza at home without kneading the dough or cooking the sauce?

I thought so.

No Knead Margherita Pizza

Adapted from the Sullivan St. Bakery

Dough

31/2 cups AP Flour

1tsp Dry Active Yeast

2tsp Kosher Salt

1 1/2 cups lukewarm Water

Sauce

1cup Strained Tomatoes

A good glug of Olive Oil

Sea Salt

4 balls of Fresh Mozzarella

A Handful of Fresh Basil

1/4 cup Grated Parmesan or Grana Padano

With a wooden spoon mix all the dough ingredients in a large bowl. When it’s all combined cover it with plastic wrap and leave it. Forget about it for 18 hours! This is sort of a loose measure of time, I make mine before I go to bed and it works out beautiful when I make dinner, but I have also been impatient and used the dough and made pizza for lunch and it worked really well too. I’d say 13-20 hours is the range really.

When your ready the dough will make 2 big pizzas.

Preheat your oven as hot as it will go. Mine is 500F. If you have a pizza stone, use it. If not, just take an old baking sheet and put that in your oven and let it get toasty hot. Once the oven is hot enough let it sit at that temperature for at least 15 minutes before you start working on the dough.

The dough will be very soft and sticky so use lots of flour. The first rule of dough is not to roll it. Carefully with your fingers streth the dough out, I find it easiest to hold the dough in the air put your clenched fists under it and gently pull them apart. The dough will get thin, then put it on a well floured surface and use your fingertips to stretch out the edges.

Generously flour a rimless baking sheet or the bottom of a rimmed baking sheet.

Put the dough on top of that.

Use half the strained tomatoes and spread over the dough leaving a half inch of space around the edges for the crust.

Drizzle the olive oil on top and sprinkle with salt (you could mix all the these things ahead of time, but then you’d have to clean another bowl, which is something I avoid like the plague.)

Cut the cheese thinly and put 2 balls worth on each pizza.

Take out your pizza stone or baking sheet. With quick jerking motions slide the pizza off your cold tray and onto the hot one. Immediately put it in the oven.

I have what might possibly be the worst oven of all time. If your oven cooks as unevenly as mine you’ll have to rotate your halfway through cooking, although if you can keep the oven shut that’s the best thing.

After 2 minutes of baking turn the broiler on for 2 minutes. This should help the dough get a bit charred. After 4 minutes your pizza should be done.

Get it out of the oven, sprinkle with parm and torn basil and eat while it is still piping hot!

Tuesday Tutorials- The Best Biscuits

The second instalment in my new weekly column, where I talk about food basics, and give you the step by step know-how to do it at home.

The restaurant where I work recently started to do brunch, and before we opened I was chatting with the chef about what kinds of pastries he might want. The original idea was croissants which, despite obviously being delicious, are also so tedious to make, especially in a kitchen with as little counter space as ours, so I threw out the idea of making biscuits.

This did not go over.

Biscuits are dry, biscuits are bland, biscuitsare over done, and never delicious.

So I, being the super competitive person that I am, decided to make him some. I made savoury biscuits, ones with chunks of cheddar and dots of scallions, and let the restaurant fill up with the smell of cooking butter and melting cheese. And then I dared him not to like them.

He is not the first person I have converted to a biscuit lover, but if we’re being real here, most of this credit can go to my Grammy.

Grammy made “Cloud Biscuits”, light, airy, full of layers and always moist. Growing up they were always made with fish chowder, or if we were lucky, for breakfast. Hers was a different recipe than this, because hers was a different time. In the Great Depression butter was a serious luxury, so the cloud biscuits were always made with shortening, and just a tablespoon or so of the good stuff to give it flavour. But it was the texture that got me hooked.

Which is funny, because most people complain about the texture, they think dry, over cooked, bland. So here is THE way to make the perfect biscuit.

Let’s start out with a couple basics first

• The way you get layers is by using big chunks of really cold butter. When that cold butter goes into the hot oven it produces steam, and if you have the right formations of butter you get perfect light fluffy biscuits.

• You need to knead, but not too much. Flour has gluten in it, and gluten will make your biscuits tough. But you need to knead your dough in order to get in the layers. This means really feeling the dough, as you knead it when it starts to get tough, it’s time to stop.

• Use good ingredients. If your going to add cheese to your biscuit, make it good aged cheese. There are only a few things in your biscuits, make sure they’re adding something.

• Be creative! There are a million things you can do to a biscuit, don’t limit yourself and have fun with the possibilities!

Biscuits

(Adapted from the Tartine Bakery Cookbook)

4 1/2 cups All Purpose Flour

1tbsp Baking Powder

1tsp Baking Soda

11/2 tsp Salt

1/4 cup Sugar

1cup Unsalted Butter, very cold, cut into cubes

1 3/4 cup Buttermilk

Eggwash

1 Egg Yolk

1tbsp Cream, milk, or buttermilk

Option

1 1/2 cup Aged Cheddar, chopped

1 bunch Scallions

In a large bowl mix together all the dry ingredients.

Add in the butter and with your hands, or a pastry scraper, break the butter up into lima bean sized pieces, or about the size of your pinky finger nail.

Add in any flavourings, in these ones I used cheddar and scallions, but the world is your oyster on this one.

Carefully pour the buttermilk in and mix it with a spatula or spoon until it just begins to come together.

Push the dough down with the palms of your hands and then fold the dough in half. Continue doing this 4-6 times or until you just start to feel resistance.

Put the dough onto a lightly floured surface and roll out to about 3/4 inch thick.

Cut the dough out into whatever shapes you like, traditionally savoury are round and sweet ones are cut into triangles.

Put them on a baking sheet lined with a silpat or parchment paper and put them in the freezer for 15 minutes.

While the biscuits are chilling preheat your oven to 400F

Take the biscuits out of the freezer and brush the tops with your egg wash.

Put them in the oven and immediately turn the temperature down to 350F

Don’t open the door for the first 12 minutes, afterwards you can open it and turn the pan so that it cooks evenly.

After about 20 minutes the tops should be nicely browned and you should be able to see a significant rise. Allow to cool before eating.