Shortbread shivers...

I made some cookies, cupcakes and shortbread last night. The cookies and cupcakes were with a friend, so I can't claim them up here, but suffice to say having a mixer is helpful when making dough... related: I've gotten quite good at kneading...

Anyway, I was making the shortbread following some notes I made last year. Unfortunately my notes were wrong: I was using half the butter I needed!! I belatedly tried to fix it but unfortunately the product is rather floury. I brought them to the office to feed the hoard... They haven't been snapped up as quickly as my cookies last week but I've still had some pleased remarks... If only they'd turned out properly!!

Ah well. Bake and learn!

Shortbread (bad photo!)

Baking time!

I've been baking up a storm the past few weeks! So much so, that I'm afraid I haven't been properly documenting each adventure!

Suffice to say, the oven in my new flat is quite different to the one at Mum's... and therefore I've had some interesting... challenges... figuring out baking times.

My first go at cookies this season were the traditional cinnamon cookies, detailed elsewhere in this blog. They burned to a crisp. Mum ate them, but that was about it.

I also made some almond squares (my favourite), but once again they burned. I made my way through them slowly, and plan to make another batch sometime soon.

I was more daring with some cookies I made for the office. I found the recipe in one of those gossip rag magazines - Almond Jam cookies.  They took quite a bit of work to make - first I had to make the cookie dough, roll it out, use cookie cutters, bake, warm up jam, and then create cookie sandwiches. I had a lot of fun, but it was labour intensive!

Almond Boysenberry Cookies

They were a huge hit at the office - they disappeared in about an hour, with many pronouncements of 'yummy' made. I'll try them again sometime, perhaps trying to tweak the recipe so the cookies have a stronger flavour.

I then decided to really have fun, and tried to re-create a childhood favourite: Jam Tarts. The recipe for the pastry is lost in time, so I had to figure something out... being slightly pressed for time, I ended up using the pastry recipe on the cristco package. It's alright, but not fantastic. I'll have to experiment again.   The largest lesson I learned in making these tarts was that you need to make deeper 'wells' and put less jam, as I had a bit of a... sticky... situation:

They should not look like this!!

A few made it out alright, so here's what I was aiming for:

Boysenberry Jam Tart

My most recent baking fun has been Banana Bread. A friend faxed me the recipe ages ago (so long that I can't remember which friend!! oops!)... I'm typing this entry up at the office and I don't have the recipe with me, but suffice to usay it was easy enough for me.  Lesson learned: don't freeze bananas and then thaw them overnight in the fridge, without a plate or bowl underneath, unless you want to do a full-fridge scrub down... ahem. 

No photo of this one, much to my chagrin. I made 8 baby loaves and they are so cute!!!

More baking is coming up, tonight and this weekend, so stay tuned! :)

Dinner Party!

Last night I hosted my first dinner part at my new flat! Had a lot of fun doing it, and gained a new appreciation for how long it take to pull these things together!!

table all ready!

The Menu:
To Start: Spicy Cheese Sticks paired with Gonzalez Byass Oloroso sherry
Main: Satay Chicken skewers served with rice, peas, a spicy peanut sauce and tadzhik, paired with a BC wine - Little Straw's 2009 Sauvignon Blanc
Desert: Apple Turnovers and mint tea.

Spicy cheese sticks & sherry

 I have previously posted on how to make the cheese sticks. The only alteration was that I added about a teaspoon of cayenne pepper, and that give them quite a kick. Next time I plan to use some jalapeno cheese for another option.   I chose sherry as the pairing drink due to the oloroso sweetness, as a nice counter to the spice... delicious!

2 day marinade

Both the Satay marinade and the Peanut sauce are recipes from my Dad, and I am not to divulge their secrets. I will post photos though!

The Sauvignon Blanc was a really good pairing with the spice. Wasn't too sweet, but also not overly dry. Was nice on it's own, but a really good mix with the meal. 

I made both the marinade and sauce a few days early, and upon taste-testing I was a bit concerned how spicy they were. After speaking with some co-workers I resolved to make a cooling sauce to assist with the menu. I first looked for the Indonesian 'raita' but decided on a tadziki as I had more the ingredients.

Tadziki

Evidence

8 oz plain yoghurt
1 cucumber
1 tbsp fresh dill
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 lemon, juiced
some salt & pepper. 
garlic to taste

Method:  Peel the cucumber. Add all ingredients into food processor, blend.
Thoughts: this was very runny. I think making it with greek yoghurt will help, and perhaps 'shredding' the cucumber with a cheese grater, and then mixing it all together by hand may be a new way to go.  Tastes really good though!

Apple mush turnovers

The apple turnovers worked far better than I'd anticipated and I was really pleased with them.  I used store-bought puff pastry as I was running out of time and, frankly, have never made pastry before!
The filling was a bit of a hodge-podge.  I had the leftover apple 'mush' from my apple post (see previous entry) and I wanted to use it up.  I put it on the stove and reduced it down to an apple sauce, and then followed a recipe I found online.

I added this all to the mush:
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp corn starch (first mixed with 1 tbsp cold water).

Final product

It needed some texture, so I took my final fresh picked apple, peeled, cored and sauteed in butter, to the mix, and let it cook enough to get a little soft.   I then rolled out the puff pastry, cut into squares and dolloped some of the mush into the center of each square, joining the corners to create little triangles.  This was a more difficult process than anticipated, and they didn't look very professional, but that's ok.

Once they'd cooled I made a drizzle icing out of some icing sugar, milk and vanilla. It was rather yummy!  I served these with mint tea.

All in all, I'm rather pleased with the outcome.

Apples!

I went to visit some old friends in Campbell River recently and part of the weekends adventures included picking apples. Fast forward to this past weekend, I finally had some time to deal with them! I have not played with apples before so this was quite exciting. As usual I made some pretty big mistakes, but had fun an have learned for next time!

A sample...

I had quite a few apples to deal with. I wasn't sure what I should do with them and asked around for some ideas or recipes. In the end I decided upon Apple Sauce, Apple Butter, and Apple Pie Filling... one of these REALLY didn't work...

To start all of them, I had to prepare the apples:

apple-peeler-corer-slicer!! 

Apple Butter

This recipe came from the friend in Campbell River. Not sure where she found it; if I ever find out I'll post it. I modified by halving the recipe. 

Ingredients
5 1/2 lbs of Apples, peeled, cored and chopped
4 cups Sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cloves

 Method
Very simple: mix all ingredients together, put in slow cooker. Cook on high for 1 hour, then on low for 9 - 11 hours. Remove the lid for the last hour. 

I suspect my slow cooker, being so tiny, isn't as powerful as others are, so mine took a bit longer. I also didn't have the full disintegration of apples like I saw in some recipes online, so I used an immersion blender to make it all smooth.  FYI, for all that this is called 'butter', it has nothing to do with butter... it's better described as 'apple jam'.  

Apple Butter in progress

Apple Sauce

Ingredients:
6 Apples, peeled, cored, sliced
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar

Method:
Simmer apples in the water until soft. Mash up apples, add in sugar, reduce until thick and 'saucy'.

I wasn't paying attention to the recipe. This was bad. When I was preparing the apples I just plunked them in a bunch of water (about 6 cups) to try prevent the quick browning of the apples. I then simply poured the whole lot into a pan to boil, not realizing the fine points of the apple-to-water ratio. DOH!!

No harm though, as I simply reduced the heat, removed the lid, and allowed the water to slowly boil off.  The little taste test I did said tells me that its going to be delicous! Now to figure out what to do with it...

Apple Pie Filling

Ingredients:
A bunch of apples
water

Method:
Can't really say, as I screwed it up so badly!

So while making the apple sauce, I also decided to prepare some apples to be frozen and available for apple pie.. unfortunately I again didn't think through the water ratios, and, to make matters worse, I left the kitchen.  Turns out apples stay solid for a long time, then suddenly disintegrate...  In my frezer I currently have 2 large zip-lock bags full of what I am now calling 'Apple Water'..  I'll try use it in baking.. I may try remove one of the bags and 'boil down' the liquid a la the apple sauce, but we'll see..  I need to research this one a bit more!

Before everything went horribly wrong!!

New tools....

I've acquired a new kitchen (which had a condo attached to it) and therefore expect to be doing quite a bitter cooking...

When I got to the office this morning there was a huge surprise on my desk:

Big Prezzie from the Office!

Which turned into this:

WOW!!!

How cool is that?!?! House warming gift from the office. Now, I'm not well versed enough in kitchenware but my learned cooking colleagues are all drooling... so I'm taking that as a great sign!!

Lots of fun ahead!!

Lemon Squares

Well after my first attempt at lemon squares (see below) I was rather disappointed. I've been rather busy with other things, so cooking took it's comfortable place on the back burner. However, so 'other things' coming to a head (see Orkney Adventures soon for more..) I decided to take a weekend to visit family and cooking happened!  So it was high time to try again.

I was given the recipe from a friend, who found it online. When I figure out what website, I'll post the link.

Lemon Squares

Ingredients:
1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup white sugar
2 cups flour

4 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup flour
2 lemons, juiced

Method:
Pre-heat oven to 350 F

Base: blend together softened butter, 2 cups of flour and 1/2 cup sugar. Press into bottom of an ungreased 9 x 13 inch pan. Bake for 15 - 20 minutes until firm and golden.

Lemon layer:  while the base is baking, whisk together 1 1/2 cups sugar and 1/4 cup flour, then whisk in the eggs and lemon juice. When base is ready, pour lemon mixture over base. Bake for an additional 20 minutes.

Optional: whisk in some lemon zest. Could also sift some icing sugar on top when fully cool.  Also an option = making lime bars - same recipe but with lime juice.

Reception:
HUGE HIT!!! They were devoured!  I enjoyed them and found them better on the second day. I am contemplating making them again with slightly less sugar in the lemon layer - to test out the tartness levels. But this recipe is definitely a hit. 

Lemon Squares!

Blackberry jam

bucket o'berries

Picking the berries

Spent the last long weekend of summer with my aunt and uncle on Vancouver Island. On one of the days we want blackberry picking! Rather fun! When we got back to the house we decided to make jam! A fairly easy process and hopefully delicious! (haven't samples the results just yet...)

You need the following ratios:
500g of fresh blackberries
1 1/2 cups of sugar
1/4 cup water (not necessary is plump berries).

We used 2000g of berries.

sugar & berries

Method:

rolling boil & pops

Put berries and sugar in a very large/high edged pot. Stir and slowly heat until the sugar is totally dissolved. Turn to boil for approx 30 minutes. BEWARE- this can very quickly boil over and create a dangerous and sticky mess so watch carefully.

After about 30 minutes it should look quite dark and have a rolling boil with a bit of a popping sound to it. Test firmness on a cool plate.

Pour into clean jars- they should be warmed up to prevent shattering.

Pro tip: use a Han blender to reduce the size of the fruit for smooth spreading.

Seal jars and enjoy as you like!

The finished product

Lave Cake

A co-worker of mine found out that I love Lava Cake, and so he told me about one of his favourite chefs from French Food at Home, a TV show on the food network. So we went to the internet and found a recipe by Lara Calder. I just had to try it!!

Final product, as served.

Lava Cake
Ingredients
4ounces dark chocolate 
2/3 cup butter 
4 eggs 
2/3 cup sugar 
1/2 cup flour

Method
"Butter six ramekins, line with a disk of parchment, then butter the parchment (note, I buttered but I didn't use parchment paper - wasn't sure exactly how!).Very gently melt the chocolate and butter together over a water bath. Beat the eggs and sugar until thick, pale, and ribbony. Beat in the flour, and finally the chocolate mixture. Pour into the ramekins and chill.
Just before serving, heat the oven to 400°F/200°C. Place the moulds on a baking sheet and bake until the top is set, 12 to 14 minutes. Remove. Let sit five minutes, before unmoulding onto plates. Serve with caramel sauce or a scoop of ice cream."

Comments

I hadn't worked with a double boiler before, but it was very easy and actually rather fun melting the chocolate. The entire recipe was pretty user friendly. I also really liked that they had to be chilled - in the future I think I'll be able to make the recipe but not have to bake them all at once (how often will I be cooking for 6?). 
 
I'm not sure if I have mentioned the issues with the gas oven I use - it heat up to the correct temperature or hold it hot enough, so recipe times are always fluctuating. This was detrimental to my lava cake... at 14 minutes they were still completely liquid on top.. so I baked them for another 5 minutes.... they weren't totally cooked the whole way through, but they certainly didn't have a much lava as I'd like. Next time I'll try baking for 17 minutes and see what happens.  

I served them with a scoop of ice cream and a few raspberries. They seemed to be a hit! The occasion was for my Aunt and Uncle visiting from England, so I had lots of taste testers. The treat was summed up as being 'more-ish'. DEFINITELY a repeat-worthy endeavour! 

Lava!

 

Kit Kat Cake

The tools.

Kit Kat exterior.

Secured with bow.

Brightness!

Made for my Brother and Candice's 5th Wedding Anniversary. Congratz!

Tangy Lemon Walnut Squares

I found this recipe in Hello magazine - it sounded yummy so I kept a copy of it. Apparently the chef is a 'celebrity' - Anna Olson. Anyway, thanks to Hello for inspiration!

Tangy Lemon Walnut Squares
Ingredients:
Base -
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup coarsely chopped walnut pieces
1/3 cup icing sugar
1/2 tsp finely grated lemon zest
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup cold unsalted butter

Lemon layer -
2 eggs, room temperature
3/4 cup white corn syrup
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
2 tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp finely grated lemon zest
1/2 tsp baking powder
icing sugar for dusting

Method:
Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease an 8 inch square pan, then line bottom and sides with parchment paper (I used wax paper, see below).

Base - combine flour and walnuts in food processor, pulse until walnuts are finely ground. Then add the icing sugar, lemon zest and salt, continue to pulse.  Finally add in cold butter and pulse until mixture is crumbly. Pour mixture into pan and press down, pushing crumbs up the sides of the pan (so eventually the lemon layer has 'edges').  Bake for 25 minutes or until lightly brown. COOL.

Lemon Layer - Only start this after the base has cooled completely.  Whisk the eggs and corn syrup until smooth. In a second bowl, whisk the lemon juice and cornstarch together, then stir in the zest and baking powder. When mixed, quickly whisk into the egg/corn syrup mixture. When all mixed together, poor over cooled base. 

Bake until set - apparently this is set when the centre 'jiggles' a little. Allow to cool completely, then remove from pan and cut into desired piece size. Dust with icing sugar.


Comments:
This was a fairly easy recipe, just had a number of steps.  In the end they were enjoyed by my 'tasters'. We think that a 9 or 10 inch pan would be better, as the current base-to-lemon ratio is not 'right' per out taste buds - too much base.  Also, I need to buy some parchment paper, as the wax paper didn't absorb any moisture - in fact it made the base really gooie and soft.  The lemon layer is rather tangy (as per the title) - for those who like a 'sweeter' lemon flavour, look elsewhere.

I used 1 lemon and then fridge/bought lemon juice for the lemon layer - not sure how the recipe/flavour would change if I'd used entirely fresh lemons, or only bought lemon juice. I suspect if I'd used fresh lemons it would be a bit more subtle.

I also need to work on my presentation. I cut the squares before everything had cooled properly, and this combined with the super gooie and sticky wax paper situation, well, the squares are more 'blobbish' than anything. 

Tangy Lemon Walnut Squares - Goo edition

But it's a good 're-start' of my cooking!