Interview with Chocolate & Zucchini

Back in November, (ugh, where has the time gone?) I was fortunate enough to meet Clotilde Dusoulier, of Chocolate & Zucchini fame.  She was in Canada to be the writer in residence at the Stratford Chef School. While she was here she also managed to make her way over to Toronto and give a talk at George Brown College, (where I did my Chef Training) and sign books at The Cookbook Store.  

Clotilde was nice enough to answer some questions I had for her about the changing role of the chef and her experience with the students at the Stratford Chef School and I'm finally getting around to sharing those answers with you.

In other exciting news, today is the first day I’m doing a video post! I’m back in school taking a post grad in New Media Journalism and one of the things that I’ve found myself surprisingly drawn to is video editing.  I’m having a lot of fun with it and I hope you enjoy the video of Clotilde! 

Inspired by my meeting with Clotilde, I made some yogurt scones with a recipe from Chocolate & Zucchini.  To make it a little more fitting, I opted to make them Chocolate Chip Yogurt Scones, but feel free to use whatever mix ins you’d like.

Yogurt Scones, (from Clotilde of Chocolate & Zucchini)

215 grams (1 2/3 cup) flour


30 grams (2 rounded tablespoons) sugar


1 teaspoon baking powder


a good pinch salt


30 grams (2 tablespoons) butter, chilled


125 ml (1/2 cup) plain yogurt


2 tablespoons milk


2 to 3 tablespoons chopped nuts or dried fruits, or 1 teaspoon citrus zest, or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, or 2 teaspoons orange flower water, or the flavoring of your choice (optional)

(Yields 8 small scones)

Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicon baking mat.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Dice the butter and blend it into the dry ingredients with a fork or pastry cutter, until no visible lump of butter remains. Add the yogurt, milk, and whatever flavoring ingredient you want to use, and blend them in until the dough forms a ball. Handle the dough as lightly as you can. Avoid overmixing, or the scones won't be as tender.

Pat the dough into a flattish round, about 3 cm (a little over an inch) in thickness, and cut into eight wedges with a knife or a pastry cutter (alternatively, use a cookie cutter to make eight neat rounds). Place the wedges on the prepared baking sheet, giving them a little space to expand. Bake for 15 minutes, until the top of the scones is set and lightly golden.

Serve warm, with an assortment of spreads, such as clotted cream, butter, jam, honey, nut butter, apple butter, maple syrup...

Let Her Eat Cake

When my nephew Alex was little, my brother used to think it was funny to play a game called “What do you like more?” The game basically consisted of him asking my nephew what he liked more, between his Auntie Bri, (me!) and something else.  


In the past, I’ve lost to things like ice cream, dragonflies and dump trucks as things he likes more than me.  I’ve never liked that game.  



Fast forward four years and Alex is now far too smart to be fooled by his Papa into saying things are better than his Auntie Bri who gives him cookies and takes him to play mini golf.  His younger sister, Julie, on the other hand, is just getting to the age where my brother once again thinks this is a hilarious game to play.

I have no doubt that Julie would happily tell you that chocolate cake is better than Auntie Bri, even if Auntie Bri was the one who made the cake…  Just let her eat cake!

If you’re looking to please a demanding, (but adorable) 2 year old, this cake will certainly do the trick.  The only change I made to the recipe below was to make add a sour cherry layer instead of just straight ganache.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

 If you had of asked me six months ago where I would be today, there’s no way I could have predicted this.  I’m back in school again, this time doing a one year New Media Journalism postgrad program.  But what’s most surprising is that I’m actually enjoying it!

So I’ve been writing again, a lot, but mainly school related.  It’s inspired me to get back into blogging and sharing my cooking.  I also have aspirations to add some new forms of content to the blog.  I’m learning how to shoot and edit video at school and I’d like to try out some video posts!  I’m excited about it!

But today, I’m sticking with what I know and giving you my new favourite Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, from Chef at Home, Michael Smith.  I had the pleasure of hearing Michael Smith give a talk in Toronto a few weeks ago and I met him afterwards during his book signing.  I was thrilled to discover that he’s not only an amazing Chef, but an amazing speaker as well.  It doesn’t hurt that he’s also super nice and pretty easy on the eyes too!

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies, (From the book Chef Michael Smith’s Kitchen by Michael Smith)

½ cup butter at room temperature

2 cups brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 ½ cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375F.  Lightly grease a cookie sheet.

Beat the butter and sugar until smooth and creamy.  Whisk in the egg and vanilla until well combined.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.  Scrape down the butter bowl and gradually add the flour mix, beating just until combined.  Stir in the chocolate chips with a spoon.

Scoop out a ball of the dough, roll it briefly in your hand to an even ball, then place it on the cookie sheet.  Flatten the ball slightly. Repeat, leaving 3 or 4 inches between the balls. 

Bake for exactly 12 minutes, (test the first batch, depending on your oven and the size you make the balls, you make have to reduce this time).  Cool for a few minutes on the cookie sheet, then remove and cool further on a rack.   If you overbake these cookies, they will be crispy, but baked for just the right amount of time, they’re wonderfully chewy and perfect!

Makes about 18 cookies.

Oreo Brownies and Apartment Hunting

The search for a new place to live is a pain no matter when you have to do it or what you’re looking for.  This process is made especially difficult by people who lack basic communication skills.  I am currently in the unfortunate position of having to look for a shared apartment with roommates and the interactions I’ve had with some people during my search is enough to make me want to live in a cardboard box under a bridge.  At least then I’d have the place all to myself.

I have spent the past weekend trekking all over the city from place to place, checking out apartments and having interviews with potential roommates.  It’s not enough for me to like a place, the roommates have to like me back.  So far the stars have not aligned for both of those things to happen.  Many of my encounters with potential housemates could have been avoided altogether if people would simply learn to write a proper roommate wanted ad.  For example:

Look to the Cookie

 Cookies are my favourite thing to bake.  They're easy and offer instant gratification.  The cookie dough, which I might argue is the best part of any cookie, is ready in no time and warm, gooey cookies from the oven can be had in less than 25 minutes.  What's not to like?  How could anyone not love a homemade cookie?  Or someone who makes them homemade cookies?  And why don't people settle their differences over cookies and milk?

I'm not the only one who thinks cookies are the solution to all problems.  Does anyone remember the Seinfeld episode with the black and white cookies?  Jerry really sums it up best when he says:

"The thing about eating the Black and White cookie, Elaine, is you want to get some black and some white in each bite. Nothing mixes better than vanilla and chocolate And yet somehow racial harmony eludes us. If people would only look to the cookie all our problems would be solved"

Valuable life advice- Look to the cookie!

Where Is the Love? Balsamic Roasted Strawberry Brownies

Just like the Black Eyed Peas in 2003, people got me, got me questioning, where is the love?  Cause I am not feeling it lately.  You know those times when it feels as though the universe if conspiring against you?  And things just seem to be going awry?  That’s pretty much my life right now.  My roommate, Diesel, has decided to sell the condo, which means for the past two weeks, potential buyers have been parading through my living space with possible intentions of taking it away from me.  I eye each person with wariness, silently pleading for them not to make me go through the awful ordeal of trying to find another place to live.  I may not love living with Diesel, but the rent is cheap, the amenities are good, the location is where I want to be and above all else, moving is a pain in the ass and I don’t want to do it!  People have tried to tell me that I don’t have to worry about finding a place too quickly because he needs to give me proper notice before kicking me out.  But then I remind them that I don’t have a lease and I pay rent month to month, in cash.  It’s both a positive and negative aspect of living here.

As if the threat of soon being homeless wasn’t bad enough, I have to put up with all the condo gawkers coming to see the place on a daily basis.  At first Diesel just told me people would be coming randomly for showings but after a few surprise knocks at the door, (not cool when I’m in the shower) I informed him that he needed to be more specific about when viewers would be arriving.  So now I get sporadic texts that say things like “maybe ppl coming 6-7 and 9-10”.   Between 9pm and 10pm on a Tuesday?  Seriously?  I get up at 6am, I want to be in my pajamas, lounging around at 10pm, I don’t want to have to look presentable for when strangers tramp through my bedroom.  This does not make me happy.  Coupled with a myriad of other life disasters lately, I am definitely not feeling like the universe loves me.

Shameless Copycat Starbucks Oatmeal Fudge Bars

Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.  It’s good advice and I should remember to apply it to all areas of my life, not just baking, but for the time being, let’s focus on the baking.  A while back a co-worker insisted that I try Starbucks Oatmeal Fudge Bars.  She claimed that they were addictively good and that I was missing out by never having tried one.  One afternoon, after a few weeks of reminders, I was feeling the need for a sugar fix and ventured out to my closest Starbucks, (it’s like you can’t go a block anymore without tripping over a Starbucks) to pick up an Oatmeal Fudge Bar.  Turns out they aren’t half bad!  In fact, they’re kinda good…  Almost addictively good… 

A couple days later I felt a sugar craving coming on again and started itching to return to Starbucks.  Damnit!  They had me hooked, but I refused to be fooled twice.  I knew I could make their overpriced bars myself and serve them in reasonable portion sizes that coffee shops seem oblivious to, (since when did muffins become the size of soccer balls?).  A quick internet search proved that I wasn’t the only person looking to make these bars at home and I turned up a number of results for copycat recipes.  I then made my own Oatmeal Fudge Bars and brought them into work to share with my co-workers.  The result?  Homemade bars beat Starbucks bars, hands down.  And I was left feeling victorious, if only in one small area of my life.  Starbucks won’t fool me twice.

Hello Spring! Hello Cupcake!

 

  

When I made these chocolate cupcakes a month and a half ago, the green icing was festive for St. Patrick's Day.  But since I didn't get around to writing about them until now, I suppose I should put some sort of spin on the choice of icing colour and say it's for Spring, which is hopefully going to arrive and stay any time now.  If it snows one more time this year, I'm getting on a plane and going back to Australia.  Even though it's approaching winter there, it will still be nicer than here.  On the upside, chocolate cupcakes never go out of season especially if they're made using Magnolia Bakery's recipe.  I made the icing by adding a bit of green food colouring and Baileys to vanilla buttercream.  You could substitute the Baileys with another flavour, but I don't think Baileys should be season specific either...

Chocolate Ice Cream

 A little while ago I was over at my cousin’s house, enjoying a dinner of homemade chili fries and wine, and discussing various important subjects when the topic of ice cream came up.  Her boyfriend mentioned that one of the greatest things about being an adult was that he could now eat ice cream for dinner.  I think there was a Seinfeld episode about that too…  Anyways, I felt like we bonded over our mutual love of ice cream so a little while later when I was making chocolate ice cream for my Dad, (it’s his favourite flavour) I couldn’t help but think of my cousin’s boyfriend and how much he would like it too.  I later recounted this to my cousin but as I said it out loud I realized it sounded pretty creepy to tell her I have thoughts of her boyfriend.  I assured her they were strictly on an ice cream loving level and that there was no cause for concern.

Sweet Pretzel Cookies are the Opposite of Bikram Yoga

 

A while ago I mentioned how I had started attending Bikram hot yoga classes.  At the time I said I wasn’t exactly enjoying them.  Now, after 20 classes, I can firmly say that was an understatement.  Not only do I not like Bikram yoga, I hate it.  Strong words?  Perhaps.  But true.  I gave it a chance.  People told me it would get better.  It does NOT get better.  I hate it, I hate it, I hate it!  Wooo, that felt good to get off my chest!  Some people would question why I would attend so many classes if I dislike it so much.  It’s partially because I’m stubborn and hate giving up on things and also because I saw results with Bikram yoga.  I felt myself getting stronger and more flexible and quite quickly too.  But those good things are more than cancelled out by the fact that it’s such a struggle to force myself to attend classes because of how terrible I feel before, during and afterwards. 

Reasons to Bake Cake

I like birthdays but only because they’re an excuse to bake cake, other than that, they’re not much fun.  So I started looking for other reasons to bake cake.  Office jobs are great for that, you can bring in cake for any reason and people will devour it.  Perfectly valid reasons for bringing cake into an office:

-It’s snowing
-It’s Tuesday
-The Leafs won a game
-It’s Friday
-The Raptors won a game
-It’s Thursday
-It’s raining
-It’s Monday
-It’s almost Spring
-It’s Wednesday

Happy Valentine's Day!

Is it a Hallmark holiday?  Yes.  Is it horribly cheesy?  Yes.  Does it put ridiculous pressure on guys to come up with something romantic for the girl in their lives?  Yes.  Does it make girls feel bad if they if they don’t have a boy to celebrate with?  Yes.  Is it avoidable?  No.  So if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em and you might as well eat cake while you’re doing it.  Food is generally the best part of any holiday and Valentine’s Day is no exception.  It’s one of the only days of the year where it’s totally acceptable and justifiable to cram your face full of chocolate and ice cream and sweets.  It’s definitely my kind of holiday.

Regardless of how you feel about Valentine’s Day, you’re still going to see red and pink hearts everywhere and read mushy cards and hear love songs on the radio, so you might as well embrace it and do what I did.  I invited my friend Ruby Clicks over for some wine and cake ball making, which translated into eating a lot of mashed up chocolate cake with cream cheese icing, reminiscing about our travels and then going out for a candlelit sushi dinner complete with hearts on the plate.  What’s not to like about that?  As a bonus, Ruby takes really pretty pictures and was able to help me sort out why my fancy camera was acting up.  It seems that the auto-focus is broken, (sadface) but that I can still take pictures using manual settings until a life sponsor swoops in to fix things… I think I’ll be struggling with this one for a while, bear with me.

If you want to get into a festive Valentine’s Day mood, The Kitchn has a great recipe and tutorial for making cake balls.  If you plan on making your own cake and icing, (which you’d be a fool not to) the whole process is somewhat time consuming, but I like that.  You could mix and match cake and icing flavours to your heart’s content but chocolate seemed very appropriate for Valentine’s Day and cream cheese icing is appropriate for everyday.

I’d like to leave you with two thoughts:

1- Dulce de Leche Day is coming soon, February 28th, so start planning your recipes.  For more info, click here.

2- In the words of the great 50 Cent- “I love you like a fat kid loves cake!”  Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

Coming Soon: World Dulce de Leche Day!

 There seems to be a “day” for everything.  Today was World Nutella Day, January 23rd was National Pie Day, April 14th is National Pecan Day, May is apparently is a whole month devoted to Chocolate Custard, September 17th is National Apple Dumpling Day and December 7th is National Cotton Candy Day.  I don’t exactly know who makes up these so-called National and World Days, but I feel like I need to add one to the mix- World Dulce De Leche Day.  I will concede that Nutella is pretty amazing, but Dulce de Leche is equally so and it deserves a day in the spotlight too.  How about arbitrarily making February 28th,World Dulce de Leche Day?  Why not?  Who wouldn’t want a day devoted to sweet, gooey, decadent dulce de leche?  Food bloggers have got quite a lot of influence around the interwebs, so spread the word, there’s a new holiday in town and it’s delicious!

For any of you out there who may not be familiar with dulce de leche, (what rock have you been living under?) it’s a thick, caramel-esque spread which is Latin American in origin and whose name is literally translated as “sweets made of milk”.  Dulce de leche is essentially sweetened milk that has been cooked to the point of caramelization but how this is achieved, varies. 

One way to make dulce de leche is by boiling a can of sweetened condensed milk, in the can, fully submerged in water in a pan on the stove top.  If that sounds scary, it should.  If you’re not careful, there’s a possibility that the can could explode.  The thought of boiling hot dulce de leche being flung all over my kitchen in a single bang does not appeal to me.  That’s why I’ve adopted David Lebovitz’s much safer method of pouring a can of sweetened condensed milk into a pie plate, covering it with tinfoil and baking it in a water bath at 425F for about an hour to an hour an a half, until it darkens.  Same great results, minus the explosion potential.  Win-win. 

I’m going to get the February 28th Dulce de Leche Day festivities started early with, (another) David Lebovitz recipe, this one for Dulce de Leche Brownies.  I already love brownies so when you add swirls of dulce de leche, it pretty much puts them over the top.  And it’s easy to do too!  Now then, on to official business, if you’d like to participate in World Dulce de Leche Day, simply make an awesome sweet treat using dulce de leche, take a photo and post about it to your blog on February 28th!  Send me the link and your info to brilynnf @ yahoo dot ca and I’ll do a round up of all the awesomeness!  If you don’t have a blog, that’s cool, just send me a pic and a line about you and your recipe and I’ll post that too.  Spread the word!  There’s no reason World Dulce de Leche Day can’t become as successful as World Nutella Day, (or why the two shouldn’t be combined for ultimate world domination).

Dulce de Leche Brownies, (from David Lebovitz's The Sweet Life in Paris)

8 tablespoons (115g) salted or unsalted butter, cut into pieces
6 ounces (170g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
1/4 cup (25g) unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
3 large eggs
1 cup (200g) sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup (140g) flour
optional: 1 cup (100 g) toasted pecans or walnuts, coarsely chopped
1 cup dulce de leche

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (175 C).
Line a 8-inch (20 cm) square pan with a long sheet of aluminum foil that covers the bottom and reaches up the sides. If it doesn’t reach all the way up and over all four sides, cross another sheet of foil over it, making a large cross with edges that overhang the sides. Grease the bottom and sides of the foil with a bit of butter or non-stick spray.
Melt the butter in a medium saucepan. Add the chocolate pieces and stir constantly over very low heat until the chocolate is melted. Remove from heat and whisk in the cocoa powder until smooth. Add in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the sugar, vanilla, then the flour. Mix in the nuts, if using.
Scrape half of the batter into the prepared pan. Here comes the fun part.
Drop one-third of the Dulce de Leche, evenly spaced, over the brownie batter, then drag a knife through to swirl it slightly. Spread the remaining brownie batter over, then drop spoonfuls of the remaining Dulce de Leche in dollops over the top of the brownie batter. Use a knife to swirl the Dulce de Leche slightly.
Bake for 35 to 45 minutes. The brownies are done when the center feels just-slightly firm. Remove from the oven and cool completely.
Storage:These brownies actually become better the second day, and will keep well for up to 3 days.

Cookies to Calm the Crazies

Based on my experience, all landlords are crazy. And not in the “ha-ha, that person is so fun and crazy!” kind of way, but more like the “aahhh, that person is a complete nut job and should be committed” kind of way. If your landlord is not like this, then perhaps I just attract crazies? I really don’t know why. I’m a good tenant, I pay my bills on time, I’m quiet, I don’t throw parties and I’m likely to be regularly baking up yummy treats and looking for people to give them away to. When I moved to New Zealand I thought that maybe my landlord luck would change, being on the other side of the world and all. Not so. My crazy landlord here has that same quality of craziness that my other landlords have had, just with a Kiwi accent.

She’s thoroughly entertaining though, the kind of person that other people want to hear stories about, but don’t actually want to know. For privacy’s sake, let’s just call her Karen. Karen is a petite woman with wild hair that she tries to tame by securing half of it into a low side pony, while allowing the other half to roam free. She’s got nimble little hands that she uses to make gestures while she talks and I could see her being good at untying knots or burying nuts in the ground like a squirrel. I believe she’s somewhat of an insomniac and also potentially has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. She likes things to be placed in very specific places and is visibly disturbed when they’re not where they belong. She’s also got some interesting eating habits. She only eats singular items in a sitting. For example, for lunch she’ll eat three hard boiled eggs, in proper egg cups, but with nothing else. I saw her go through a mushroom phase where she ate only stir fried mushrooms, a big bowl of them. And she routinely used to make large quantities of oven baked potato wedges to enjoy once again, on their own. I never inquired about her eating habits, just observed them with amusement. Perhaps you’re wondering how I know all of this if she was just my landlord, well it turns out she became my roommate as well! When she initially moved in, it was under the guise of doing some fixing up around the apartment but after a few weeks I realized that no fixing was being done and it seemed that Karen was there to stay. She called it camping out and said how much fun it was to have a roommate again! Lucky me.


When it came time to break the news to Karen that I would be moving out, I had a feeling she wasn’t going to take it very well. The mere thought of it was making me uncomfortable as I highly dislike confrontation. To soften the blow I decided to bake some cookies to give her along with the bad news. No one could possibly be mad at me while eating a delicious White Chocolate Macadamia Cookie, could they?

Alton Brown’s Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies, (Adapted slightly from Alton Brown via Foodnetwork, my substitutions are in italics)

2 sticks unsalted butter, (melted to the point of browning)
2 1/4 cups bread flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips, (I replaced this with a chopped up 250g macadamia and white chocolate bar)


Heat oven to 375 degrees F.
Melt the butter in a heavy-bottom medium saucepan over low heat. Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda and set aside.
Pour the melted butter in the mixer's work bowl. Add the sugar and brown sugar. Cream the butter and sugars on medium speed. Add the egg, yolk, 2 tablespoons milk and vanilla extract and mix until well combined. Slowly incorporate the flour mixture until thoroughly combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.
Chill the dough, then scoop onto parchment-lined baking sheets, 6 cookies per sheet. Bake for 14 minutes or until golden brown, checking the cookies after 5 minutes. Rotate the baking sheet for even browning. Cool completely and store in an airtight container.

Christmas Baking with Chocolate Gingerbread

I’m back with something sweet! Hopefully my computer troubles are over and I can concentrate on more important things, like baking! I know a lot of you in the Northern hemisphere have been sweating lately, but in the backwards land that is New Zealand, the colder weather has me feeling like it should soon be Christmas. I sometimes forget that just because the seasons are inversed here, doesn’t mean the holidays are. Lately I’ve had it on the brain that Christmas should be right around the corner. The days are short, it gets dark early, there’s a chill in the air and I’ve been eating clementines, a sure sign that the holiday season is upon us… Or maybe not. Anyways, since I’ve been in a festive mood, I decided to do some Christmas-y flavoured baking in the form of these Chocolate Gingerbread Bars from Martha Stewart.

Every review I read of them was positive and I’m convinced it’s a good recipe, but I didn’t love the molasses that I used for them. In many ways New Zealand is like Canada, but there are little differences that only become more apparent after you’ve been here for a while. Anyone who’s ever been to Thailand will know the expression “Same same, but different.” That idea applies here too. When I go to the grocery store here they’ve got most of the same ingredients as back home but they’re not identical. The molasses I got here had a stronger, more bitter flavour, (one of my tasters likened it to black liquorice) and I felt it almost overpowered the bars. To compensate for that I decided that a vanilla been frosting was needed. When I was in Tonga I picked up a bundle of vanilla beans and I’ve since been using them with reckless abandon. I used an entire vanilla bean to make a simple icing sugar, lemon juice and vanilla bean seed frosting to spread in between the bars. It added enough sweetness and contrast to offset the strength of the molasses and in the end, these bars were quite addictive. So addictive in fact that I had to get them out of my sight so I packaged them up and gave them to a friend of mine who was supposed to share with her boyfriend. I received a call today saying that he never got one…


Chocolate Gingerbread Bars, (from Martha Stewart)

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted, plus more for pan
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, plus more for pan
3/4 cup all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon pumpkin-pie spice
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup packed dark-brown sugar
1/4 cup unsulfured molasses
1 large egg
1/4 cup sour cream
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
confectioners' sugar, for dusting (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8-inch square baking pan. Line bottom with a strip of parchment paper, leaving an overhang on two sides; butter paper. Dust paper and sides of pan with cocoa; set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together cocoa, flour, ginger, pumpkin-pie spice, and baking soda; set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together butter, brown sugar, molasses, egg, and sour cream until smooth. Add flour mixture; stir just until moistened (do not overmix). Stir in chocolate chips. Transfer batter to prepared pan; smooth top.
Bake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack; let cool completely. Using paper overhang, lift gingerbread from pan. Transfer to a cutting board, and cut into 16 squares. Before serving, dust bars with confectioners sugar, if desired. (To store, keep in an airtight container at room temperature, up to 3 days.)

***The only thing I changed, besides adding the vanilla frosting, was to omit the pumpkin pie spice and ground ginger which I replaced with cinnamon, nutmeg and grated fresh ginger.

Dessert Special

Carrot Cake with Candied Carrots and Carrot Shooters

Given my extreme inability to make decisions, it’s a miracle that I can figure out a dessert special every night at work. And truth be told, I can’t always. Sometimes I get part way through an idea and have to call for reinforcement. Like the day I made carrot cake. I had no problem making a carrot cake with nuts, raisins and spices, topped with an orange scented cream cheese icing but figuring out how to make it look interesting, (and not from 1972) left me drawing a blank. When in doubt, the guy with the tall hat and name embroidered on his jacket is probably a good person to ask. His answers, however, are sometimes more than I bargained for. I was looking for a little something to garnish my carrot cake with and ended up making candied carrots and carrot shooters to order.

Chocolate Caramel Walnut Tart Wrapped in Raspberry Jelly with Raspberry Confetti

Dessert specials allow for a little more freedom like being able to make carrot shooters. It was nice for one night, but it’s definitely not something I’d want to do at the height of summer business. Kind of like the day I made a Chocolate-Caramel-Walnut Tart and needed something to garnish it with. The tart on its own is quite nice, but needs some colour to look good on a plate. Chef suggested I do something with raspberry syrup and agar agar… that snowballed into wrapping rectangular pieces of tart in a raspberry jelly and then sealing the jelly with a blowtorch and sprinkling raspberry jelly confetti around the tart in a pool of crème anglaise. Once again, it was interesting for one night, not so fun for the whole summer.

Bread Pudding with Chocolate Sauce, Creme Anglaise and Vanilla Ice Cream Coated in Chocolate Crumbs

As much as I’d like to get an industrial ice cream machine and make every summer dessert ice cream based, it’s not going to happen, (sadly). That means I have to come up with new summer desserts for a menu change happening very shortly. This task should not be as difficult as it is for me. I’ve been pouring over cookbooks and looking through blogs for inspiration and coming up empty. I see tons of beautiful desserts and things that I love, but they don’t necessarily translate well in my work kitchen. Some items are too fancy, some are too plain, some are out of season, some are too fragile, we don’t have the equipment, the time, the right customers or the labour force for others. I’ve been told to employ the K.I.S.S. strategy to my summer dessert making, but with so many options, (and also restrictions) I can’t seem to narrow it down to five new menu items.

Lemon Curd Tart with Fresh Strawberries, Creme Anglaise and Strawberry Coulis

So I’m asking for your help. Bloggers and blog readers are notoriously generous and full of great ideas and I want you to help me choose some new dessert options for work. What are your favourite desserts to make and eat? What would you like to see on a restaurant menu? While you’re being creative with your suggestions, keep the following in mind:

-The dessert has to be able to be refrigerated for storage, without compromising quality.

-It has to be able to stand up to extreme heat and humidity, (meringues and sugar garnish are out).

-It has to be relatively easy to make, (because I’m not working 7 days a week for the rest of the summer).

-There needs to be a chocolate dessert, a fruit dessert and something cakey, (those don’t have to be together, but have to exist somewhere).

-It has to look pretty on a plate.

-I don’t have an ice cream maker :(

-It has to be able to be mildly mass produced, (and without taking me forever to do so or occupying all of the stoves and ovens and bench space).

Thanks for the suggestions… if I end up choosing any of your ideas, I’ll be sure to let you know! And will probably then ask for your mailing address so that I can send you something as thanks for helping save part of my sanity…

Chocolate Dipped Strawberries for a Wedding

Team Cookies

Sometimes writing ideas come to me without any effort and in full detail. Other times I can only form thoughts in bits and pieces. Today you get the latter. But it comes with cookies!

Cookie of the Day: Peanut Butter, Oatmeal, Chocolate Chip Team Cookies.

Word of the Day: Schadenfreude.

Website of the Day: FMyLife.

Colour of the Day: Maroon.

Activity of the Day: Tennis.

Hunted Animal of the Day: Wild turkey.

Destination of the Day: Korea.

Rule of the Day: Rule #76, No excuses, play like a champion.

Song of the Day: Savior by Rise Against

Team Cookies (from Jls’ Mom and adapted slightly by me)

1 cup crunchy peanut butter
1 cup soft butter
1 cup white sugar
1 cup lightly-packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups old fashioned rolled oats
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tsp salt
1-1½ cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips

Cream together peanut butter, butter, white and brown sugar and brown sugar. Add eggs and vanilla , and beat until light and fluffy. In a separate bowl, combine oats, flour and baking soda and salt, and stir into peanut butter mixture. Add chocolate chips. Drop by spoonfuls onto silpat or parchment lined baking sheets. Place in oven at 350 degrees for 9-11 minutes or until lightly brown. Cool on rack. Makes 4 dozen.

My notes: These cookies are my favourite. And yes, I’ve already posted about them here and in ice cream form here, but they’re my favourite and it’s my party and I’ll post about them again if I want to. For those who are allergic to chocolate, (sad but true) substituting toasted pecans for the chocolate chips works well. In the past white chocolate chips and butterscotch chips have also been swapped in, but I like the chocolate ones best. If you don’t use chunky peanut butter, I’d suggest adding salted peanuts and omitting the salt.

Curtis Stone Can Cook Me Dinner Anytime

As I mentioned in my previous post, I recently got my passport renewed. The last time that I had to do that was four years ago when I was headed to Australia as part of a University exchange program. I find it almost impossible to believe that it was so long ago that I was enjoying soaking up the Australian sun, playing beach volleyball at the University of Queensland in Brisbane and taking weekend trips to Byron Bay. I have some great memories of my time in Australia and ever since have had quite the soft spot for Aussies. Especially tall, adorable Australian chefs like Curtis Stone. And before any of you try to tell me I’m being suckered in by a pretty face and charming accent, the man can seriously cook and has the background to prove it. Long before I discovered him on his TLC show, Take Home Chef, Curtis was working as head chef in several Michelin-starred restaurants in London. So there.

His newest book, Relaxed Cooking with Curtis Stone: Recipes to Put You in My Favourite Mood, contains approachable recipes gathered under chapters with titles like Brunch That Will Blow Their Minds, Something to Eat on the Sofa and Sweet Dreams. Given my recent brunch party, affinity for eating on the sofa and everything sweet, I definitely approve of his choices. The book is also full of gorgeous pictures of almost every recipe and quite a few of Curtis too. I think I could have made anything from this book and been pretty happy. The only thing that would have made it better were if I ran into Curtis at the supermarket while gathering ingredients and he came home to cook with me. That’s practically reason enough to move to L.A. and hang out excessively at Whole Foods. Or to move to Australia and find someone just like him, (ha, as if anyone could be as great as Curtis Stone…). I even tried to get Chef to hire an Aussie at work but so far my pleas have gone unanswered. Maybe my wonderful blog readers should start a letter writing campaign to Chef in support of my need to have Aussies in the kitchen…

A few notes on the recipes I made…

Brownie Cupcakes: Truly a cross between a brownie and cupcake and frosted with a chocolate cream cheese frosting, these went over very well. The frosting received extra compliments and I used the leftovers to top banana muffins and my fingers.

Steamed Mussels with Chorizo and White Wine: Mussels are a weekly affair at my house and this version got high praise. The sprinkling of fresh cilantro on top was a great addition.

Wild Mushroom, Spinach and Goat Cheese Tarts: I took these with me to my brunch potluck and was pleased with how they looked and tasted. Andrea went back for more of this tart over the caramel/pecan/chocolate tart, so it must have been alright.

Seafood Wonton Soup: Wonton soup, like mussels, is something I used to think couldn’t easily be made at home. Although slightly time consuming to fill wonton wrappers, (don’t overfill!) it’s not difficult by any means and the results are better than most places you can buy it at. Certainly worth making again.

Brownie Cupcakes (from Relaxed Cooking with Curtis Stone: Recipes to Put You in My Favourite Mood)

Cupcakes
6 ounces good quality bittersweet chocolate, (60-70% cacao). Chopped
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon Lyle’s Golden Syrup or light corn syrup
Pinch of salt
¾ cup sugar
2 large eggs
½ cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2/3 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

Frosting
4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1/3 cup Lyle’s Golden Syrup or light corn syrup
4 ounces good quality bittersweet chocolate, (60-70% cacao). Chopped

To make the cupcakes: Position an oven rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350F. Line a standard cupcake tin with 8 paper cupcake liners. Stir the chocolate and butter in a small heavy saucepan over low heat until they melt and the mixture is smooth. Stir in the syrup and salt. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Using an electric mixer, beat the sugar and eggs in a large bowl for 2 minutes or until the mixture is thick and light. Stir in the chocolate mixture. Add the flour and baking powder, and stir just until blended; then stir in the walnuts. Divide the batter equally among the cupcake liners, filling them completely. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until the cupcakes puff and crack on top and a skewer inserted into the center of one comes out with fudgy crumbs attached. Remove the cupcakes from the tin and let them cool completely on a wire rack.

To frost the cupcakes: Using an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese in a large bowl until it is light and smooth. Beat in the syrup. Place the chocolate in another bowl and set the bowl over a small pot of simmering water. Stir constantly until the chocolate melts. Add the melted chocolate to the cream cheese mixture and beat until bended and fluffy, stopping the machine and scraping the bottom of the bowl to ensure that the mixture is well blended. Spread the frosting generously over the cooled cupcakes.

Peanut Butter and Caramel Smores

As I’ve said before, I find blogging events useful when I’m looking for inspiration. Sometimes the theme alone is enough to get me thinking in different directions. Although whether or not those different directions actually make sense is another matter entirely. When I found out The Peanut Butter Boy is hosting The Great Peanut Butter Exhibition #5 and the theme is sandwiches I immediately had an idea of what to make. It was like a cartoon light bulb went on above my head. For some reason all I could think of was a peanut butter, apple and cheddar panini. It’s not completely out of left field though, there’s a logical train of thought that brought me to that idea. It went something likes this: I like granny smith apples with peanut butter. I like apple pie with cheddar cheese. I keep seeing paninis on all the blogs and don’t use my panini maker nearly enough. Therefore, if apples are good with both peanut putter and cheddar cheese, all three should also be good together. And what better way to put them together than in a panini? Once I had the thought, I knew the only way to get it out of my head was to actually make this concoction.

When I went to get my panini maker out of the cupboard it had the waffle plates on as opposed to the panini plates and I decided that a waffle shaped sandwich was the way to go. I then built my sandwich on homemade bread, with a thick layer of peanut butter, thin slices of granny smith apples and smoked applewood cheddar cheese. I squished the whole thing into the panini/waffle maker and waited for it to do its thing. The result? Ah… it was ok. It seemed like pure genius in my head but once it was on the plate I just wanted to deconstruct it into apple slices smeared with peanut butter and a grilled cheese sandwich. The sum was not greater than its parts. Sigh.

But I couldn’t submit a less than stellar sandwich to the Peanut Butter Boy so something else had to be made. It was about at that time that I reverted back to my love of desserts for inspiration. I had some caramel sauce in the fridge, leftover from making apple strudel and I knew there were graham crackers in the cupboard, leftover from making cheesecake and before you knew it I had built a peanut butter and caramel smore. Now that’s a sandwich to be proud of! As if smores weren’t already good with layers of graham cracker, marshmallow and chocolate, I jacked them up with caramel sauce and peanut butter too! The only problem is that I now believe that all smores should be made like that… After you try it my way you’ll be a believer too.

Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24: Five Courses, Five Primary Tastes

It’s time for another round of Foodbuzz 24, 24,24, whereby 24 bloggers post about 24 different meal experiences in 24 hours. This month I proposed to make a five course meal, with each course highlighting one of the five tastes, which are bitter, salty, sour, umami and sweet. The folks at Foodbuzz thought that was a good idea so here we are! Let’s get right into it.

European Imported Beers

The first taste that I wanted to highlight was bitter. The bitter taste can also be described as sharp and can be detected in chocolate, coffee, olives, beer, bitters and some leafy greens. Since it’s my dinner to host I’m allowed to say that liquid courses count! That means it’s time for beer. To whet our appetite for more good things to come, we sampled some European imports. Beer always makes me hungry for snack food so it’s a good thing the salty course was up next.

Roasted Potatoes with Bacon, Cheese and Parsley

Salty tastes are produced predominantly by the presence of sodium ions. My favourite example of the salty flavour is bacon and I seriously debated for a while about just serving a few different slices of homemade bacon on a plate. Who wouldn’t love that? My somewhat rational side eventually vetoed that idea but only because I decided to enhance bacon with other delicious things like potatoes and cheese. Roasted Potatoes with Bacon, Cheese and Parsley from Gourmet complimented the beer perfectly and it began to become clear why it’s essential to combine all five tastes for ultimate enjoyment.

Lemon Raspberry Sorbet

After all of that saltiness we needed a palate cleanser. Sour taste buds to the rescue! Sour is the taste that detects acidity. The most common food group containing sour tastes is fruit like lemons and limes but wine can also have it. One bite of this mouth puckering Lemon Raspberry Sorbet is all you need to know exactly what sour tastes like. It’s definitely not dessert and you wouldn’t want a whole bowl of it but it was a great way to prep the mouth for umami. U-ma-what??? Just keep reading.

Roasted Veal Chops with Morels

Umami is the 5^th taste, although it is only as recent as 2002 that it has been included in culinary textbooks and literature as such. The concept, however, is not new. Escoffier identified sauces made with veal stock as having a flavor distinct from the four primary tastes although it took another hundred years before this fifth taste was finally accepted as valid. The word umami is Japanese and can mean yummy or delicious and has been described in English as meatiness, relish or savouriness. The umami taste is produced by compounds such as glutamate and is commonly found in fermented and aged foods, among others. Some examples of food containing glutamate are beef, lamb, mushrooms, parmesan and Roquefort cheese as well as soy sauce and fish sauce. I decided to take a cue from Escoffier and made Roasted Veal Chops with Morels to give my main course that umami taste.

White Chocolate Cheesecake with Chocolate Crumbs and Candied Kumquats

Finally, we end our meal with the sweet taste, one that is generally regarded as a pleasurable sensation. Sweetness is found in sugar rich foods and naturally in things like fruit, honey and maple syrup. I chose to go the less than natural, (but still very sweet) route with White Chocolate Cheesecake with Chocolate Crumbs and Candied Kumquats. Even the sour foods have been made sweet in this dessert, as kumquats are transformed into candied bites of sweetness with the aid of a simple syrup. I usually find white chocolate almost too cloyingly sweet to bear but combined with the tanginess of cream cheese it was actually quite enjoyable. Which reminds me, although each of the primary tastes can be delicious on their own, they’re at their best when combined with one another for a more complete and well rounded flavour. And although I enjoyed my five courses of tastes, I like how they play off of each other best as opposed to being sampled separately.

Be sure to check out the other 24, 24, 24 meals, there are sure to be some interesting ones that no doubt make full use of all five primary tastes. And if you’re looking for umami, look no further than the following recipe for Roasted Veal Chops with Morels.

Roasted Veal Chops with Morels, (From Gourmet, Adapted from Jean-Jacques Rachou and Charlie Palmer)

1 1/2 cups boiling water

1 1/4 oz dried morels (about 1 1/3 cups)

2 (1 1/3-inch-thick) veal rib chops

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 garlic clove, smashed

1 thyme sprig

1 tablespoon finely chopped shallot

2 tablespoon Cognac

1/2 tablespoon chopped chives

1 teaspoon chopped tarragon

Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle.

Pour boiling water over morels in a small bowl and soak until morels are softened, about 30 minutes. Transfer morels with a slotted spoon to a medium-mesh sieve set over a bowl. Press on morels with back of spoon to remove excess liquid (be careful not to squeeze out all the moisture), then add to soaking liquid and reserve. Rinse morels to remove any grit. Reserve morels and liquid separately, allowing liquid to settle.

While morels soak, let veal chops stand at room temperature 30 minutes.

Pat chops dry and season with 1/2 teaspoon each of salt and pepper (total). Heat an ovenproof 12-inch heavy skillet (not nonstick) over medium-high heat until hot. Add oil and heat until smoking, then add veal chops and sear underside well, 2 to 3 minutes. Turn chops over and sear 1 minute.

Add butter, garlic, and thyme to skillet and baste veal with melting butter. Transfer skillet to oven and cook, basting every few minutes, until an instant-read thermometer inserted horizontally into center of chop registers 130 to 135°F for medium-rare, 10 to 15 minutes.

Transfer chops to a plate to rest. Discard garlic and thyme, keeping juices and fat in skillet, and return to burner over medium-high heat. (Handle will be very hot.) Add morels and sauté 1 minute. Add shallot and sauté 1 minute.

Remove from heat briefly and add Cognac, then return to heat and deglaze, stirring and scraping up brown bits, until most of liquid has evaporated. Slowly pour in reserved soaking liquid, being careful to leave last tablespoon (containing sediment) in bowl. Add meat juices from plate and boil until liquid has reduced to about 1/3 cup.

Stir in crème fraîche, swirling to incorporate, and boil until morels are lightly coated and liquid is slightly thickened. Stir in chives and tarragon and season with salt and pepper. Serve chops smothered with morels.