Archive for April, 2011
Yes, I got sucked into all the hooplah a little bit. Despite the ridiculousness of it all – $454,000 for a dress – more than our house cost – for someone who would look completely stunning in something from Old Navy? Oy.
But I saw this cake somewhere – it’s everywhere today – and loved that it was so… lowbrow. A big chocolate truffle filled with crunchy chunks of digestive biscuits that looks like stained glass or chocolate salami when sliced. If you love those chocolate covered digestive biscuits, multiply that by a thousand or so and you have this no-bake, no-cake cake. It takes about five minutes to assemble, then sets up in the fridge. If you can’t have the 10,000 ? wedding cake (more craziness!) you can easily have the groom’s cake. Considering the wedding cake itself was a fancy fruitcake covered with fondant, I’d choose the latter, anyway.
(Note: this is somewhat thinner than it would otherwise be – I dropped a dozen spoonfuls of the mixture into paper-lined mini muffin tins to bring on a three-tiered plate to BT this morning. The bite-sized versions were a hit, too.)
Chocolate Biscuit Cake – Prince William’s Groom Cake
Each click took me to a new version of this cake. This is how I did it. I’m tempted to replace the butter with peanut butter next time…
1 cup heavy (whipping) cream
1/3 cup butter
2 1/2 cups chopped semi-sweet chocolate or chocolate chips
8 oz. McVities Digestive cookies or tea biscuits, broken into pieces
Dark cocoa or powdered sugar, for dusting (optional)
Line an 8” round springform (or regular) pan with a piece of parchment in the bottom.
In a medium saucepan, heat the cream and butter over medium heat; once the butter has melted, stir in the chocolate and set aside for a few minutes. Stir until smooth.
Stir in the broken cookies and spread in the prepared pan. Refrigerate until firm.
If you like, dust with cocoa or icing sugar before cutting into thin wedges. Serves lots.
April 29 2011 | cake and dessert | 18 Comments »
Move over, cupcake.
So there I was, midmorning, minding my own business, hammering away on something or other in the spare bedroom that is my office. I got up at 6 and went to the gym. I had coffee and toast with peanut butter for breakfast. I was good until lunch.
Then came an email. Did I know about Jelly yet? Why no… do tell.
I went over immediately. (It’s on 8th St and 14th Ave, kitty corner to Kawa.)
Finally. Finally! A real doughnut shop. With none other than Grayson Sherman, who’s back from New York and the executive chef at Saint Germain, at the helm in the kitchen. Which means some local and organic ingredients. Chinook Honey, Vablella Meats, Vital Green and Lund’s Organic- carrots? Yes – in the carrot cake doughnuts with mascarpone frosting. Valbella bacon sprinkled over the maple dip with bacon. House-made marshmallows for the s’mores doughnuts. A chef’s special creation every Saturday. Doughnuts realizing their own potential.
Not only that – there are hot modern cinnamon buns all day long. (Raised dough filled with Saigon cinnamon sugar, rolled, sliced and finished with mascarpone icing.)
Did I mention the maple bacon doughnuts?
CHECK OUT THIS MENU!
This is not helping my cause. Maybe if I just run there and back?
They also do doughnut birthday platters.
They even have a nice new community room you can reserve, with a long white table and wee counter on one end. Perhaps a board meeting is in order, or some sort of meeting of the minds (and stomachs) over freshly made doughnuts. Or just coffee and doughnuts in a private room with a dozen of your favourite people.
I thought you should know.
Maybe we should all go for doughnuts sometime.
Jelly modern doughnuts: 100 1414 8 street SW, phone 403-453-2053
Monday to Friday 7:00am – 6:00pm
Saturday 8:00am – 6:00pm
Sunday closed
April 27 2011 | eating out | 24 Comments »
The one upside to eating less and letting your body burn some of its on-board fuel? Everything tastes fanfreakingtastic.
One of the downsides? Arriving home from a long day that ended at the gym ravenous and trying not to nibble my way through enough calories to cancel out those 45 minutes on the elliptical trainer while getting dinner on the table. These are the times my brain becomes a ninety pound weakling easily shoved over by my bully of a stomach.
Did I just date myself?
I’ll tell you something though – I did not settle for just a salad. Greens with roasted beets (golden, this time), sugared toasted pecans and soft goat cheese that melts into maple-balsamic dressing is one of my favourite things. (Who needs whiskers on kittens?)
And even when you’re hungry, it’s worth the extra minutes for toasted, sugared pecans. I want to show you something someone showed me years ago, and now I can’t remember who, but it was one of those little tips that stuck.
To toast pecans (or walnuts) quickly with a bit of a sugary coating, run pieces or halves under water in a colander, then dust them with icing (powdered) sugar, still in the colander.
Shake them about a bit to sort of coat them, then proceed with toasting them in the oven, toaster oven or stovetop. I imagine you could add a shake of spice along with the sugar, too – cinnamon or cumin or paprika. I kind of like the straight-up sweetness. Better than leftover chocolate eggs, even.
April 26 2011 | salads | 16 Comments »
What I’m digesting right now: this peanut brittle pie. With a maple crumb crust.
(OK, an Easter mostly in pictures. And some words.)
My mother-in-law came for dinner tonight. Her favourite sweet is peanut brittle, so I always make her a batch, using my Grandma’s recipe. I decided to turn some of it into dessert – a pie, made with ice cream, since she likes a dish of vanilla now and then.
We didn’t have graham crumbs, but rooting around the back of the cupboard I came up with a sleeve of those maple sandwich cookies I get for Mike sometimes because he likes them, and so I ground them in the food processor. The icing in the middle is about enough for the crumbs to stick and bake together without adding melted butter. I added a drizzle of canola oil as I blended them, just in case. Maple crumb crust? I may not bother with graham crumbs again.
After baking (350F for 7 minutes) and cooling the crust, I spread half a big tub of softened vanilla ice cream into the bottom, then drizzled it with caramel sauce and returned it to the freezer. Then I crushed some peanut brittle overtop, spread on the rest of the tub of ice cream, and put it back in the freezer. When it was time for dessert, I topped it with another drizzle of sauce and handful of peanut brittle before bringing it to the table. Shirley ate two slices, and Mike said it was pretty wow, and thinks we should work on perfecting it so that we can get moving on world domination.
Dinner before was turkey, cauliflower gratin, chopped salad, and roasted sweet potatoes – small, dark-fleshed ones, poked with a fork and tucked directly on the oven rack beside the turkey for the last hour of cooking time. If you haven’t done it before, this is the sticky goodness you’ll get when you peel back the skin of a roasted sweet potato:
To rewind, there was brunch this morning at my parents’, with ham sausage from Pincher Creek (from Bite in Inglewood).
Mom made chicken salad with hard boiled eggs and grapes – a different yet somehow obvious combo.
There’s always an enormous bowl of fruit salad. My sister made crepes. My nephew sauteed apples.
There were cousins hunting for eggs. (The chocolate kind.)
Yesterday, a kitchen full of friends and neighbours descended on our house. Tasha brought eggs (the chicken kind) from her brother’s farm. They were precious – some half the size of those we’re used to. Some of the kids thought we had painted them already.
We made waffles on Lesley’s grandma’s waffle maker, which had two settings: Off and Inferno. The waffles always came out perfect. Except the ones I forgot.
And we had warm cinnamon sticky biscuits, which some of us decreed better than real, yeast-risen cinnamon buns, even. Honestly, these are the bomb. I don’t want to even tell you that the dough contains no butter, only 1/4 cup of canola oil, and yet are amazingly soft, tender, melting.. with just the right amount of goo. Please try them. You just must. Trust.
Don’t wait for next Easter.
April 24 2011 | dessert | 11 Comments »
Today the house was full. A dozen or so kids waited upstairs while we filled the living room with jelly beans and chocolate eggs, then descended the stairs like locusts, cleaning the place out in minutes. Then they played on the back porch and in the basement while the grownups sat in the kitchen, nibbling cinnamon buns and waffles while Mike played barista, making lattes for us all. We need to do this Easter thing more often.
I made another batch of that matzo crack, and some hot crossed buns, because I think I’d miss them if I didn’t. I posted the recipe here a couple years ago, so the refresher is over at the Family Kitchen.
April 23 2011 | leftovers | 6 Comments »
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