Creating Occasions

Spring Cleaning Takes on a New Attitude … Your Kitchen Cupboards!

admin — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 01:20:58 +0000

Spring cleaning your pantry

Ok, I’ll admit it, I too start off with the rest of the house before heading towards my kitchen cupboards and the dreaded freezer. If you’re like me, you purchase a can or two more than what you know you will actually need, just in case something goes wrong with a recipe. Now you’re left with odds and sods in your cupboards. A few more steps and we will soon discover a few small bags of frozen fruits or vegetables from the garden as well. Now what??? Left overs have taken on a whole new meaning.

Well, we have a couple of choices right now. Easter weekend is right around the corner and the kids have just nicely returned to school from Spring Break. So healthy muffins in everyone’s lunches is my first place to start, then we can concentrate on dessert and snack options for arriving family members for the holiday weekend.

Pumpkin muffins in fun shapes

I’m sure you will have some favourite standbys of pumpkin or cherry pie filling tucked away in the back of the cupboard from the previous holiday season. Freeze teaspoon size dollops of pie filling. then set the frozen balls on top of a high fiber muffin recipe and voila! You have the classic Fruit Explosion style muffin in your own oven! Left over glazed fruits or nuts from a Christmas cake recipe can also be added to loaves, cookies, Sunday brunch scones or even your upcoming hot cross buns.

There’s no better way to clear out the freezer than a few homemade soups and stews with your garden, freshly frozen vegetables and mixed fruit crumbles with the spare bags of berries or peaches. Don’t forget your morning smoothie or low fat yogurts. Bake off any left over crumble mix on a tray of its own and store it in a container to top your yogurt.

Strawberry/Blueberry Crumble from frozen berries.

Both your frozen fruits and baked crumble topping can also be added to a plain or spiced muffin mix as you scoop it daily. What you didn’t know you could save raw muffin mix? Oh yeah! Any recipe that calls for creaming the butter and the sugar can be stored in the fridge for up to 5 days with great success. Then you can change the recipe daily by just sprinkling frozen fruits on top of the mix before you scoop it. Then top the muffins with your crumble mix before baking. Now you have added texture, fiber and flavour to a family favourite recipe. A win, win all the way around!

Before you know it your cupboards and your freezers will be all emptied out, cleaned up and ready to refill with the rewards of the fresh summer season! And with very little effort, these options can be healthy and calorie conscious as well.

St. Patrick’s Day Slides into Spring Break

admin — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 04:42:43 +0000

And here we thought we’d have a hard time finding creative things to do with our kids over the next two weeks … nope!

Decorated cookies make hours of great fun!

Thanks to some creative planning on someone’s part, St. Patrick’s Day has been placed right in the middle of everything. What a better time to turn your life green! Green milk shakes of lime or mint, green lime zest butter on shamrock shaped pancakes or stick to the basics by decorating cupcakes or cookies in some great St. Patrick’s Day theme shapes.

Hand made table decorations brighten the house and give little people a sense of helping.

As we look back into our pasts, what sticks out in our minds the most? I know for me it was when the holidays were brought to life with dramatic and colourful celebration. This doesn’t have to cost a lot of money to create amazing memories for our kids. A quick stop at the craft store for some green supplies of paper, markers and tape, a trip to the grocery store to stock up on a few missing baking & food supplies and few minutes of searching our favourite cookbooks and we now have a week’s worth of short activities that you and the kids will enjoy. We can create a fun table of Shamrock placemats, cup wraps and placecards to go with our creative green themed menus. Add a few room decorations as the days continue and the week is passing by without a hitch!

Cupcake fun!

Time to search the cupboards for some cookie cutters, sprinkles and green food colouring and we are off to some great St. Patrick’s Day – Spring Break fun!

HAPPY BAKING!

Babycakes goes for a Test Drive

admin — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 01:19:11 +0000

Babycakes by Select Brands Inc.

You know it’s a good day when one of your staff brings in a cake pop machine and says “Let’s take this for a test drive!” Clear the decks ladies .. I’m in!

I have to say that as a seasoned Pastry Chef, I was a little skeptical about a waffle iron type machine being able to pull off the strength required for the outer crust, the required rise to create a perfect ball or heat needed to completely bake a cake pop in 4 minutes. So we tested it out and here’s what we found ….

Depending on the recipe used, you either need to pipe the liquidy batter into the 12 half sphere cavities or use a #60 (purple) scoop for thick recipes.
Fill to just under the top of the sphere

When filling the cavities, the cake batter needs to come just slightly under full so that it completes the ball and still doesn’t spill out the sides. It is better to over fill then under fill, this way you still have a successful pop.
Yes, they do bake in 4 minutes as long as the batter is light, 6 minutes for something closer to a cake doughnut (yeah don’t get me started on that … yum).
The fork provided helps pull out the little devils really easily. Then place them bake side down as this surface is firmer and won’t collapse a spongy recipe i.e. a box mix.
The cooling rack/holder they provide has a small hole in each sphere for the pop stick later on. This provides an extra bit of air flow so the pops don’t sweat too much as they cool. However, the holes are too close together and too open for the sticks they provide and they tend to lean a bit and can hit each other while drying. I suggest a piece of 12″ square Styrofoam to put them in instead. This can hold 36 pops, which is the size of most recipes and it can be decorated to transport or display the pops later.
If you happen to over fill the cavities during baking, this can be removed very easily with the fork supplied or pull the attached pops out and allow them to cool completely. The over flow gets really crunchy and breaks off really well. Then you can crumble this fairly fine in your grinder and use it to decorate the pops with.
Much like a waffle iron, the plastic outer coating protects you from getting burned but just remember that the metal portion does come to the edge. You can still get a small burn from the side.
The only thing this cutesy little machine needs is a built in timer.

Babycake Results

So all in all I would highly recommend this cake pop maker but don’t limit yourself to just cake pops. This will work well for savory muffin batters, doughnuts, cookie pops and a whole lot of other great baking fun ideas! I think with a little more research and I might just be posting some more ideas on this “Too Cool” gadget.

The photos from our test day can be found on the Facebook page.

Valentine’s Day is Approaching … What Will You Do?

admin — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:10:43 +0000

Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

There’s nothing more exciting then celebrating the passing holidays with your family. As a Mom, this is not only my opportunity to give the kids an event to look forward to and enjoy but also an opportunity to re-live the things I may have wanted to do as a kid myself. Valentine’s crafts of paper cut outs and mail boxes for their rooms just start the 2 weeks of red, white & pink activities. But as a Pastry Chef, you know that baking activities get included too!

No matter what the age group, there is a baking creation that they can do. For the little people 4 and under, cookie cut outs with sprinkle decorations give them the sense of control when choosing the shapes and sprinkles for their designs. Ages 5-7 can easily make heart shaped scones or pancakes. These can be flavoured with cranberries and other red dried fruits or you can be really adventurous and add pink food colouring to the batter. Age 8 and up just opens the window of opportunity for creativity! Most children this age can measure the ingredients and scrape down the bowl for making cupcakes, brownies and all sorts of goodies. They can use a piping bag to decorate with different coloured icings and sprinkles.

Valentine's Cupcakes

The best thing we can give our kids are great memories of time spent with us … enjoy the up coming holidays with fresh flowers and special dinners in a red, white and pink theme … have fun!

Get the New Year started on the Right Foot … with Your Kids!

admin — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 04:18:04 +0000

Don't worry, they won't drive you as crazy as you think!

Even though I was raised in a family were the generations passed down recipes and spent a lot of time socializing in the kitchen, times have really changed and life seems to have gotten away from us. I’ll admit that I never spent a lot of kitchen time with my daughter growing up (who is now a Mom herself) but I do with the 3 little ones and her two now. I don’t think they are ever too young to start in the kitchen. After all, how cool is it to mush an egg into hamburger meat or roll meat balls when your 2!

Make this weekend your time to start .. or re-start! And what a better place than pancakes. My Granddaughter was not quite 4 when we made her first batch of homemade pancakes and she did a great job!! Mickey Mouse is a great shape to make this new plain batch memorable. Pour a large circle with two smaller circles at the top of his head and voila! You’re done!

Mickey pancakes are the best!

Then you can graduate to large cookie cutters as molds. As much fun as all those shaped pans are … and yes I have one, you can use any large cutter cutter to do the same job with the flat pan you have at home. Just spray baking spray inside the cutter before you pour the batter in so you can use a set of tongs to pull it away once the pancake starts cooking. The secret is not to leave it on until the pancake side is completely done. That is when the cutter begins to stick. Once the bubbles just begin to form the cutter can be removed with out the batter spilling out. With Valentine’s Day around the corner what a perfect cutter to start with!

Buttermilk pancakes are also a lot easier to make than a lot of people think. Here is a great recipe to get you started in the right direction. Normally I would always give you a recipe in weight (as that is always the way they should be put together) but I know some of you may not have a scale at home right now and we really want to get started. You’re going to want to blend 2 cups of sifted all-purpose flour, 2 tablespoons of white sugar, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda and 1/2 teaspoon of salt together with a whisk in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together 2 cups of buttermilk, 2 large eggs, 1/4 cup of sour cream and 3 tablespoons of melted, yet slightly cooled unsalted butter (microwave will do fine). With your fingers, make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients. Pour the blended liquid into the well and stir until just combined. If there there are small lumps remaining that is fine. Do not work them out. Let the batter rest for about 10 minutes before spooning it into the frying pan. This is the perfect time to gather plates, utensils and other things required for the morning table.

Use a heart cookie cutter

Additional ingredients like dried cranberries or chocolate chips make this even more of a memorable adventure! Pre-heat your flattest fry pan and add approximately 2 tablespoons of oil to prevent sticking. I prefer to sprinkle fresh blueberries or other items onto the pancake batter immediately before they are scooped and poured onto the pan rather than weighing the batter down or over mixing to add them into the mix. Once the batter is made you will lose air and subsequent fluffiness if you continue to stir it. Once bubbles begin to form on the surface of the pancake you are ready to flip it to the other side for approximately 2-3 minutes.

Your kids are going to come up with several different ways to serve the pancakes but a light dusting of icing sugar, a dollop of whipped cream, a toss of fresh fruit and a drizzle of real maple syrup has always been my favourite!! If you can’t serve your pancakes right from the pan the best way to keep them warm is by placing a pan of boiling water at the bottom of your pre-heat 200*F oven. This will keep your oven and your pancakes moist while you cook the rest of your servings.

Yum … I think I need a batch of those myself now. Happy pancake-ing!

New Year’s Parties Help In So Many Ways

admin — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 19:27:35 +0000

New Year's Celebrations

Besides getting together with friends and family for that last Hurray of the year, New Year’s celebrations also help with cleaning out your freezers of all that holiday baking you’ve been stock piling for the last while. Buffets are perfect for this!

After all the kitchen mess endured from Christmas the last thing you want to do is to stir up a whole new one. Contact all your closest friends and make this New Year’s a pot luck. You won’t be the only one that has a few odds and ends still kicking around. This allows for a greater selection of buffet items and helps everyone clean the pantry slate for a fresh beginning.

Turn leftovers into something new. Rum balls are great for combining neutral cake scraps. As weird as this may sound, its how rum balls have been made for generations. A remaining yule log, some cupcakes, even the last couple of Stolen slices. Blend them up in your mixer with some cocoa powder and strawberry jam until the mixture is smooth. Add enough rum or artificial rum flavouring

Fresh Homemade Ice Cream

to give a slightly more than subtle taste and you have yourself a winner. Scoop this into bite size balls and refrigerate for at least an hour. This will firm the balls up enough to allow you to roll the little darlings in chocolate and vermicelli (pure chocolate sprinkles).

Did you get an ice cream machine for Christmas? This is another way to recycle your favourite desserts. Make a vanilla base and just as you’re finishing the freezing cycle, add chopped frozen dessert pieces like mince meat tarts or my favourite … pumpkin pie!

Enjoy yourself … and I’ll be seeing you in the New Year!!!!

Christmas Cake Recipe

admin — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 01:48:51 +0000

Traditional Christmas Fruitcake

And here it is, a Christmas Cake recipe that I’m sure you and your family will love. This batch size may seam large as it will make 3 – 9×13x3 pans but by the time you have sliced a few for yourself to sample, the family sneaks through to snatch a few slices and you give a few loaves away as gifts, you won’t be left with much to enjoy yourself! Remember, try to make this in January and you will be amazed at the difference in both flavour and texture next season after it has had a year to cure with four or five soakings over that period of time.

Christmas Fruit Cake

600g Raisins
600g Currants
600g Whole Glazed Cherries (or Glazed Mixed Fruit)
600g Chopped Dates
600g Chopped Nuts (Slivered Almonds are Preferred)
400g Mixed Orange & Lemon Peel
300ml Brandy
300ml Sherry or Port

Soak these overnight or for 24 hours so the fruits will gain the flavour and the nuts will soften from the alcohol.

10g Instant Coffee
120ml Hot Water

300g Unsalted Butter
300g Brown Sugar
8 Eggs
200g Raspberry jam
670g All Purpose Flour
25g Baking Powder
30g Cocoa Powder
5g Cinnamon
5g All Spice
5g Nutmeg

Method:

Blend hot water and instant coffee together and set it aside. This blend is stronger than brewed coffee.
Cream butter and brown sugar
Gradually add eggs, maintaining a light fluffy mixture
Gently fold in the jam
Sift remaining ingredients together 3 times to ensure an even blend
Alternate the addition of the coffee mixture and the dry ingredients to maintain the air content you’ve developed
Fold in Soaked fruits by hand
Bake in paper lined pans at 300*F for approximately 2 hours

**Baking time will vary depending on the size of your pans. Smaller loaves will bake in the shorter amount of time.

Christmas Fruitcake … Is It Ever Too Late or Too Early to Make?

admin — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 03:48:20 +0000

Traditional Christmas Fruitcake

Well that all depends on who your talking to and the type that you’re making. Personally, I like the traditional dark fruitcake. This, in my opinion, needs to be made months in advance and soaked well so that the flavours develop and the nuts and fruits can soften so cutting is clean and smooth. I normally take this one step further and soak the nuts and fruits together over night before I even bake it. However, if you’re making the lighter fruitcake with no nuts then you can get away with making it a month or even a few weeks in advance.

Light Fruitcake

When making light fruitcake you may wish to omit the nuts. Without the time to soak and cure your cake the nuts will stick to your knife and pull through the cake. They will need to be softened before baking for sure. One trick is to place them in a bowl with baking soda and hot water for about 6-12 hours. Rinse the excess soda off them and then continue with your recipe. Most light versions do not have almond paste and fondant on them so this gives you some freedom to change up your pan shapes to add to the decorative effect. Your recipe in these will be very important so your product is not dry. Make sure all your ingredients are at room temperature so baking is even. Otherwise a high ratio of fruits like this can cause cool spots in your cake batter and therefore under baked areas within the pan. Prolonged baking will then dry out the final product.

Clean slicing from a well cured cake

Just me … the sooner the better. I normally make my fruitcakes in January and there are several reasons for this. The most important of course is the time to cure my cakes. Soaking them in rum or your favourite alcohol will preserve them so there is no fear of molding. Wrapping them in cheesecloth will hold the moisture in during storage. It is not necessary to freeze the cakes but you can if you feel uncomfortable with them being out that long. Just bring them back to room temperature before soaking again. A good cure result would be to bring them out 4 times a year and give them another gentle soaking. (see why you don’t need to freeze them ) The other reason I like to make them in January is cost. Grocery stores will put the ingredients left over from the season on sale in January to clear the shelves. Nuts are increasingly expensive and you can save yourself a bundle by purchasing what you need in January.

Decorative molds make attractive gifts

Now your question would be how do I package a gift cake then if the cakes are made so far in advance? Personally, I still like the bake-in molds. I use them for baking and curing and then place the cakes into another mold at Christmas time. After soaking the cakes a few times the molds can start to leak and develop stain marks but the strength is maintained. I don’t have to worry about the cakes breaking throughout the year and when I give them away they have an attractive look and I only need to decorate the top with marzipan and fondant. The cost savings here more than pays for the second mold.

So when Christmas memory kicks in … is the fruitcake silky smooth with a clean cut and a rich flavourful or does it give you a hard time with cutting, breaking apart and requires a beverage?? There’s still time to change to an easier tradition.

Not all Pumpkin is Treated Equally

admin — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 16:00:42 +0000

Render fresh pumpkin

We don’t always have the time but rendering your own pumpkin puree will yield you a much stronger flavour and it is really quite simple. All you have to do is wash the outside of your pumpkin, slice it up and scrape out the seeds and lining. Keeping the skins on, rub it down with a little butter (this part is optional but very tasty) and bake it in a 325*F oven until the flesh of the pumpkin has darkened in colour and is visibly dehydrating.

As the water evaporates and the naturally occurring sugars begin to caramelize, the flavour begins to develop. The skins will also impart flavour during baking as well, so for this reason, I’m not much of a fan of rendering pumpkin or really any solid fruit or vegetable by boiling it. Even apple sauce is better baked as a whole apple and mashed versus boiling the pieces in a sauce pot. You’re going to tell that your pumpkin is ready to come out of the oven when the skins begin to loose their smooth shape and wrinkle. The flesh of the pumpkin will be almost as dark as your memory of a finished pie. There is a distinct colour difference between fresh puree and rendered puree.

Raw pureee versus render

Remove the tray from the oven and let it cool for about 10 minutes before attempting to peel back the skins. When the skins are warm they can be quite brittle but will release in one strip when allowed to return to room temperature. Now you can mash up your baked pumpkin and use this puree in any recipe you like.

I love making a stove top pumpkin filling. The reason I am referring to this as just purely a filling is because much like a curd, I can use this cooked filling as a flavour base in just about anything. You can add it to a homemade ice cream base, flavour mousses, pour it into tart and pie shells, add it to either baked or non-baked cheesecake, layer it in a parfait, fold it into white ganache for truffles or cake fillings and fold it into most muffin recipes!

Pumpkin Filling (Stove Top)

1500 gm Pumpkin, 8 Eggs, 1 lt Scalded Whipping Cream, 350 gm Brown Sugar, 75 gm Flour,

2 tsp Salt, 2 tsp Ginger, 2 tsp Mace, 2 tsp Nutmeg, 2 tsp Cinnamon

Mix everything together except the eggs and cook it over a Bain Marie (double boiler) until it darkens slightly.
Temper beaten eggs with hot mix and add to main batch. Stir constantly until mix thickens (approximately 5 minutes)
Spoon into prepared shells or refrigerate for future use.
Shelf life: 7 days refrigerated. (Freezes well)

Of course I’m not suggesting not to use can pumpkin, the only thing I would suggests, is that you read the labels carefully. Not all brands are made equally. Some load up on preservatives and other chemicals that we are trying to avoid and some will also use a squash and pumpkin combination. Not to say that squash is bad in anyway, it just is not what you’re looking or paying for and will not produce as strong of a “traditional” pumpkin pie flavour.

Now … really step out of the box and stir up the family with a whole new spin on Thanksgiving pumpkin! Give a new dessert idea a whirl with your new found recipe!!

It’s not Thanksgiving unless there’s Pumpkin Pie

admin — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 17:12:51 +0000

Homemade is better!

I get asked all the time “How do you make the pie so it’s not soggy on the bottom?” … well, your cookbook is giving you the answer just not telling you directly. When you are asked to first bake the pie at 375*F for 15 minutes and then turn the temperature down to 325*F that is to cook the pie shell before the filling has a chance to heat up too much. But of course there is a better, “no-fail” way.

Now I’ll apologize for you missing the demonstration of this added to the sold out Pies & Flans class next week but I will be posting the video of this demonstration here on the Blog after the class for any of you who missed it. I will also be adding a demonstration for mince meat pies in the December class.

When I make my pies, I change the recipe altogether. First, I use a sweet dough shell instead as it provides better flavour and texture. This shell is pre-baked and then I add my cooked pumpkin filling in last. “WHAT?” You ask … yep, cook your pie filling with the same ingredients and amounts as you would normally use but this time you are going to cook this mixture in a double boiler on the stove. Once the mixture has thickened and darkened in colour it is ready to pour into the pre-baked pie shell and allowed to set in the fridge for approximately an hour.

If this doesn’t sound traditional enough for your liking, no problem, par-bake your normal pie shell so that the colour is just starting the turn and it no longer looks translucent. Then pour your warm (from scalding the cream) pie mixture in the shell and bake it 300*F for slightly longer than you normally would. Again you’re thinking I’m crazy … nope, pumpkin pie has a lot of egg and that means that the filling needs to set rather than “bake”. The cracking and pulling from the sides is the egg souffle-ing from the extreme heat and collapsing as it cools. When this mix shrinks it will either pull from the shell or crack down the center if the sides won’t let go .. but I assure you … it will break somewhere! If you allow it to set like a creme brule it will work out just fine!

Make it fresh!

Next week we will talk about rendering your fresh pumpkin so that you have a strong flavour!