Canadian baking

Get it? Huh? Huh? Get it?

Sorry, bad punnery. Simply referring to one of the two things I made this afternoon: butter tarts.One of those quintessentially Canadian things to me - people here get such an odd look on their faces when I mention them. They can't seem to fathom them at all. So much the better for the Motherland - something special we can confine to our Tim Horton's!

Tim Ho's, by the way, does a better job with these than I do. So does my Mum, whose recipe I was relying on. Does she use dark brown sugar? How does she get hers to behave differently and look differently? Mine taste alright, but they aren't right. It's moderately frustrating, and redeemed only by the fact that Conrad can take them in to work, and his colleagues will have nothing to base them against.

I also made a batch of cookies; in fact, I made them first.Oatmeal cookies with dried apricots and pistachios. The dough tasted good, and they smelled wonderful while baking. We'll see how they go over on Monday with the people we give them to.

Relaxation

Sometimes a fun, relaxing evening at home by myself is perfect for accomplishing nothing more useful than some baking.

Alors, jam tartlets (quince and blackberry), scones (dried apricot and pistachio, dried fig and walnut), and an eccles cake using scrap pastry.

And it's an Ugly Betty to boot! Ahhhhh.

On the first day of Thanksgiving my true love gave to me...

..well, nothing really, though he did stay mostly out of my way while I spent much of the early part of the day in the kitchen.

What a beautiful autumn day to have off and overeat! It should be like this more often. I'm not horribly full - I think having the dinner at an earlier time and then taking a walk in the neighbourhood when we got home was a good idea for helping with the full belly. Plus, I ate not much - but not well - the rest of the day. Mostly picking at things and "tasting" as I baked.

Ah, yes, baking. I'm back. I sort of started last night with some pastry to chill overnight. Conrad and his Mom had made a couple of pies as well. She made a key lime pie that was a big hit tonight while he made a pecan pie that I enjoyed. For my part, I was out the door just before seven to walk to Jewel, buy some things, stop at Starbucks for a coffee, then home to get going. Jam tartlets were up first - a warm up exercise, in quince and blueberry. Then it was the pumpkin cheesecake (from the cookbook I gave you, Jeph - if you try it, bake it a little longer, perhaps). Brown butter blueberry tart was the third thing. When it came out of the oven, the two layers for the almond torte with lemon glaze went in. I also got soup mostly made up for tomorrow's tree-trimming (split pea with smoked turkey) and pastry and candied sweet potato for the meat pie I'll also make.

The photo doesn't show the cake put together, alas, but it does give an idea of what I got done.

In this photo, though you can some of the results as well as some of the other desserts. Not shown are some Japanese treats flavoured with sweet bean paste. Also not shown are a plate of chocolate Kahlua cupcakes. On the lower left you can see the key lime pie with the pecan pie behind it. My blueberry tart is next to the key lime pie, and the finished almond torte is on the lower right. The cheesecake is farther back on the table, between the bundt-style cake and cupcakes and behind the pumpkin pie. Debbie's desserts are the kick-ass ones on the table - I love her coconut cake immensely!

Conrad and his Mom took a walk of their own, and we took another one together before they started on putting the tree together.

3:15ish was when we arrived at Yoshi's. Michael and Laura are the hosts of the dinner, but it has outgrown their place. We now have it at the restaurant (which makes it easier for Yoshi than having to transport the turkeys). People still bring food - we weren't the only ones with desserts, in fact. A good crowd there.

Some photos of people(Michael and Mari, Yoshi and Nobuko's daughter)

(Nobuko and Yoshi)

(Fernando and Scott)

(Debbie - dessert goddess, truly! - with Conrad and Tom - lucky boyfriend of Debbie)

(Laura, Kobe, Michael)

(Conrad and Laura)

and food.(one of the three turkeys - the deep-fried one, I believe)







You may be stuffed (unless you're a Canadistani friend, as FXK would call it), so I hope the sight of more food will not be too dreadful!

Buttermilk baking binge

You know how it is. You have a litre of buttermilk in your fridge, and you've meant to use it. And suddenly, it's at its expiry date, so you gotta use it fast.

Welcome to my Thursday night.

Oh, I'll come clean, I had wanted to do baking tonight anyway. Souffles aside, it had been far too long since last I really baked. And, sadly, the rustiness showed.

Conrad cooked dinner for me. Yes, it was his specialty: turkey burgers. And yes, I did make the (simple) salad dressing - oooh, try this: just toss the salad with a little plain low fat yogurt, salt, and pepper. Easy, breezy, yummy salad dressing! In any case, he did this for me since I was so late home from work. As if I didn't have reason enough to love him.

Dinner done, I settled into the kitchen. Before dinner I'd looked up a few recipes using buttermilk, so a few things - the cakes - were new to me tonight. I put on some CanCon and got to work. Jane, Kate and Anna, Holly Cole, Rufus, Martha, the Ladies, kd, and others: ahhhhhh....

First up: get some lightly sweet pastry made and put into the fridge to rest. Not a problem doing it, but I'm not happy with the result. More shortly.

Next up: warm sour apple and buttermilk torte. That's the recipe name, but I suspect it will be served up room temperature at either Conrad's office or the Library tomorrow. An easy enough recipe, and the apples atop the cake do look attractive. The texture seems light, though I had hoped it would rise a little more. Ah well. Pretty simple cake otherwise.

Then: jam tartlets. Damson plum and raspberry. These things are popular at work, and I haven't made them in ages. I decided I was burned out on blackberry after the souffles, and I only had a little of my precious Saskatoon berry jam, so the two flavours are what resulted. Now then, the pastry: I think I used too little butter in it (and yes, Steven, I know lard makes pastry best, but butter is what I had on hand). It all held together and wasn't too wet, but I think it became easily overworked. The tartlets are alright. I ate one (and ugh - how much dough/batter did I consume tonight? Far too much. Bad Peter!) and thought it too crispy, not flaky or rich. Butter does that, I know, makes things crisp, but I think some more butter would have been better. Am I getting too alliterative here? The other concern is that the filling is a little skimpy. The jam boils up during the baking, and if it overflows the pastry, it's a real nuisance to clean up, let alone try to fish an intact tartlet out of the tin. I haven't made them in a while, and my eyeballing abilities have atrophied.

I took the leftover scraps of pastry I hadn't eaten and made something like what my Mum used to do. She called it an eccles cake and filled it with raisins, butter, sugar, and cinnamon. I had some apple slices leftover from the first cake, so I diced them and used them in place of the raisins. A misshapen little thing, but it should taste alright. I've had eccles cakes from bakeries in Canada and the UK - they aren't exactly like Mum would make.

After that: a maple buttermilk spice cake. Not sure how this one will be. I think I may have had it in a bit long as well, for the cake seems a bit dense and, well, solid. We'll see. I have yet to unmold that one.

And then: two simple buttermilk cakes that are meant to be brushed liberally with a syrup made from sweet dessert wine and topped with macerated berries. Not tonight. Two cake layers, each of which I will wrap and freeze and use for a furture casual dinner party when I can dress one or both with a syrup, some cream, some fruit, whatever. Maybe a wedge alongside poached pears?

Finally: chocolate chip and candied ginger scones, something to honour the good mornings back in Terrace when I would show up at Skeena Jr. Secondary with some fresh from the oven to give to my friend Greer on her break. I hope she made the other teachers jealous! Man, I am rusty. I forgot that I had adjusted the recipe to make twelve rather than ten, so these scones are big! I think they turned out well. Jeph received his copy of the cookbook I use for them today. May he give them a go and play with other combos of things for them rather than the currants in the recipe.

And that, my friends, used the entire litre exactly. Conrad did have to run to the store downstairs for eggs, but ah well.

Ah, and just to brag a little (oh let me - I have the tartlets' pastry to keep me humble!): I got all this baked AND clean up done by 10:20. As one thing was baking, the next was being mixed and put in the pans. So, a pat on the back to me, and let's hope that people tomorrow like what they're snacking on!