This isn’t the first time I’ve made this cookie. Since my Mom bought me this book many years ago, I’ve made this oatmeal chocolate chip cookie maybe a dozen times. We eat them so fast, I don’t even get a chance to take a photo.
A fellow baker at work tipped me off to this German apple cake. I filed it away to make for company because it sounded so good. This week, I finally had the chance and it was the star of Friday night dinner.
After our annual apple picking excursion at Watson Farms, our thoughts naturally turned to what to do with all of the Golden Delicious and Cortlands that we took home. I found this hearty crumble with warm gingerbread flavours, and made it twice.
For a more kid-friendly treat (but who doesn’t like pie???), I also made two dozen madeleines for a Rosh Hashanah lunch we were invited to. These were not great, although they did get finished after a few days.
For Rosh Hashanah this year, we were invited to some meals in Toronto. For a dinner, I made an enormous apple-honey challah that is always a crowd favorite. For after dinner, I made a tart with a short crust, filled with a layer of apple, and a financier batter.
Earlier this spring, my daughter picked out a chocolate mint plant from Sheridan Nurseries. It’s grown quite bushy over the summer in its large pot on our deck, and we decided to use up some of it this week. Sadly, infusing it in cream did not bring out a lot of its flavour. ...
One way to enjoy an abundance of fruit is to can it or freeze it. With that in mind, I roasted two-pound batches of plums, then froze the softened fruit and juice. This week, I used that to make an easy pure plum sorbet.
We have so many plums that I’m repeating crowd favourites. This plum ice cream recipe was a big hit at a dinner we were invited to a few weeks ago, and my daughter and I re-made it recently with a few improvements to bump up the ginger flavour.
Our red-yellow plum tree (we’re not sure of the variety) has been super productive this year. I removed all the decorative stones that were weighing on the soil around the trunk on the advice of an arborist, cleared the soil around the root crown, added a layer of mulch, and ...
My daughter has taken a real liking to fresh passionfruit. These dark purplish orbs contain an extremely fragrant pulp, with little black seeds that pop between your teeth. However, they’re expensive, ranging from $1.50 to more than $2 each. Fortunately, we’ve been enjoying th...
It’s a bit late in the summer, but I’m starting to ramp up ice cream production at our house. All of the summer fruit is now widely available, so there are so many choices. However, I do enjoy a chocolate-based frozen treat every now and then, so I mixed things up with this i...
We put a variety of herbs in our Balconera self-watering planters this year. The basil has done exceptionally well, and when my wife bought a big container of blueberries, I knew exactly what I wanted to make.
I was out of the country for half of June, partly because I caught and recovered from COVID while abroad. Now that I’ve returned, I didn’t hesitate to get back into baking with summer’s fruit. For a recent cottage weekend we were invited to, I contributed lemon bars and these ...
At a recent dinner party, Dr. S wanted to feature rhubarb (yup, we’re subscribed to the Thames River Melon market box again). It’s usually a sweet ingredient, but we made a wonderful chicken tagine with vanilla-scented poached rhubarb. For dessert, we used it in an upside dow...
For Big G’s birthday this year, he asked for an ice cream cake, specifically, the kind from Baskin Robbins. Do you know how much they charge for a 9” Fudgetop Jamocha Almond Fudge ice cream cake? $69. Sixty Nine Dollars. Surely, I can make one for far less than that…
My kids get to decide on their birthday dessert, and I try my best to make their wish a reality. My daughter asked for chocolate cupcakes with strawberry frosting this year. We always make the same cupcake recipe (since 2010!) but I did a bit more research to find a good frost...
I didn’t grow up eating white Wonder bread: my family got 60% whole wheat, or even 100% whole wheat. At Hong Kong bakeries, we would get pineapple buns, cocktail buns, or Swiss rolls, but would never buy the loaves of sandwich bread. So seeing milk bread, sliced into angular s...
A recent special insert in the Sunday Times was all about baking. In each recipe, there is something inventive or innovative, whether it be in the technique or ingredients. Out of the 24, I want to try at least half of them. To start, I chose this tart made from an entire le...
Sometimes, homemade is best. And sometimes, homemade just isn’t possible. That pretty much sums up my experiment this week to create my own ube extract.
I happened to see an ad for a Purim-themed online baking event. The photo showed a fuchsia-hued cookie in the distinctive triangular shape common to hamantaschen. But there was nothing conventional about the striking color of the cookie.
For Valentine’s Day this year, I made molded chocolates out of ruby chocolate, after seeing it on the site of one of my favourite baking supply stores, Madame Gateaux. For extra flair, I also bought a few more colours of Roxy and Rich coloured cocoa butter while I was there.
In theory, granola bars are a great school snack. Portable, flavourful, little mess, inexpensive. But, most store-bought kinds are very low in protein, too high in sugar, often contain nuts, and just don’t taste good. Plus, kids are finicky eaters, and their tastes change on a...
I love to buy interesting jams and marmalades, but I love even more to make my own. It’s been many years since I’ve made a citrus one, so seeing Seville oranges at Farm Boy got me excited.