Do You Know The Muffin Man?

Nekisia’s Olive Oil & Maple Granola

2026-05-03T22:50:57-04:00

A conversation at The Good Egg, a wonderful cookbook store in Kensington Market in Toronto, led me to learn that Samin Nosrat’s first book, Salt Fat Acid Heat has a granola recipe. I was in the store picking up some books about candied fruit, unusual cookies, and creative cakes. At the cashier’s desk, the topic of granola somehow came up!

At home, I made the recipe almost exactly. Since I didn’t have enough sunflower seeds, I subbed in some hemp hearts instead.

This granola is pretty good. I do like the generous amount of Maldon salt in it. But my go-to these days is still the tahini one.

Flourless Layer Cake With Chocolate and Raspberries

2026-04-02T22:39:06-04:00

For this year’s Passover meals, we were in Montreal, and I made two different desserts ahead of time while in Toronto. One was an old favourite based on a Claudia Roden recipe involving boiling a whole orange. But this time, I used a mix of navel orange, clementine, and frozen yuzu peel. For night two, I tried something new.

The recipe for this layer cake is from the New York Times. It doesn’t have flour or dairy, so satisfies many diets and this particular holiday.

The baked and cooled cake layers were very delicate and hard to remove from the parchment, as warned in the directions. I had to cut them to fit the large box that I purchased.

Making the filling was interesting: after melting chocolate in a sugar syrup, you whisk the saucepan over ice until it thickens somewhat. Mine didn’t firm to a pudding consistency and was still pourable. But I carefully spread it to the edges of the layers.

My favourite part were the sweet-tart raspberries. I tore them up and tried to press them flat inside the cake. I had my daughter place the remaining berries on the top.

Quite a bit more work than an orange-almond cake, but I think it was worth it. It’s very chocolatey, but not cloying, due to the bright raspberries.

Quick Condensed Milk

2026-03-23T16:34:20-04:00

Sometimes, we end up with too much milk that has to be used. What to do? Well, we’ve enjoyed making our own condensed milk, especially a variation that my daughter loves for making a quick, hot drink.

The recipe is from Stella Parks’ BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts. Her “trick” is to incorporate some heavy cream into the mixture, to help prevent scorching. The milk-cream-sugar mixture needs to boil for a while, until it reduces down to the right amount.

After making this a few times, we’ve learned that we should bring it to a simmer using the 10 setting on our stove, then letting it go between 9 and 10 to reduce in the 20 minutes she calls for. (It always takes us longer though.) Fortunately, Stella’s recipes have precise instructions, so we just keep weighing the pot to know when to stop.

We love making the chai variation by adding whole spices to the mix, then straining them out afterward. I bash them up a bit in a mortar and pestle to extract maximum flavour. My daughter loves mixing up a tablespoon with some hot, decaf tea for an instant masala chai!

I made this two years ago, as part of making the Magic Key Lime Pie but never wrote about it separately.

Triple Citrus Bars

2026-03-18T08:49:07-04:00

For a bake sale at my daughter’s school, I went with one tried-and-true item, marbled tahini cookies, and also made something new, a more sophisticated variation on Key lime bars.

The recipe is from Cook’s Illustrated, apparently from July 2006! The attribution isn’t listed on the America’s Test Kitchen website, though, which is where I found it. Anyhow, as many other bloggers have admitted, I made the crust with graham cracker crumbs, omitting the sugar.

Juicing all the fruit, and grating the zest, was very satisfying: all of the bright colours and the heady fragrance was extremely enticing. Do remember to wash your fruit thoroughly to remove the exterior wax and to use fresh fruit. I find that old citrus is much harder to zest.

The filling was a snap to make, just stirring things together carefully to ensure no lumps. One tip: condensed milk is usually sold in 14 oz cans by weight and is what is called for in the (US) recipe. But in Canada, the product is marked as 300mL cans by volume, which translates to 10 oz by volume.

Hot out of the oven, the filling is firm and slightly bubbly at the edges, and may be still a little jiggly. But after cooling, and refrigeration, they come out pretty firm. I added the toasted coconut garnish, but that’s totally optional.

I love the citrus and dairy combination, and these squares were so satisfying. The combination of lemon, lime, and orange elevated them beyond the typical bars, and using a graham crust kept the familiar taste. Would make again (and I did, a week later, as they sold out at the fundraiser!)

Yuzu Cheesecake with Black Sesame Crust

2026-03-13T17:22:09-04:00

I came across this stunning dessert on the America’s Test Kitchen website, and it was definitely calling to me. After a shopping trip at Sanko, I was all set to go.

The recipe has three components: a crust, the filling, and a curd. Instead of graham or animal crackers, this one uses a blend of ground black sesame and AP flour. Since I love the graham crust of traditional cheesecakes, I subbed in a bit for the flour. I didn’t make mine thin enough, so it didn’t reach 1½” up the sides.

This cheesecake is relatively tall, so it needs a lot of cream cheese, and eggs. But what makes it unmistakeably yuzu is the ½ cup of pure yuzu juice. This is definitely an indulgent splurge: 200mL was $20 CAD. More of that juice is used in the curd, and the two egg yolks give it an intense, vibrant colour.

We didn’t have enough time to chill it thoroughly before serving it to guests, but wow, was it ever delicious. The nuttiness of the black sesame is immediately apparent, as is the tart, complex flavour of yuzu in the curd. Its fragrance reminds me of black pepper, and it’s got a different flavour than the zest (which I also bought, frozen, from the Japanese goods store). I froze the leftovers as individual slices, and now get to enjoy a piece over the next little while.

Highly recommended!

Black Sesame and Strawberry Hamantaschen

2026-03-05T15:12:51-05:00

A friend brought over some mishloach manot containing, among other things, hamantaschen, the traditional cookie for Purim. This inspired me to look for something for my daughter and I to make also.

I found this recipe on 18 Doors; the author is Kristin Eriko Posner. To prepare, I needed to purchase black tahini (as I thought I didn’t have any black sesame paste at home). I also thawed a jar of our homemade strawberry jam to use for the filling, then boiling it to thicken it.

Despite all of Posner’s notes for chilling and rolling the dough, we had a hard time with it. It does crack very easily, but actually improved as our hands warmed the dough. I made about 9 cookies using the 3.5” cutter, but my daughter made more from a smaller cutter with the scraps. In our haste, we forgot to apply an egg wash!

Fresh out of the oven, these cookies were crisp and very satisfying. The grayness of the cookies were the only hint of the black sesame, as we couldn’t detect the taste at all. I would double or even triple the amount of black tahini next time. Or, seeing what difference using a Chinese black sesame paste would make: I found a jar in the back of the pantry downstairs!

A few days later, in a covered container, the cookies had softened from the jam, and were tender and still delicious. Using a less sweet, homemade jam really makes a difference.

Vietnamese Coffee Swirl Brownies

2026-02-12T14:57:00-05:00

As part of the 2025 NYT Cookie Week, we mentally bookmarked this brownie. Personally, I have a take-it-or-leave-it attitude to them: they’re often very one-dimensional. But the thought of a condensed milk and cream cheese swirl was irresistible.

The recipe is by Melissa Clark. There’s a half pound (225 g) of unsweetened chocolate plus a teaspoon of instant espresso, so the base flavour is unmistakable. The contrasting swirl is a mix of cream cheese, condensed milk, and ground coffee.

I used an 8” square pan, so cut my squares a bit smaller as they were taller. These are rich and intense. They somehow stayed moist even after many days in a covered container. The first batch I made a week ago was gobbled up quickly at home, and I made a new batch to share with colleageus during Hack Days. Highly recommended.

Gâteau Invisible (Cook’s Illustrated)

2025-12-18T11:43:52-05:00

We’ve been making this apple cake throughout the fall, but it gets eaten so quickly, I never get a chance to take a photo! We brought it to a few Sukkot meals we were invited to, and it was a hit every time.

On this most recent occasion, we brought it to a Hanukkah party. I’ve used various apples, but this time, I bought Granny Smith (as suggested in the recipe). One interesting note: these apples are imported from the USA or NZ, and there isn’t any commercial production in Ontario, due to Granny Smith’s needing a longer and warmer growing season. Something to keep in mind when trying to buy Canadian.

Compared to the Serious Eats’ invisible cake, there’s no fussing around with layering and shingling. Do spend some time to figure out the right setting on your food processor’s slicing disc (if it’s adjustable). For my Breville, to get apples that are 1/10 of an inch thick, it’s around the 2 1/3 mark.

I’ve skipped making the whipped cream every time, as I don’t feel it’s necessary. This cake is such a pure expression of cooked apple, and the texture and flavour is so delicious, that I don’t feel the need to embellish it in any other way. Highly recommended.

Roasted Apple Ice Cream

2025-11-16T17:53:37-05:00

It’s getting late (and cold) in the year to be making ice cream. Not sure what inspired me to find this ice cream, but it turned out to be an excellent one, full of concentrated apple flavour.

The recipe is from the LA Times. The first step is to roast the apples with cinnamon, concentrating their flavour, and driving off some moisture.

Some of this puree is combined into the ice cream base, along with some sour cream, which amplifies the tanginess of the fruit. The remaining puree is swirled in after churning.

What a wonderful ice cream, full of unmistakeable apple flavour. As mentioned in the accompanying article, “a perfect expression of late fall”.

Cranberry Lemon Bars

2025-10-20T15:18:08-04:00

Sometimes, the whole is not greater than the sum of its parts. Such was the case with this bar recipe, that was too thin, too tart, and too disappointing.

The recipe is from NYT Cooking. The first sign of trouble was making the cookie base. In the 9x13 pan, it pressed out into a very thin layer, barely enough to cover the bottom.

Once cooled, I covered it with the cranberry jam. I was distracted by all of the curled up skins, and would have preferred a smoother (pureed) jam. The lemon layer is also quite thin, and the cranberry peeked through in spots.

After baking, cooling and slicing, each square turned out nicely. Despite my complaints of thinness, each layer is distinct. But I think the proportions are all out of whack here: not enough filling compared to the crust, and the cranberry-lemon combo really packs a mouth-puckering punch.