S’Mores Cake for a Birthday Girl

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birthday cakes, chocolate cake, chocolate ganache, s'mores, s'mores cake

This past weekend, my eldest daughter turned 14 years old. 14! Oh, how time flies. I can still remember the first time she was handed to me, a tiny little bundle in my arms. And the tears of joy that flowed down my face. And as she turned 14, I still had tears running down my cheeks. A different set of tears with a different meaning. Proud tears. Proud at what a lovely young lady she is turning into. And a feeling of overwhelming happiness at how much joy she has brought into my life. Happy Birthday my sweet Charlotte!

We were at the cottage celebrating her birthday. Instead of a birthday cake, she just wanted to make S’mores over a campfire down by the beach. Because of high winds and high water levels, our beach was pretty much non-existent. A campfire wasn’t going to happen. I needed a quick fix and this S’mores cake couldn’t be any easier. You could bake your favourite chocolate cake from scratch, make your own marshmallow fluff, even your own graham crackers. But if you can get it all from a box, ready in no time, why not?

S’Mores Cake

1 2-layer chocolate cake

Marshmallow Fluff

Graham crackers, crushed into bits with your hands

Dark chocolate ganache (recipe follows)

Dark Chocolate Ganache

4 oz. of dark chocolate

½ cup of 35% cream

1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract

Pinch of salt

Add all of the ganache ingredients into a heat-proof bowl. Using a bain-marie style to melt the chocolate, place the bowl over a pan of simmering water. Melt, stirring occasionally, until the chocolate is melted. Allow the bowl to sit on the counter and cool for about an hour.

Cut each cake layer in two so you end up with 4 chocolate cake layers. Beginning with a bottom cake layer, spread some marshmallow fluff over it and sprinkle with graham cracker bits. Add a second layer and repeat the process. Do the same with the third layer. Add the last layer and pour the dark chocolate ganache over the top, sprinkling with graham cracker bits. And voila! A gorgeous and oh-so-yummy S’Mores Birthday Cake!

 

I Heart Espresso S’Mores

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espresso marshmallows, espresso s'mores, heart desserts, heart sweets, heart treats, home-made s'mores, homemade graham cookies, s'mores, Valentine's Day desserts, Valentine's Day s'mores, Valentine's Day treats

With Valentine’s Day around the corner, how about some S’Mores for your love bunnies? Although I’m into showing my love year round, I do enjoy making special heart-shaped treats at this time of year. And not just because it’s Valentine’s Day. It also happens to be my Emma’s birthday. Her birthday is the 15th and she is constantly reminding me that she is my Valentine’s present. Oh, what a precious gift!

I don’t know anyone who does not love S’Mores. So I thought I’d add my own twist to this classic. An Italian twist, of course! Heart-shaped graham cookies and espresso marshmallows! Oh yeah, you got that right. Espresso marshmallows! Dipped in dark Belgian chocolate, and then dipped again in crushed Amaretti cookie crumbs! Oh man, it doesn’t get better than this. Words cannot describe how scrumptious these Espresso S’Mores are. Now if this doesn’t tell them you love ’em, I don’t know what will!

Graham Cookies       adapted from Brown eyed Baker

1½ cups of flour
1⅓ cups of graham flour
1 teaspoon of baking soda
½ teaspoon of salt
1 cup of unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup of dark brown sugar
3 tablespoons of honey

In a medium bowl, whisk together both flours, baking soda and salt. Set aside. In a large bowl, or in a stand-mixer bowl, combine butter, brown sugar and honey. Beat at medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the flour mixture and mix on low speed just until blended and the dough comes together, about 30 seconds.

Transfer the dough onto a piece of plastic wrap, press into a 7-inch square, and wrap tightly. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours. When ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to 1/8-inch thickness and cut into heart shapes. Transfer to baking sheet, spacing the cookies about a 1/2-inch apart. Once on the baking sheet, decorate the cookies with the initials of your loves, small hearts, or any design that fancies you. Gather any scraps, re-roll, and cut out more cookies.

Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes, or until the cookies are dark golden brown and just firm to the touch. If adding both cookie sheets at the same time, rotate them after about 8 minutes and bake an additional 4 or 5 minutes, until golden brown. Let cool for a minute on the baking sheets, then transfer to a cooling rack. Let cool completely.

Espresso Marshmallows

4 teaspoons of powdered gelatine
⅔ cup of water
½ cup of freshly brewed espresso coffee
1½ cups of sugar
1 tablespoon of pure vanilla extract
powdered sugar, to sprinkle on finished marshmallow
vegetable oil

Lay some plastic wrap on the bottom of a 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking dish or pan, and lightly brush with vegetable oil. If you prefer a thinner marshmallow, use a bigger pan or dish.

Stir the gelatin into the water and let sit until ready to use.

In a large saucepan over medium heat, warm up the espresso with the sugar and vanilla. When warm, stir in the gelatin and water and cook for 3 or 4 minutes, until the sugar and gelatin dissolves. In the bowl of a stand mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat the espresso-gelatin mixture until it resembles a soft meringue, about 15 minutes. You really need to start this with the mixer on low for the first 5 minutes. It is a very hot liquid and it will splatter. After 5 minutes, increase the speed to medium, and then to medium-high/high for the last 5 minutes. Pour into the prepared pan and let sit at room temperature for at least 1 hour. Sprinkle some powdered sugar onto a cutting board and invert the pan onto it. Peel off the plastic wrap.

Cut the marshmallow with the same heart-shaped cookie cutter used for the graham cookies. At this point, you can dip the marshmallows in some powdered sugar and store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to two weeks.

Assembling Espresso S’Mores

Dark Belgian chocolate
Amaretti cookies

Melt some dark Belgian chocolate using the bain marie method. Crush some Amaretti cookies until you have fine crumbs.

Brush the underside of each graham cookie with the melted chocolate.

Dip half of an espresso marshmallow into the melted chocolate, and then dip again into the Amaretti cookie crumbs. Place on a heart cookie and cover with another heart. And there you have it. Heart Espresso S’Mores!  Happy Love Day!

The left-over marshmallows can be gobbled up as is, cut into smaller hearts and served on just 1 graham cookie, or cut into even smaller hearts and plopped into some luscious hot chocolate.  Enjoy!

Scones & Clotted Cream

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Annabelle White, buttermilk scones, clotted cream, cream, scones, the great scone debate

My friend Karen was celebrating a birthday and I wanted to do something special for her.  Seeing as she is a huge fan of everything British, I planned a morning of tea, scones, jam and clotted cream.  Coming across clotted cream around here isn’t an easy task, and is quite expensive if you do.  As Karen stepped into my kitchen and saw the freshly baked scones, she teasingly asked, “And where’s the clotted cream?”.  To which I replied, “It’s in the fridge, but I’m not sure it’s ready… I’ve never had it before.”  Astonished, Karen replied that she was only joking.  Well, clearly I wasn’t.

After much perusing of various scone recipes, I settled on one from the New Zealand Women’s Weekly.  Why?  One look at this video and you’ll understand.  Annabelle White is so enthusiastic and excited about these scones, she is over-the-top cute!  I fell in love with her!  Oh, and the fact that these scones looked oh so fast and simple to make.  Or perhaps it’s the kiwi accent!

The original recipe can be found here, but I altered it by omitting the dried fruit and adding 1/4 of sugar instead.

Ingredients

• 3 cups of self-raising flour
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 80g of semi-frozen butter
• 1 1/2 cups of buttermilk
• 1/4 cup of sugar

The trick to baking these scones, apparently, is using frozen butter and grating it into the flour, and handling the dough as little as possible with your hands, using a knife to mix all the ingredients together.  The knife saves overworking the gluten and produces a lighter scone.  It makes a rather wet dough, but that is exactly what’s got Annabelle so excited!

Preheat the oven to 400 F.  And in case you’re wondering what fan bake means, it’s convection bake.

Stir the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl, using a knife.  Grate in the frozen butter and work it into the mixture with the knife until it’s mixed in. Don’t overwork it. The colder the butter remains, the better.

Add the buttermilk and sugar and continue to stir with the knife.  Keep the mixture wet, so add a little more buttermilk if necessary, just 1 or 2 tablespoons.

Place the mixture on a lightly floured surface and gently pat it into an oval shape, with just 5 or 6 pats in total.  Using a pastry scrapper if you have one, a sharp knife if you don’t, cut the dough into 15 pieces.  Place them on a baking tray, close together.

Bake at 400 F for 10 to 15 minutes, or until golden.  Oh so scrumptious, no?

Clotted Cream and the Great Scone Debate

“Oh clotted cream, why do you baffle me so?”    Oh Lidia

And now for the celebrated clotted cream.  Apparently, it isn’t so easy to make at home.  So they said.  You need to use unpasteurized heavy cream. Unpasteurized cream or milk is non-existant here in Montreal, unless you own a cow.  Which I don’t.  And you also need to use a high fat heavy cream.  40% fat content is good, 50% is better.  The highest fat cream available to us is a mere 35%.  So, against all odds, I went ahead and made it.  And make it I did.  Oh yeah!  Lusciously yummy!

Preheat the oven to 200 F.  Pour 2 cups of 35% cream into an oven dish with a lid.  I read that it needed to be in the oven for 8 hours.  I didn’t read the part that said to leave it in there for an additional 4 hours if it hadn’t thickened.  So after 8 hours, or at 10:30 PM, I had to learn how to set my oven so it would turn itself off at 2:30 AM.  Only it beeps to let you know that the oven has shut itself off.  And keeps on beeping.  Until hubby nudges me at 2:45 AM and says that something is beeping in the kitchen.  Oh Karen, I hope you appreciated that clotted cream!  After 12 hours, remove the dish from the oven and allow to cool before placing in the fridge for 8 hours.  The cream is now clotted, if you’re lucky.  Remove the clotted cream carefully, not including the liquid cream on the bottom which you can use as regular cream. Transfer to a glass container.

Who would have thunk that this oh so luscious cream could spark a national debate over in the UK?  Well, it has!  The great debate is thus:  Do you spread the jam over your scone first and add a dollop of clotted cream on top?  Or do you spread the clotted cream over your scone and slather the jam over it? Hmmmm.  Unbelievable the amount of readings one can find on this.  In The Guardian.  The Telegraph.  Even The Independent.  Apparently, it’s a long-running rivalry between Cornwall, who claims it’s jam first with the clotted cream on top, and Devon, who insists it’s cream first with jam on top.  There’s actually a mathematician from the University of Sheffield who’s claim to fame is having proved which is the correct way.  Except that in The Telegraph she claims that it’s jam first.  And the very next day on ShortList.com, she insists it’s cream first.  Well, I just had to do my very own test, didn’t I?  So I tried my scone with jam first and the cream on top.  Yum!  Then I tried it with cream first and the jam on top.  Just as yum!  Maybe I needed to try again.  I did, with the same results.  So now I’m asking you my friends, how do you like your scones?

With the jam slathered on first and the clotted cream sitting on top?

Or with the clotted cream spread onto the scone and the jam dolloped over it?

And as I notice the time, I realize it is my birthday!  Happy Birthday to me! xo

Nutella Banana Bread… I Think

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banana bread, nutella, Nutella and bananas, Nutella bread

I have been doing some much-needed cleaning around my home.  Not so much cleaning as organizing.  Oh, the stuff I put aside, you wouldn’t even begin to imagine.  And when we’re expecting guests and there are little piles of stuff everywhere, chances are I’ll run out of time to get to them so I just dump them.  In closets, grocery bags, armoires.  And then I scramble when searching where the heck I could have placed my driver’s permit renewal form.  Or worse, my over-due property taxes!

I came across piles of recipes.  Pages torn out of magazines while at the doctor’s office.  Photocopies from borrowed books.  Scraps of paper with notes on various recipes.  And sheets of paper with scribbles on it, listing ingredients and some form of method, but nothing else.  Such as this one.

I have no idea where it came from or what it’s called, but the fact that Nutella is present, well, I just had to try it.  You all know of my love affair with Nutella.  You could read more on that here.  From the ingredient list, this is definitely a banana bread with Nutella.  I’m thinking it’s from a European magazine or show because the measured ingredients are in grams, and because of the German flour #405.  I had to look that one up.  It’s our version of pastry flour.  And no electrical appliances either.  Or at least none that I wrote down.  All hand-mixed, it seems.  The result?  Oh, sweet Nutella-banana goodness!  Hmm, maybe I should rename this bread!

Ingredients

200 gr. of pastry flour

3/4 teaspoon of baking soda

1/2 teaspoon of salt

120 gr. golden caster sugar

50 gr. butter, softened

3 ripe bananas

2 eggs

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

150 gr. of yogurt

100 gr. of Nutella

1 banana, peeled & sliced

1/2 teaspoon each of cinnamon & sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 F.  Butter and flour a loaf pan.

Whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl.  In a separate bowl, stir together the butter and sugar until well mixed.  Add in the bananas and mash with a fork.  Add eggs, vanilla and yogurt, and mix well.  Stir in the flour mixture and mix until just combined.  Pour batter into prepared pan.

Warm the Nutella, bain-marie style, the bowl with Nutella in a larger bowl of hot water, until it reaches a runny consistency.  Spread the Nutella on top of batter and swirl the batter to create a marble effect.

Peel and slice the remaining banana and place the slices over the top of the batter.  Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.  Bake for 55 to 60 minutes.  Cool in pan and you’re ready to dig in.  Enjoy!

Double Yummy Apple Cake

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apple and applesauce cake, apple cake, apple desserts, Apples, cake, desserts, double apple cake

I first started baking this apple cake when I was pregnant with my first daughter. It didn’t start out as a double apple cake. It was simply an apple cake, with apples, cinnamon and sugar mixed into the batter, and of course oil. I think by now some of you know how I feel about adding oil to my cake batter. If I can replace it with applesauce, I do. That’s where the double comes in. Applesauce and apples. Yummy! And rather than mix the apples into the batter, I layered them onto the batter in 2 layers and sprinkled cinnamon-sugar over them. Double yummy!

I can actually remember the very first time I made this cake. My dad loved sweets. Loved them! His on-set diabetes at the age of 60 did nothing to deter him from his beloved sugar addiction. He was in the hospital and I had gone to visit him with this freshly baked apple cake. A snack we would share together. It was lunchtime when I arrived and as he was having his lunch, he offered to share it with me. I replied that he was the one who needed to eat, not me. And being the sweet man that he was, he said, “Oh no. It’s not for you. It’s for the baby. The baby needs to eat more than you or I.” I shall always remember those words. He was already enamoured with this baby in my tummy! When the time came for the apple cake, one bite and he was smitten! And he was sure the baby was equally smitten. He believed the baby was enjoying it and would grow up loving this cake. Although my dad never got to meet my daughter, he was right. Charlotte just loves this cake. Emma does too, but it’s a comfort thing for Charlotte. And it’s comforting for me to know that Charlotte and my dad did in fact enjoy this double yummy apple cake together!

Ingredients

3/4 cups of sugar

1 1/2 cups of flour

1 1/4 teaspoons of baking powder

1/4 teaspoon of baking soda

2 or 3 large apples

2 eggs

1/4 cup of honey

2/3 cups of applesauce (I made my own with 2 or 3 apples in a food processor, adding about 1 tablespoon of water to turn it into a smooth consistency)

1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

2 tablespoons of lemon juice

1 tablespoon of sugar

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

Preheat the oven the to 350 F. Lightly oil an 8-inch square pan, line with parchment paper or tin foil, and oil the paper. Lightly flour the paper.

Make cinnamon-sugar by combining the 1 tablespoon of sugar and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon.  Set aside.

In a bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and baking soda, and set aside. Peel, halve and core the apples. Slice them into 1/4 inch thick slices and set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, or with a hand-held mixer, beat the eggs with the 3/4 cups of sugar. Add honey, applesauce, lemon zest and beat well. With the mixer running on low speed, add the flour mixture and diluted lemon juice and mix until just combined.

Pour 1/3 of the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Arrange half the apple slices on top of the batter and sprinkle with 1/3 of the cinnamon-sugar. Spoon another 1/3 of the batter over the apples and spread evenly. Sprinkle with more cinnamon-sugar. Top the apples with the remaining batter, spreading evenly, and sprinkle with the remaining cinnamon-sugar.

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool the cake in the pan on a rack for 30 minutes. Good luck with this part. As soon as the cake pan hit the counter, both girls were in the kitchen demanding a slice. I told them to go away. Then hubby came into the kitchen and helped himself to a slice. The girls were back in a flash and before I knew it, all three were biting into piping hot slices of this double yummy apple cake. If you can make it past the 30 minute cooling time, remove the cake from the pan and allow to cool completely on the rack. Now, you can dig in.

A Canadian Thanksgiving with my fellow bloggers

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Canadian Thanksgiving, cheese pudding, chocolate caramel sauce, quinoa pea fritters, roasted pears, smoked beef brisket, Zebra Cake

I mentioned in my last post that this past Monday was our Canadian Thanksgiving. We were going to celebrate at the cottage with a Sunday evening dinner, having my in-laws over, along with my brother and nephew. Thanksgiving dinner for 8.

Seeing as my brother and nephew were arriving for Sunday lunch, I needed to plan for that as well. On the lunch menu were these gorgeous and amazingly delish Quinoa Pea Fritters, from Leah over at sharing the food we love. Mine were nowhere as gorgeous as hers, but I bet they were just as scrumptious! Served with a tomato salad, some Italian cheeses and crusty bread, it was just right.

And for dessert, this luscious Cheese Pudding, from Erika over at TEA WITH ERIKA. Not as high and pretty as hers, but Oh! So divine! I cheated by doubling up the slices and made them look just like Erika’s! Creamy, milky, yummy!

Now, onto dinner. Wanting to take advantage of the gorgeous weather and wishing to extend the BBQ season, I decided to try smoking a beef brisket on my charcoal barbie.  Non-traditional, I know, but we have turkey enough throughout the year. I wanted to try something different.

As I set off Friday morning to buy my brisket, hubby called to let me know that his mom announced that she was going to roast a turkey on Sunday and bring it over for dinner. Her cottage is down the road from ours, you see. “Did you tell your mum I was smoking a brisket?” “No.”, he replied, “But that’s fine. Go ahead with the brisket, we’ll just have both and the brisket can be eaten throughout the week.” Fine by me. My brother didn’t mind not having turkey, Italians don’t really do turkey. My nephew, on the other hand, thought it was sacrilege! He likes his turkey and all that comes with. The stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, the cranberry sauce. Needless to say, he was quite happy to hear that my mum-in-law was coming over with a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

I was down by the lake late Saturday morning when I could hear my mum-in-law having a discussion with hubby up at the house. It seems that in her hurry to leave for the cottage Friday morning, instead of grabbing the turkey out of the freezer, she grabbed a chicken by mistake! A 7 pound chicken! She had the stuffing already made, the cranberry sauce too. So she was going to stuff the chicken! Hubby wasn’t thrilled. We’d had roast chicken 2 nights before. When we told her of my nephew’s relationship with turkey, she drove to town, 20 minutes each way, and went to 3 different grocery stores looking for a fresh turkey. No such luck. Two hours later, she returned with a second chicken! Which she wanted me to stuff and roast. Along with boiling the potatoes and carrots she was going to bring over to me the next day. In addition to smoking a brisket over a period of 6 hours, making broccoli salad, and dessert! Which wasn’t my traditional pumpkin pie. When my nephew said to me, “You made your pumpkin pie, right?”, I made the decision that for the first time ever, we would be celebrating American Thanksgiving this year. With roast turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes with gravy, and my pumpkin pie!

Instead, what I did serve for dessert was deliciously moist Zebra Cake, from Fae over at Fae’s Twist & Tango. Although my zebra cake didn’t turn out as exotic-looking as Fae’s, it was perfect. And as Fae tells me, no two zebras are alike!

Along with this yummy cake, I served up succulent Spiced Roasted Pears, from Suzanne over at a pug in the kitchen. I used Asian pears which we picked up on our apple-picking trip and they were truly delectable!

With the Roasted Pears sliced up alongside the Zebra Cake, I poured this incredibly decadent Chocolate Caramel Sauce, also from Suzanne over at a pug in the kitchen. Hot dang, that sauce was incredible! After the first bite, everyone grabbed for the dish and poured loads more. I could have served it up in a tea cup and they would have drank it! Me included.

As for the smoked beef brisket? Rubbed with brown sugar and various herbs and spices. Marinated overnight. And smoked over mesquite wood for 6 hours. Oh man! It was smokin’ good! For my first time, I was quite pleased. I’ll make a few adjustment for the next time, and it can only get better. Served with a hot Bourbon BBQ Sauce, it was just right! The stuffed roast chickens were great, as was every other aspect of our meal. At the end of it all, my mum-in-law came to me and exclaimed how pleased she was with everything, “Oh Lidia! Everything was so good. And how nice for me not to have to cook. Thank you!”. And she kissed me. Isn’t that what Thanksgiving is all about? To show your appreciation and give thanks to those you love!

Crostata di Mirtilli

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blueberries, blueberry crostata, blueberry desserts, blueberry galette, bluets du Lac Saint-Jean, crostata, galette, gelette aux bluets, mirtillo, Quebec wild blueberries, tart, wild blueberries

Perhaps you might be more familiar with Blueberry Galette? A crostata is exactly that. A galette. A rustic, free form, open-faced tart filled with luscious fruit. Or veggies. And that’s what I love most about crostata. That it is rustic and free-form. No perfection required here! Just loads of butter for a deliciously rich and buttery crust. And beautiful fruit which you can sweeten to your heart’s desire.

We’ve got these wild blueberries here from the Saguenay/Lac Saint-Jean region of Quebec. Walk through a farmers’ market in August and September, and you will be dazzled by these tiny blue-purple gems. And I do mean tiny! Smaller in stature than cultivated blueberries, wild blueberries contain the most powerful antioxidants of all, including powerful anti-inflammatory compounds. But that’s not why I eat them. I eat them because they are perfectly delicious! And they’re also Charlotte’s favourite fruit!

The recipe below is for two bellissime crostate di mirtilli. Go ahead and cut the recipe in half if you only want one. But trust me on this. You will want a second one after the first is gone! After looking at various recipes, I noticed that all of them added either cornstarch or flour, or both, to the fruit. I decided that I would rather not, preferring to have the pure taste of blueberries. With perhaps a little lemon because after all, blueberries and lemon do marry wonderfully together, no? As for the sugar, I added little. Again, I really just wanted the blueberry flavour bursting in my mouth. You go ahead and add more sugar if you prefer your crostata on the sweet side. As for myself, I’m already quite sweet as it is!

For the pastry:

 2 cups of flour

1/4 teaspoon of salt

2 teaspoons of sugar

12 tablespoons of cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes

8 to 10 tablespoons of ice water

1 egg, for the egg wash

Sugar for sprinkling

Add the flour into a bowl with the salt and sugar, and stir. I cut the cold butter into cubes and then put them back in the refrigerator until it’s time to throw them in. The colder the better!

Cut the butter in with a pastry cutter. Here’s where my luck ran out. My cutter broke on me! So instead I used two knives to cut in the butter, which I’ve done before. My advice? If you bake lots, I urge you to indulge in such a simple tool as the pastry cutter. So much easier!

Add the ice water, one tablespoon at a time, stirring with a fork. Do not overwork the dough. I used 9 tablespoons of ice water. You might require 1 more or less. It should just come together nicely and not be too wet or sticky. Wrap in wax paper or plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator to chill for at least 1 hour.

For the filling:

6 cups of blueberries

Zest and juice of 1 lemon

2 tablespoons of sugar

Gently mix the blueberries with lemon juice, zest, and sugar.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Remove the dough from the fridge and cut it in half. Place one half back in the fridge while you prepare the first crostata dough. Roll the dough out on a lightly-floured surface to about ¼ inch thickness and transfer to a baking sheet. Place this dough in the fridge while you roll-out the second one. Repeat as with the first.

When you’re ready, work with one dough at a time, keeping the other in the fridge. Add half of the blueberries on top of the dough, creating a small mound in the centre, leaving enough of a border to fold the pastry edges over the blueberries. Repeat with the second crostata dough. Lightly beat the egg and brush the outer crust with it. Sprinkle the crust with sugar.

Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, or until the crust is nicely browned and the blueberries begin to break apart in the middle. Allow to cool to room temperature and serve. Buon Appetito!

Upside Down Plum Cake & a Winner

Tags

desserts, Ontario plums, plum cake, plums, seasonal desserts, summer desserts

I just love going to the market with my girls. Emma in particular. She hops from one farmer’s stand to the next, tasting everything she possibly can along the way. And always presenting me with pieces of sweet and luscious fruit. She knows that if I have a taste of these juicy offerings, I shall be sold. “Oh mama! Taste this. It’s so sweet and juicy… you’re gonna love it!”. And love it I do!

I went to the market with an idea in my mind, an upside down apple cake. But one look upon the various Ontario plums which were on display, and I was hooked. Vibrant colours of red, purple and yellow. Magnificent! A treat just had to be made with these sweet beauties. After Emma duly fed me a taste of each plum, I decided that we just had to have one more taste of summer! There would be plenty of time to bake with apples. Now, which one would grace the top of my upside down cake? The brilliant yellow or the lustrous red? Or perhaps the deep-purple, almost-black, plum? They all tasted perfect. Oh, who says I could only have one? Why not all three?

Upside Down Plum Cake

cake batter adapted from Cooking Light

2 tablespoons of unsalted butter

1 tablespoon of melted unsalted butter

1 cup of sugar, divided into 1/2 cups

3 tablespoons of orange juice

6 to 9 plums, depending on their size, enough to fill the bottom of your pan

3/4 cups of flour

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1/4 teaspoon of salt

1/2 cup of milk

1 teaspoon of grated orange zest

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

2 egg yolks

4 egg whites

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Cut the plums in half and remove the pit. If they’re rather big, quarter them as I did.

In a 9 or 10 inch cast-iron skillet or oven pan, melt the 2 tablespoons of butter over medium-heat on the stovetop. Add 1/2 cup of sugar and the orange juice. Cook until sugar dissolves and remove from heat. Arrange the plums, cut sides up, on the bottom of your pan or skillet.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add milk, melted butter, orange zest, vanilla and egg yolks. Stir with a whisk until smooth.

Beat the egg whites at high speed of a mixer, until foamy. Gradually add remaining 1/2 cup of sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating until stiff peaks form.

Gently stir in 1/4 of the egg whites into the batter. Gently fold in the remaining egg whites. Pour the batter over the plums, spreading evenly.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool in the pan or skillet for 10 minutes. Place a plate upside down on top of skillet/pan and invert the cake onto the plate. Serve warm or at room temperature. Enjoy!

And now for the winner of the Maple Bundle Giveaway (see Pouding Chômeur & an Anniversary).  

I had my daughter Emma write down all the names of those who had left comments on the above-mentioned post. She then proceeded to cut them out and placed them in a little box. I then wanted Charlotte to pick a name from the box, but Oh No! Emma would not have it! She had done all the work, why should Charlotte have the enjoyment of picking the winner? This happens every time I try to engage the two of them to do something, and I always end up asking myself why, oh why? So I had them do it together, after much reluctance on behalf of Emma. And the winner is:

Karen, over at Back Road Journal. Congratulations Karen!

Pouding Chômeur & an Anniversary

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desserts, maple syrup, maple syrup cake, maple syrup dessert, Quebec, Quebec desserts, Quebec maple products

Oh Lidia celebrates 1 year today! Yay! And what a year it’s been! Who knew I would so be enjoying this blogging thing? I’ll tell you who. Sue! Sue knew. This was her idea. I still recall the e-mail she sent back in March 2012. Simple. “I’ve been thinking. I think you should start a food blog. Actually, you must start a food blog. You must!”. And the rest, as they say, is history!

Well, not quite. There were a few hitches. Such as not-so encouraging comments. Like, “Oh, not another food blog!”. And, “What’s the purpose of a food blog?”. Or this one, “A blog? Don’t you have to BE someone to have a blog?”. I think they meant someone of importance. Someone knowledgeable who people could look up to. Well, I can tell you this. I’m pretty important to my daughters and they look up to me. They also believe that I know everything!

Oh, and then there was the confidence issue. Not believing that I could do it. In late March 2012, Sue had pretty much set-up my blog and showed me how to go about it. By the time June rolled around, I still hadn’t done anything with it. Why? I wasn’t a writer. I would be terrible at it. I can still recall my creative writing class in college. On the first day of class, the professor went through the course outline and stated that he would be calling upon students every class and have them read their writing out loud. And at the very end of that first class, I went straight to the admin office and dropped that class! No joke. In August, her hubby Halvdan asked my what the problem was. I told him. “I’m not a writer. I can’t write! I look at other blogs and I can’t do what they’re doing. What will people think?”. And then came his words of wisdom: “You don’t want to do what others are doing. You have to be you. And you’re not doing this for anyone. You’re doing it for you. Because it’s your passion. Just write the way you talk to me about food. Pretend you’re talking to me or Sue.” One week later, I launched my blog. And now it’s one year later! Hurray!

Thank you my friends! And not just those who gave me that gentle shove. To all my good friends who have encouraged and supported me. To my family, Carmine and Franca. To hubby and my girls, Charlotte and Emma. Especially them. For keeping them waiting while they were starving because I had to take just one more picture. And then when dinner was finally on the table, asking them to wait just a smidgen longer for that final photo. And to all of my new friends. That would be you! For without you, this blog would be pretty much non-existent. So thank you!

And now, on to the good stuff! Pouding Chômeur and a giveaway! 

I was once asked if I preferred receiving or giving gifts. I LOVE to give gifts. And to celebrate the first anniversary of Oh Lidia, I will be giving one of you a Maple Syrup Bundle. Maple syrup, maple butter and maple sugar! All pure, and all made in La Belle Province, Quebec. This way, you could make my Maple Syrup Cake. Or my Rhubarb-Maple Syrup Crème Brûlée (Yumminess in a Jar).  And even this very sinful Pouding Chômeur. If you’re into bourbon, why not give my Bourbon & Maple Syrup Fusion a try. Leave a comment if you’re interested in entering the draw, and I will contact the winner in just over a week.

Pouding Chômeur is a typical Quebecois dessert made with maple syrup. Chômeur meaning unemployed person in French, this dessert literally translates to unemployed person’s pudding, or poor man’s pudding. It was created by female factory workers during the Great Depression, in 1929. It consists of a maple syrup and cream sauce that is poured over the top of a cake batter. During the baking process, the sauce ends up on the bottom, all thick and gooey. And wickedly delicious! But it wasn’t always so. During the Depression, this dessert was meant to reflect its working-class roots. Back then, only the very basic of ingredients were available to these female factory workers: butter, flour, milk and brown sugar. No eggs, no cream. And definitely no maple syrup as it was too expensive. The original Pouding Chômeur cake batter was made without eggs, and its rich and sweet sauce was made up of brown sugar and water. I’ve had the original version, made by hubby himself. It’s good. But once you’ve tasted the “very rich poor man’s pudding”, oh my! There’s no turning back!

Maple Syrup Pouding Chômeur

2 cups of pure Maple Syrup

2 cups of 35% cream, heavy or double cream

1 1/2 cups of flour

2 teaspoons of baking powder

1/4 teaspoon of salt

1/2 cup of unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup of sugar

2 eggs

3/4 cups of milk

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a medium-sized saucepan, bring to boil the maple syrup and the cream. Set aside once it reaches a boil.

In a small bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour and milk, alternating between the two. Add vanilla and mix well. Pour the batter in a large baking dish or pan, a 10-cup capacity, and spread evenly.

Carefully pour the maple syrup and cream sauce over the cake batter.

Bake for 40 minutes and let it cool slightly. We like to eat ours warm so within 20 or 30 minutes, we’re ready to dig in!

You can also bake this in Mason jars. Pour some cake batter about half way up the jars and then pour some of the syrup sauce over the batter, stopping at about 1/4 away from the top. Bake at 350 degrees F for about 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the batter comes out clean.

Zucchini-Mascarpone Bread

Tags

baked goods, mascarpone, zucchini, zucchini bread, zucchini-cheese bread

I’m thinking of re-naming this The Disappearing Zucchini Bread. I cannot seem to bake them quick enough before my family polishes them off. Me included. Two large loaves will last exactly 3 days in my home. The secret? It’s all in the filling!

My sister Franca has been making an amazing Zucchini-Cream Cheese Bread for over 15 years. I thought I’d change the recipe up a little by giving it an Italian twist. Where the original recipe calls for the tanginess of cream cheese, I thought I’d give it a rich and creamy texture with mascarpone. Don’t you just love mascarpone? I’ve also replaced much of the vegetable oil with unsweetened applesauce. Sounds crazy but I have this thing about adding oil to a cake batter, especially a whole cup of it. And I’ve added lemon zest, for a fresh zesty twist as well. Besides, zucchini and lemon are  a perfect match. This recipe makes two big loaves and to one of them, I added some blackberries. Seeing as the cottage is surrounded by blackberry bushes, why not? My girls LOVE this zucchini bread and it makes the perfect snack. Or breakfast. So when life gives you zucchini, make zucchini bread!

Ingredients

for the bread:

3 eggs

2 cups of sugar

1/3 of a cup of vegetable/canola oil

2/3 of a cup of unsweetened applesauce

2 teaspoons of vanilla

3 cups of flour

1 teaspoon of baking soda

1/2 teaspoon of baking powder

1 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

2 medium zucchini, shredded and unpeeled, about 2 cups

Zest of 1 lemon

for the cheese:

250 g (8 oz) of mascarpone cheese, or cream cheese

1 egg

1/2 cup of sugar

2 tablespoons of flour

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly butter or oil 2 loaf pans.

In a large bowl, beat together the 3 eggs, 2 cups of of sugar, oil, applesauce and vanilla. Add the next 5 ingredients, flour to cinnamon, and mix well. Fold in the zucchini, lemon zest and juice.

In a separate bowl, beat the mascarpone, or cream cheese, with the egg, sugar and flour until light and fluffy.

Pour a layer of the zucchini batter in the bottom of each loaf pan, about 1/4 of the mixture in each. Spread the cheese mixture over the batter in each pan. If using blackberries, drop those on top of the cheese mixture. Add the remainder of the zucchini batter over the cheese mixture.

Bake at 350 degrees F for about 1hour to 1 hour and 10 minutes. Allow to cool completely in the pans on a wire rack. Remove from pans when cool and dig in!