Dessert By Candy

On The Road

It is hard enough to maintain healthy eating habit while traveling, let alone following restrictive diet rules. This weekend I head out to Middle Of Nowhere with an hour flight followed by six hours road trip. It isn’t so long ago when planning my travel provisions is all about portability and taste. Now, I need to consider food that I should eat more of and those I should avoid. It is a juggling act.

Complimentary hotel breakfast is awesome if I don’t mind loading up on bread, instant oatmeal, banana, sweetened yogurt, make-your-own waffle, overcooked scrambled eggs and bacon. I can potentially pick up a few avocados from the grocery store but I decide to go with something different. One good thing about staying in budget hotel is that the room is usually equipped with mini fridge and microwave. Although chia seeds are not particularly anti-inflammatory, they are certainly packed with nutrition. Chocolate Raspberry Chia Pudding is a great breakfast option.

An Embarrassing Confession

I wish I have intelligent things to say about this plate of Goat Cheese & Strawberry Tartine. The timestamp on the photos told me I made the open-faced sandwiches exactly a year ago when I happened to have all the ingredients at home. That very weekend, a three-year relationship came to an end. The ingredients came from the famed Marche Jean Talon in Montreal and I drove home heartbroken. Only a year? More like a lifetime ago. Thankfully it is all behind me now and I have my hands full with other concerns.

I am also thankful that I made notes way back when. I used green olive baguette from Première Moisson, unripen goat cheese from Qui Lait Cru Fromagerie, local Quebec strawberries from Ile d'Orleans, home-grown basil, and balsamic vinegar. Looking at these photos reminds me of spring 2012.

Chocolate For Breakfast

I forget things and it unsettles me. Everyone is forgetful occasionally so what is the big fuss? My memory may not be photographic but I tend to remember random pieces of information effortlessly. Plenty of convenience come along with this benefit. I rarely need to write shopping list and planning for complicated menus in my head comes easily. The last couple of weeks, I notice that I am more forgetful. I would walk into a store with a short mental list of things to pick up and totally blank out on one item a few steps later. I would find myself in the middle of a conversation, the topic changed, and I could not recall what I was discussing before. These are very subtle signs that can be so easily dismissed but I know they are the insidious effect of concussion. I only hope that it is temporary and I will recover completely.

Human brain works in mysterious manner and we adapt quickly. What bothers me on a deeper level is the significant things that I forget.

I forget the voices of loved ones long gone.

I forget the importance of a supportive friend and believe I can handle it alone.

I forget when was the last time I smiled.

I forget what it feels like to be healthy and carefree.

You can say things are not quite rosy here for the time being.

Baking Expert

Do you see what I see? Visions of Virgin Mary may imprint on your morning toast but my household is decidedly more secular. Look! There’s a panda on my cinnamon raisin swirl bread! Or does it look like a cute little bulldog to you? In either case, cuteness rules at Candy’s kitchen and now you cannot un-see it. I am much better at baking than I thought.

I’ve been fiercely craving homemade cinnamon swirl bread for a few weeks. A soft loaf enriched with milk, butter, and eggs and a hypnotising swirl of sugar and cinnamon. Of course raisins are mandatory but not just any dried up chewy specimen. I wanted juicy raisins plumped with dark rum. Obviously this is not a loaf that I can waltz into any bakery to bring home. It was time to take matter into my own hands.

And The Knead Goes On

Sweet yeast bread and other yeast-leaven treats are therapeutic in my concussion recovery plan. I love the leisurely schedule that alternates between mixing, kneading, fermenting, shaping, and baking. I can temporarily halt the process by storing everything in the fridge and continue whenever I’m feeling well (or bored) enough to spend time in the kitchen. I am checking recipes off my to-bake list at a brisk pace.

This danish twist caught my attention back in the holiday season. Amanda Hesser posted her mother’s Cherry Almond Danish recipe at food52 and I could not get it out of my mind. The photo accompanying the recipe showed big fat strands of bread dusted with icing sugar and sliced almonds. It did not reveal the luscious filling of rum-soaked dried cherries and almond cream but the description was enough to get my imagination racing. Of course I wanted the danish to materialize in my home.

Recipe That Inspired A Party

Last weekend I hosted my second party for our Monthly Supper Club. If you think I am an over-zealous hostess who wouldn’t let my friends have their turn hosting, well, I certainly am not. A few days after Pi(e) Day, we were reminiscing over YC’s candied bacon.  Of course that led to a search for other interesting bacon recipes which landed me at King Arthur Flour’s Maple Bacon Biscuit Bake. I fell in love fast and furious. I needed an excuse to bake that recipe and there was no better occasion than throwing a brunch party.

Race season and outdoor practices have begun and my free time is quickly diminishing before my eyes. I wasted no time in setting a date but hosting a large group requires a bit of planning. Fortunately, hosting brunch can be easy with plenty of made-ahead options. I scoured my list of to-cook dishes and came up with this ambitious yet unfussy menu.

Spring Brunch Party For Ten

Pimento Cheese Stuffed Tomato

Maple Candied Bacon with Dark Chocolate

Shakshuka

Sausage Portobello Breakfast Bake

Mixed Berries Grain Salad

Spiced Pear Fruit Salad with Dried Figs & Apricots

Cuban Avocado Arugula Pineapple Salad

Maple Bacon Biscuit Bake

Meyer Lemon Focaccia

Braided Lemon Bread with Homemade Meyer Lemon Curd

Cold Brew Iced Coffee with Homemade Goat Milk Cajeta

Fresh Squeezed Orange Juice

Use That Apple Butter

Any avid jam maker can tell you it is all too easy to overstock the larder. I try to keep mine in manageable supply which explains why I am down to my last jar of apple butter. That beloved batch was made with lots of apple cider vinegar. At first, the apple butter tasted too sharp to my liking. But a few months in, the flavour mellowed and I grew to really like it. I wanted to use it for something special.

It is now maple season in eastern Canada and saps are flowing. Maple baked goods are everywhere I look. Last weekend I stopped at Cora’s for brunch. On my way out, I picked up a recipe card that caught my attention. It was a recipe for Apple and Maple Muffins, “the ideal lunchbox recipe”. I generally don’t get distracted by randomly distributed recipes but something about the ingredients spoke to me. Three things were aplenty: diced apples, maple syrup, oats. The recipe actually sounds healthy!

Family Brunch

Consider my love for entertaining at home and my love for brunch, you would think I would host brunch at home more often. Apparently, that is not the case. Weekends are prime time for training so it is rare that I get to spend mornings at home at leisurely pace. When the opportunity comes around, I am more likely to enjoy the luxury of sleeping in.

Dad suggested to meet for lunch last Saturday at my favourite bubble tea place. Despite the draw of sleeping in on a weekend morning, I invited him over for brunch instead. That was an impulse decision I made late Friday morning. Within the span of 24 hours, I came up with the following menu and a precise schedule to get everything done on time.

Weekend Family Brunch

Homemade Sweet Potato Loaf

Blue Cheese Pear Zucchini Cake Salé

Tropical Fruit Salad

Duo of Homemade Preserves: Vanilla Apricot & Maple Wild Blueberry

Chipotle Sweet Potato Smoked Sausage Hash

Sour Cherry Almond Baked Oatmeal

Pistachio Chocolate Mini Bundt with Pistachio Cream Cheese Glaze

Brewed Toasted Coconut Tea

Nutella Kuchen with Seville Orange Marmalade

It is my tradition to celebrate World Nutella Day by creating a dessert made with the popular hazelnut cocoa spread. This year is no exception. My inspiration comes from yeast leavened kuchens (cakes) I learned to make in the last year. I wanted to top the airy buttery cake with dollops of Nutella but it could use a supporting flavour. Then I remembered making marmalade Nutella tartine from Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table. The citrus marmalade added an unexpected layer of sweet, tart, and bitter note to the rich hazelnut taste. I loved the tartine so much it was on my breakfast table for over a month.

Why bother with toast if I can incorporate Nutella and marmalade to an yeasty, eggy, buttery base right from the start? Nutella Kuchen with Seville Orange Marmalade is my answer. I opened a jar of my own homemade marmalade with shreds of candied orange peel and Cognac. Just looking at the bright orange colour chases my winter blues away. The cake was sprinkled with toasted chopped hazelnuts for a bit of crunch. What a decadent breakfast treat!

I started baking my kuchen this morning before I took a shower. When I came downstairs, my house was filled with that delicious aroma you remember from good bakeries. It was a heady mix of yeast and butter laced with toasty hazelnuts. Who could possibly resist? I immediately sliced my kuchen for a piece.

Coconut, Blackberry, Lime

I’ve been sheepishly buying and devouring imported blackberries from Mexico. So juicy! So sweet! So cheap! My inner locavore wags her finger in disapproval every time but I cannot help myself. It is the dead of winter in Toronto. Every direction I look is grey, slushy, wet, and miserably cold. Sparkly winter wonderland it is not. Those little pops of dark violet remind me of warmer days.

You know what else leads my imagination to warm places? Coconuts, the quintessential tropical flavour. I previously wrote about my family’s love of coconut sweets. When an impromptu chance to visit Dad came up last weekend, I decided to bring him a small treat. Ever since that time I made 101 Cookbook’s Blackberry Macaroon Tart, the combination of blackberry and coconut left a lasting impression. Of course, making a tart crust and filling were a bit too involved for a spontaneous afternoon. I wanted a simpler approach.