Christmas Recipe Round-Up

I have to confess — while recipe round-ups are not normally my style, I felt like there was too much of a gap between my stöllen and my next post, so a wee bit of filler was in order.

Coming soon: cookies and big news!

So, I’m currently bogged down with cramming and exams — that just means that some of the delicious treats I made last Christmas get an extra minute in the spotlight — like these rich and velvety Mucho Mocha Shortbread.

That’s win-win, right?

Especially because I think some of these creative recipes, like Mandarin Cupcakes with Clove Buttercream, definitely deserve a second look.

I did crazy, mad, frantic, enthusiastic baking during my first few weeks of blogging, and it just so happened to be over the holidays!

It’s bitter-sweet to think about the lovely Pear & Cranberry Cake with Orange Buttermilk Glaze that hardly anyone ever looked at, simply because I hadn’t yet learned about networking, making fellow blogging buddies, or the glories of photographing with natural light.

Sad, but true!

I mean, these Cranberry-Pecan Sandies are the type of cookie that my coworkers pestered me to make again over and over (I just indulged them this last weekend — and they’re good as ever), but I just didn’t know how to make them shine in front of a camera.

Especially since I didn’t know anything about food styling or adding props to photos either.

The gold star embossed tissue paper behind these Toasted Coconut Icebox Cookies was about as complicated and intricate as it got with me.

Maybe a sad piece of shriveled holly bush managed to sneak itself into the frame when I photographed these Chocolate-Dipped Marzipan Cookies — but adding props like that didn’t happen very often!

Behold — a whole dish, napkin, and spoon! I had started to branch out!

A bowl full of nutmeg-dusted Cranberry Syllabub aside, the last year has been a serious learning experience for me — there’s more to making a blog work, to making food work, making writing work, than just churning out recipe after recipe.

You’ve gotta have a story to tell, a life to share, and a love of food to impart to the world!

This funny-looking Rum-Spiked Brownie Bits with Candy Cane Frosting has a story to tell, too — one about how half my coworkers wouldn’t touch these chocolately morsels because of the sluggish, speckled grey frosting on top.

That is, until someone had the guts to try this odd-coloured creation and declared it delicious!

Sometimes food blogging can be made pretty and easy and neat, like these Perfect Gingersnaps, and sometimes it’s so much stress that you want to tear all your hair out and sleep for an entire month!

I know that in my last post I said I fear the impending holiday rush — and, well, it’s still true.

But all your kind comments (and some like-minded facebook statuses from my friends) made me realize that it’s best to meet things head on!

Here’s to the holidays — the stress, the joy, the festive food, the amazing baked treats — and keeping your head screwed on as tightly as possible from now until the new year!

Parkin & Cake Trials in Pastry School

So, here’s one of the reasons I’ve had cake on the brain:

Whadya think?

I think it looked okay-ish. Tasted great, but looked pretty amateur — I’ve gotta improve my masking and frosting skills.

Y’know, like, when you make something and you think, “This is pretty good…” and then not even 10 minutes later you think, “This is pretty good… but I should have done THAT!” — that’s totally how I felt about my cake project.

It’s comprised of a mocha sponge cake brushed with coffee syrup, layered with chestnut liqueur-infused ganache, and covered in chestnut whipped cream.

My chocolate-coffee-chestnut cake came into being because last week everyone in my class had to make their own cake project and present it to our chef for dissecting and tasting. While my creation definitely wasn’t the prettiest of the bunch, chef gave it top marks for taste and texture.

Besides — I know what I can do next time to make it look a lot better!

This parkin recipe I’m posting today is pretty much the exact opposite of what I was trying to do with my cake project — my cake was supposed to be elegant and sweet, while parkin is a down n’ dirty spice cake snack of the people.

I didn’t realize this before sifting through recipe books and planning posts for the month of November, but parkin is one of the festival foods commonly associated with Bonfire Night in England (which is, sadly, something I missed by about 10 days).

It’s weird timing that I would come across this recipe now, just because of the Occupy movement that’s been hitting major cities — little is it know that the movement actually started in Dataran, Kuala Lumpur, before igniting the high profile protest in Wall Street.

There’s even an Occupy protest happening in Vancouver right now, although I’m not totally sure what it’s supposed to accomplish.

While it would have been good to have a solidarity march for Wall Street or something, there’s not quite enough social inequity and crazy right-wing politicians in Canada to justify a full blown Occupy for any length of time.

Especially considering that the people who’ve pitched their tents on the Art Gallery lawn downtown don’t really seem to have any clear demands, other than to legalize raw milk — a stupid, irresponsible demand to which I’m 100% opposed.

Also, some of the protesters have been going to our local mayoral debates and heckling the candidates. I mean, good job, geniuses — the political change you want will come way faster if you interrupt democratic process.

Ugh.

The other weird thing about the Occupy movement is how the Guy Fawkes mask has been appropriated for the cause.

Blackberry & Ginger Pull-Apart Bread

Today, I’m going to write about bread. Just bread with berry.

Sweet and tangy blackberry-ginger filling sandwiched between soft, warm-from-the-oven, pillowy, pull-apart squares of bread.

Did you just drool a little?

We’ve all been there.

To those of you who have ever made their own bread, I don’t need to go on. To those of you who have never made their own bread, you just don’t know what you’re missing.

Sometimes a little flicker of happiness is just fresh bread and a pat of salted butter.

Apricot-Almond Cobbler

One of my most favouritest cooking guides of all time is The Flavor Bible.

It’s not a recipe book, though, but rather a massive compendium of ingredients and their flavour pairings.

My boyfriend got it for me a few months ago (it was a really sweet, here’s-a-present-just-for-no-reason sorta thing), and it’s seriously one of the best gifts that anyone has ever given me.

Whenever there’s some fruit on the counter and I’m in need of a little inspiration…?

I just flip through the good book, pick out a few other ingredients, double-check to make sure I’m not heading for a kitchen disaster, and get crackin’.

That’s how I was inspired to take a warm, heavy cobbler recipe and change it to suit summer — by using sweet apricots, lightly toasted almonds, and vanilla bean ice cream.

Now, if only I had a porch, a rocking chair, and a mosquito swatter… then my life might be complete.

Coconut Lychee Rice Pudding

When I was a kid, I never ate rice pudding.

My mom used to by these jumbo rice pudding tubs from Costco and I’d just leave it to my siblings to demolish ’em — the rate at which my family could go through rice pudding probably would have disturbed even the most devoted of enthusiasts.

The reason, of course, as to why my 10-year-old self would never go near the rice pudding was because these enormous, pre-packed fridge-invaders from Costco were full of raisins.

Ugh. I don’t even think I need to talk about how much I hate raisins…

So, while I could go on and on about that, today I’m here to tell you that there’s rice pudding hope for raisin-haters!

Originally, I came across this recipe while browsing through an old Oprah Magazine.

My issues with Oprah’s housewife-cult-culture aside, I’ll admit that she can do good things from time to time — like print an awesomely adaptable rice pudding recipe!

Whole Wheat Molasses Loaf

Often, when eating quick breads, I can’t quite shake that guilty feeling that what I’m eating isn’t cake.

Especially since quick breads and cakes do have a lot in common: they’re leavened with chemicals (baking soda, baking powder, cream of tartar) instead of yeast, they go into the oven as a batter before they bake, and they’re often sweet.

But quick breads have good points, too: they’re particularly good for people who need want bread and need it to be, y’know, quick!

Would it be faster for a hard-pressed-for-time student to pop on over to the supermarket and pick up a loaf of Wonderbread?

Sure, it could be — but then I’d probably get distracted along the way and not come back for hours and hours.

Quick bread is 20% prep time and 80% bake time — which leaves me an extra hour to spend on writing papers… hooray?