The Yum Yum Factor

Nothing is sexier than creme brulee. It's rich. It's thick. It's just sweet enough. It has a crust that only shatters when you tap it with a spoon to reveal the treasure that lays beneath it. Unfortunately, it is also a bit of an ordeal to make at home but not if you have a pressure cooker. Creme brulee in my Instant Pot is a revelation. Long gone are the days of tempering the custard, trying my best not to curdle it but straining it before adding it to the ramekins just in case there were little bits of scrambled egg in there. Bye bye water bath that I always slosh all over the damned place when I am trying to get the cumbersome pan in and out of a hot oven. No more heating up the house for an hour which ensured that this was NOT a dessert I often made in the summertime.  The most exciting thing about making our favourite dessert in the Instant Pot is that I if I don't want to have six pots of fatty goodness teasing me from the fridge, I can whip up a si...

A while back I was given a few bars of Green and Black's Maya Gold organic dark chocolate  to use in my Mexican Compost Bars   and I was left with just a little bit of chocolate at the end of it all. It sat in my cupboard, sad and lonely with the knowledge that it was destined for bigger things than being shoved down my throat at 1am in the throes of a late night sugar attack. That is what Trader Joe's Spekulas Cookie Butter and a tea spoon is for. Maya Gold is a really fragrant, spiced dark chocolate, full of orange, nutmeg, cinnamon with a bit of vanilla and I had just enough to make a tiny batch of ganache and that is how this recipe for Creme Brulee with Ganache came about. It is a much more honourable fate for this majestic chocolate, right? You can cook this without the pressure cooker in a water bath in a 300F oven for 40-45 minutes if you like but using a pressure cooker is quicker and more efficient Creme Brulee with Ganache makes 6 ramekins 3...

I wanted to make a cake to raffle off at our Magical Unicorn School's halloween party and the only thing I knew that I wanted to do was use black food colouring in ganache and drip that down the sides. I found some rubber black mice and and really liked the idea of black on black. Red Velvet cake was the original plan when I came across the most delicious sounding recipe for a pumpkin spice cake and I changed my mind, which is, of course, my prerogative. I would make a Pumpkin Spice Layer Cake with Spekulas Cookie Buttercream and Spooky Ink Black Ganache.

Did you know that Kyoto is a sister city to Boston? They became sister cities back in 1959 and, in fact, their gift of the Japan House to the Boston Children's Museum is thought to be the most expensive gift ever given to an American community from a foreign sister city. The two cities collaborate on various events throughout the year and are very tight.