The Yum Yum Factor

Last week I hosted my monthly Supper Club at The Kingston Social, here in Toronto and the dinner was a Middle Eastern Feast with a touch of Jamaican thrown in for good measure. Each time I host, I like to try one new dish that isn't always mine but that I am dying to try out and this time, I really wanted to make this Moroccan Orange Cake  on the blog, Kitchen Confidante. I found the recipe so intriguing - using fresh bread crumbs in place of flour, the idea of soaking it in an orange syrup afterwards so it would almost like a cakey baklava was screaming YAAAAASSSSSSS. So, on the day, I realized that I only had an 8" spring form pan but the recipe called for normal cake pan so I borrowed one of those. I buttered and floured the pan and I made the cake only to discover that it WOULD NOT COME OUT! I had to, basically, dig the cake out of the pan as it stuck to the bottom and I found myself with three chunks of cake and a whack of crumbs on a day where I was going to have to...

If you live in Toronto, you have probably had shortbread from Mary Macleod's at some point. Unlike most other self named companies, there really is a Mary Macleod and she started baking her famous chocolate crunch shortbread in 1981. Even after 30 years in the business, Mary, herself, still spends time in the kitchen coming up with new treats like the Butterscotch Shortbread Crumbs I used to make the crust for this cheesecake. I was more than happy to accept a free bag of cookie crumbs to experiment with because I would happily buy them anyway. I used to live right across the street from Mary's shop on Queen St East for a few years and so I was very familiar with the product. It's not like I had ever run over there in my pjs and grabbed a few cookies to go with my morning coffee or anything.....

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.

I recently wrote about a cookbook, Grace's Sweet Life  , a book full of amazing Italian desserts, pastry and other sweets. I knew that this would be the first recipe I tried as soon as I took my first look at the book but I needed to wait until an occasion was upon us because I just don't make desserts like this for just the three of us. Last night, The Neighbour's had a big, holiday dinner party and I volunteered to make the desserts so, of course, I made Grace's Truffle Cake with Chocolate Glaze. It came together surprisingly easily although I skipped a couple of the steps that would have rendered a more refined end product because I didn't really need it to be perfect, just delicious.  Oh boy, was this thing delicious. It really did taste like a slice of chocolate truffle in a yummy chocolate cookie crust. I usually do a flourless chocolate cake when it's a cake night but this might become my new, go to show stopper.

Canadian Thanksgiving is upon us and so we are getting ready to make our annual trek to spend the holiday with my sister and her family. First of all, let us discuss the merits of having Thanksgiving fall so early in the year, as opposed to the American holiday which occurs right before Christmas. If you are a turkey lover, and we are huge turkey lovers, you want to partake of a big turkey dinner as many times a year as you can possibly manage, no? This means that we like to do turkey for Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter. I am thinking about making Shack a huge turkey dinner for his birthday in May as well but don't tell him, it's a surprise. Don't worry, he says he reads my blog but he really doesn't so he will never know if you don't tell him. So, back to the merits of an early Thanksgiving. Canadian Thanksgiving has been held on the second Monday of October since 1957. This means it can be as early as Oct 8th, like this year, or as late as the 15th or...

Gastropost this week is all about the peaches. I didn't think it was peach season yet but the folks at the Post said it was so we set off to Niagara to find some. As things often happen in our little family, we had good intentions but instead of Niagara, we meandered over towards Caledonia, where we had a really tasty lunch at the Cornerstone Tap and Grill  thanks to Restaurantica and Urban Spoon. If you are ever in Caledonia, make sure you stop here for lunch - the food was really quite good, the portions were generous and we were very pleased with our pulled pork crostini, various salads and fish and chips for The Kid. With full bellies we set off to continue our drive. Of course, I am NOT the navigator so I had no idea where Caledonia sits in relation to Niagara so I just sat back and enjoyed the lovely scenery as we continued on our way to find peaches. Eventually, just was I was thinking that it was taking a very long time to get to Niagara I noticed a sign letting...

Ahhh, it's rhubarb season again. When I was a kid, every house I ever lived in had rhubarb growing wild at the back of the yard against the fence. Every single house, I swear. To me, it was an edible weed and my mom would let me take a bowl of sugar out on the back porch and dip a stalk of rhubarb into the sugar and munch happily away on it, disregarding the fact that it was most likely covered in dog pee. My mom was cool like that. Nowadays, rhubarb is $4 a stalk at the market and has become super trendy and I no longer live in a house with a yard so I can grow my own wild rhubarb by the fence for the dog to pee on so I have no choice but to pay $4 a stalk for it, hopefully dog pee free at these prices. The Kid adores rhubarb so I whipped up a bit of strawberry rhubarb compote for him to eat all week however he sees fit. Beware, this recipe is a bit tart because he likes his rhubarb a bit on the sour side so feel free to add another 1/4 cup of sugar if you like it swee...

Mexico is still very much on my mind so I am still looking to make the things that I was looking forward to eating but didn't get to eat while I was there. Although I have eaten my fair share,  I have never actually made a tres leches cake so I thought it would be a great choice of dessert for New Year's Day dinner. We were having our MVP friends over (Most Valuable Peruvians) and I know that they have their own version of this cake so I know it will be familiar enough but I want to christmas it up a bit. We are still all about the turkey dinner and so we are having one last turkey dinner on New Year's Day.There is a full thing of eggnog leftover (the rest of it is sitting comfortably on my ass and belly right now) and so it made sense to make an eggnog tres leche so we can mix the best of all worlds in one, damp, delicious little cake. Most importantly, it will also use up the last of the eggnog and get it out of my house until next year. I decided to use this reci...

Good golly, this is a crazy cake. The Food Network Canada cooking club challenge this month was Laura Calder's Craggy Chocolate Cake  and I was so looking forward to making it. We are not big on cake cake but a good flourless chocolate cake is a different animal all together - it's more like a fudgy, gooey brownie than a chocolate cake. This is my first time making this sexy beast and I assure you, it will NOT be my last. I followed the video directions to a T and it turned out beautifully. I was planning to get all fancy pants but once I tasted the finished cake, I decided it needed nothing more than some maple whipped cream and a couple of berries. Now, I just have to find a bunch of people to come and eat this thing before I go off the rails and eat the whole thing myself! Craggy Chocolate Cake 200g 70% dark chocolate 200g butter, cut into chunks 200g ( 1 cup) sugar 4 eggs, separated whipped cream berries Heat the oven to 375F Prep an 8" spring form ...

Yes people, it's snack day again but I am tired of muffins. I really wanted to make scones and send in a jar of vanilla strawberry jam that I bought at the Toronto Bakes for Japan sale but Little Shack doesn't really like scones. It's ME who really likes scones so since it's his snack day, not mine, I switched gears and began searching for some sort of loaf to bake. With absolutely no intention of going out of my way to make something low fat,  stumbled across this recipe and it looked perfect. I have been craving oatmeal something or other, it was not overly sweet and I was intrigued by the whole whipping the egg whites thing. I sliced the heel off of the still warm loaf before sending it off with the kid to take to school just to make sure it was going to taste as good as it looks and it certainly does. I would think this would be delicious with whole wheat flour and with the addition of nuts, some chocolate chips or even a bit of orange juice and zest. I will d...

photo by Chris Couper I have a dear friend named Kate. One of my first blog posts was about me making cookies for Kate's mom to take to a cookie exchange party at Christmas because Kate's mom, like Kate herself, doesn't cook. Imagine my shock the year that Kate brought this chocolate cake, covered in whipped cream to our annual Christmas Eve party? My son ate half of it and proclaimed it to be THE best cake he had ever eaten. He even asked if Kate could make it for him as his birthday cake. That would be like Kate's daughter asking me to organize her room. I decided that I wanted to make this magical chocolate cake myself and asked Kate for the recipe. She looked at me like I had three heads and said "there isn't a recipe. Are you making fun of me?" It seems like I am the only person of our generation who did not grow up eating this Nabisco chocolate wafer refrigerator cake. My mom was the queen of easy desserts and I certainly ate my sha...

Who would have thought that I would ever be the proud owner of a 12 year old boy? One day you are pulling him down off of the bookshelf and the next, you are buying him Axe deodorant and he is asking you if you think he will look good with a beard?