Cream Scones Recipe

So, after making all that delicious disaster of clotted cream I had to make something to put it on, right? Plus I had all that leftover un-clotted cream from the baking process that  needed to be used up. So, of course, I made the most logical thing:

Scones!

Frankly, I love scones. Sure, they can be a little bit dry but I can’t think of any better vessel for getting my daily required intake of butter and jam. Matt on the other hand hates scones so I don’t make them unless I want to eat a dozen by myself (which, I admit, does happen from time to time).

But I made scones anyway. For Queen and Country and Waistline.

I used the clotted cream in place of butter plus the leftover un-clotted cream in a basic scone recipe from BH&G. They turned out like a good classic scone with the added bonus of a nice nutty flavour from the clotted cream. Surprisingly Matt loved these, although if we’re being real I think he just really loved the clotted cream that he got to slather on them. And now he fully understands the true purpose of scone consumption. My work here is done folks.

Can you make out the golden clotted cream underneath all that strawberry rhubarb jam?

Delicious Cream Scones

makes 12

Ingredients

2 1/2 c all-purpose flour
2 T sugar + extra for sprinkling
1 T baking powder
1/4 t salt
1/3 c cold butter or clotted cream
2 eggs, beaten
3/4 c whipping cream (leftover from clotted cream making) + extra for brushing
1/2 c dried currants
Whipping Cream
Sugar

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

In a large bowl combine flour, 2 tablespoons sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut in the butter or clotted cream with a knife or pastry cutter until the mixture is coarse crumbs. Make a well in center.

In another bowl combine the beaten eggs, 3/4 cup cream, and currants. Add this wet mixture into the well of the dry mixture. Using a fork, stir just until moistened.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead it gently pressing dough for 10 to 12 strokes or until the dough is well combined and nearly smooth.

Divide dough in half. Pat or lightly roll each half of the dough into a 6-inch circle. Cut each circle into 6 wedges.

Place the scones 2 inches apart on a foil lined baking sheet.

Brush scones with the extra cream and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 12 minutes or until golden.

Serve warm with clotted cream and homemade strawberry rhubarb jam (yup, I made that too!) while drinking watching the Diamond Jubilee.

Homemade Clotted Cream

I wanted to make homemeade clotted cream in honour of Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee which is happening this weekend. I was adamant about making clotted cream.

True Fact: I’ve never tried clotted cream before.

I told Vicki that I wanted to make it and she proceeded to tell me that she found it to be sickeningly rich when she tried it in the UK at afternoon tea. . . but that was after practically devouring all of ‘tea for two’ on her own and that I should try it anyway.

I was apprehensive at this point but I had a litre of cream in the fridge and nothing else to do with it. The idea of ice cream was coming to mind instead since the weather was hot and ice cream was a much better project than baking cream in the oven for 8 hours.

Then I started reading more about making it. I read that the cream should not be ultrapasteurized or contain emulsifiers. Was mine ultrapasteurized? The carton didn’t say. It did contain some other crazy ingredients I didn’t understand which were probably emulsifiers. This was going to be a disaster.

The Process

I picked the least hot day, turned my oven to 200F, poured the cream in a 9×13″ baking dish, covered it with aluminum foil, put it in the oven and left the house to turn into a sauna for the next 8 hours.

When I came home to check on it I was pretty sure that was I was looking at was not what it was supposed to look like. I consulted the internet and confirmed my suspicion. I got a deep brown, caramelized tray of cream without a distinct thick layer of fat at the top like I was expecting.

I knew it was all wrong but in any case, I decided to follow through with the rest of the instructions. I let it cool to room temperature then refrigerated it for a few hours before skimming the top fat off the cream with a slotted spoon.

I collected the remaining cream (which was also brown in colour) and poured it into a separate bowl. I refrigerated the cream and the clotted cream overnight and hoped for the best.

The Result

So, now it’s tomorrow. I take my clotted cream out of the fridge. It has a really terrible consistency. It’s as thick as butter and full of chunks of the crispy caramelized skin that formed when baking. It isn’t right but, but but(!) the flavour is actually phenomenal. It tastes almost like Norwegian brown cheese (and obviously my next project is going to be to make brown cheese, but that’s another post for another day), very nutty and slightly sweet.

I thought I’d try putting the clotted cream in the food processor to rectify the texture situation. It doesn’t really smooth out. I do get rid of the major chunks, but I end up with something like crumbly butter. But it’s tasty and good enough to spread on a hot scone, so it’s good enough for me.

Just for the hell of it, I food-processed the leftover cream too. That smoothed out much easier.

From a taste standpoint, the clotted cream is great. I like it, Matt likes it, and it’s better than butter as a spread. So in the end my clotted cream is one of those disasters that wasn’t actually all that bad.

But I still don’t know what real clotted cream tastes like.

. . . stay tuned for part 2 when I use my clotted cream and leftover cream from the clotted cream making process to make scones. Happy 60th anniversary to the Queen!

Chewy Espresso Chocolate Cookie

I’ve been back to baking a lot of cookies again. It’s track & field meet season and Matt likes to bring cookies for his fellow coaches so it seems like I’m making a batch of cookies each week.

This week I made two.

I picked up a Food & Drink magazine from the LCBO and they had a recipe for Espresso Chocolate Cookies in it and I wanted to make they right away. They were loaded with chocolate chips, dried cranberries, pecans, and shredded coconut, and they had a fudgy chew to them which was an awesome texture.

Matt like them a lot too, even thought they had a strong coffee flavour and he’s not a fan of coffee, and he wanted to make some for the track coaches at the WECSSA meet. 4 of his throwers are going on to SWOSSA next week– Go Team!

This version of the cookie is a bit different. I didn’t have any more baking chocolate for the cookie base so instead I used more butter and I mixed cocoa with the flour. Also, I left out the cranberries and swapped the pecans for walnuts and basically made these cookies more friendly on the wallet.

They turned out quite good actually! Matt preferred them to the original batch I made. They were very chewy with a strong espresso flavour and lots of chocolate chips.

Good thing I was paying attention, because I’m going to want to make this recipe again, and probably soon.

Chewy Espresso Chocolate Cookie

(makes 20-24)

Ingredients

½ lb salted butter at room temperature
¾ c sugar
¾ c brown sugar
½ t baking soda
½ t baking powder
1 ¾ c AP flour
¾ c Dutch process cocoa powder
1 T espresso
2 eggs
½ t vanilla
1 ½ c semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 c chopped walnuts
½ c shredded coconut

Directions

Cream the butter in a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment until it’s soft, white, and fluffy.

Beat in the sugars together with the butter on medium speed for about 2 minutes. Add in the vanilla, and eggs (one at a time),

In a separate bowl stir together the baking soda, baking powder, flour, and cocoa powder until well combined.

Scrape the sides of the bowl of the mixer, add in dry mixture a little bit at a time. Mix until incorporated then add the nuts, chocolate chips, and coconut just until mixed.

Scoop cookie dough and form into a ball about the size of a golf ball. Place onto a parchment lined baking sheet and flatten the balls slightly with your fingers.

Bake at 350*F for 10 minutes or until the top is just set (not shiny).

The cookies should still be very soft and look underbaked. Let them cool on a rack before eating.

White Chicken Chili with Hominy

It’s time for another Eating the Alphabet recipe link-up where each month we make a recipe featuring a fruit, vegetable, legume, or whole grain from a different set of letters of the alphabet.

So far I’ve done:

(A or B): Buttercup Squash and Artichoke Pasta
(C or D): Grenadian Oil Down with Cassava (Favourite)
(E or F): Homemade Fig Newtons (Favourite)

This month we look at G or H. I’m going with hominy.

WTF is Hominy?

I picked hominy because I didn’t really know what it was but I know that I’ve eaten it before. Chances are good that you’ve had it too.

Hominy is used primarily in Latin American cooking where it is, most commonly, ground up into masa harina, the flour that is the basis for corn tortillas. If it’s ground a little coarser then it becomes white hominy grits.

Hominy looks like mutant-sized corn kernels and that is essentially what it is.

Regular old corn is prepared using a process called nixtamalization where it is heated in lye and ash until the outer germ of the kernel falls off.

This process was crucial to the survival of the ancient Latin American people in a couple of ways. Nixtamalization is a method of preserving the corn beyond harvest time and, more importantly, the process exposes the inner kernel of corn making it is easier to digest and also releasing vitamin B3 which allowed the Latin Americans to avoid deficiency.

Hominy is the primary ingredient in a popular Mexican meat stew called pozole. It is also often used to make chili, which is what I decided to do with it.

Because of all the hominy in it, this chili tastes a lot like tortilla chips. I liked the taste of the hominy overall, but I found this chili to be just okay. Matt was a big fan of it though, but he loves anything with chicken in it.I wish I would have tried my hand at a traditional pozole instead.

White Chicken Chili with Hominy

From Ellie Krieger

Ingredients

1 T olive oil
1 medium onion, diced (~1 1/2 cups)
2 stalks celery, diced (~1/2 cup)
3 poblano peppers, seeded and diced (~1 1/2 cups)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 t ground cumin
1/2 t ground coriander
1/4 t cayenne pepper, more to taste
1lb ground chicken
1 can white beans, drained and rinsed
3 c water
1 cube chicken bouillon
1 t dried oregano
1 dried bay leaf
1 (19-ounce) can hominy, drained and rinsed
Salt

1/4 c nonfat plain Greek-style yogurt
fresh cilantro leaves
1 Lime

Directions

Heat the oil in large pot over medium heat. Add the onion, celery, poblanos, and cook for 8-10 minutes until the vegetables are soft.

Stir in the garlic, cumin, coriander and cayenne for 30 seconds to 1 minute or until fragrant.

Add the ground chicken and break it up with a spoon. When it is no longer pink add in the white beans, water, bouillon, bay, and oregano. Cook, partially covered, stirring occasionally, for 25 minutes.

Add the hominy and salt and more cayenne pepper, to taste, and continue cooking, partially covered, 10 minutes longer. Ladle into individual bowls and top each serving with 1 tablespoon of yogurt a sprinkle of cilantro and a squeeze of lime juice.

Southwest Stuffed Peppers Recipe

I actually got my easy run in last night. Granted, it was after doing hill repeat with conditioning drills, but still I took it easy and enjoyed it!

So I’ve been doing the cleanse this week and it has been going pretty well.

. . . Except for maybe those milkfuls that I stole from the candy bowl on my way into work this morning.

. . . and then there’s the the vanilla soy milk that Matt bought when he was entrusted to the grocery shopping this weekend which would have been more of a surprise treat if he got it for me any other week. It does make Chia Seed Pudding especially delicious, I’ll admit.

. . . and, oh yeah, I’m going to have to cut this thing short because I’m going to a friend’s cottage this weekend and sausage is on the dinner menu and I do love a good sausage! …hang on, that sounded dirtier than I intended.

So I guess by going “pretty well” I mean “mediocre”. Remember back when I did the Master Cleanse? How the hell did I have the willpower for that?!? Oh yeah, I promised to wear a bikini in public. Evidently, I am highly motivated by fear and embarrassment.

I find that I have been eating my weight in dates. Especially in the form of homemade larabars which I may or may not have hidden from my husband to keep them all to myself. I guess it’s better than chocolate and cookies though right?

On the plus side, my dinners have been cleanse-compliant … except the fact that most of the ingredients aren’t organic when they should be (so I guess they’re more ‘friendly’ than ‘compliant’).

The other night I made stuffed peppers with a Southwest flair that were quite good. I made my version with chicken but you could easily make them vegetarian (any maybe even more delicious) with black beans instead. And if you don’t care about cleansing then I think these would be awesome with shredded cheese sprinkled on top before baking.

Southwest Stuffed Peppers

Ingredients

5 bell peppers, cut in half seeds removed
2 c. cooked rice
2 T olive oil
1 large onion, diced fine
1 jalapeno pepper, diced fine
1 t cumin
1 t paprika
2 t chili powder
1/8 t ground cloves
1-1/2 c marinara sauce
1 lb ground chicken
1/2 t salt
1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375F

In a large pan heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion and jalapeno pepper. Cook until the onion starts to soften (about 5-8 minutes depending on the temperature), don’t let it brown.

Add in the spices and stir for one minute until you can start to smell the aromas of the spices.

Add the marinara sauce and the ground chicken to the pan, breaking up the chicken with a spoon. Allow the sauce to come to a simmer, reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer for 15 minutes.

Stir in the cooked rice until heated through. Add the 1/2 tsp of salt, or add according to taste.

Place the pepper halves inside-up in a barge baking dish (you may need 2 depending on the size of your peppers). Spoon the rice mixture into each pepper half, filling it up as much as you can. Pour water into the bottom of the baking dish(es) about 1″ deep to help steam the peppers in the oven.

Put the peppers in the oven and bake for 25-35 minutes (depending on your oven) or until the the peppers are very tender. The rice filling with have a nice, lightly browned crunchy layer on top (that’s my favourite part!). Sprinkle with cilantro and serve.

Windsor Essex County Community Wide Cleanse 2012

This Sunday kicks off the week-long Annual Essex County Community Wide Spring Cleanse that focuses on healthy eating, avoiding chemicals in your environment, and yoga to detoxify the body.

The benefits of participating in the cleanse include: improved energy levels, an increased ability to cope with stress, improved recovery time after strenuous exercise, improved physical performance and stamina, a strengthened immune system, improved concentration and focus, enhanced weight loss, and feeling healthy!

I’m going to be taking part again this year for at least one week. The first time I did this cleanse was for 3 weeks. I did it to clear out my system and then I slowly reintroduced foods one at a time to determine if there was a dietary cause to my acne.

There was. In fact there were 2: dairy and seafood. Now have to I moderate my intake of dairy (particularly cheese) and seafood because otherwise my face breaks out terribly.

While I was on the cleansing diet for those 3 weeks I really did feel fantastic. I felt light and full of energy, so I’m obviously looking forward to doing it again.

If you are interested in taking part you can sign up for the cleanse on their website and get a pdf booklet with all the information about what foods to avoid during cleanse week, a meal plan, and a bunch of recipes for the week as well.

Here is a quick outline of the foods that are allowed and to be avoided during the cleanse. To your health!

Cleanse Diet:

Vegetables

Allowed – all fresh vegetables (especially cruciferous veggies) except . . .

Avoid – canned vegetables, white mushrooms, corn/corn products

Fruit

Allowed – fresh and frozen fruit (especially organic)

Avoid – grapefruits and their juices, dried fruit containing sulphites

Grains

Allowed – rice, millet, buckwheat, quinoa, tapioca, teff, amaranth, oats

Avoid – gluten (incl. wheat, spelt, rye, barley)

Legumes:

Allowed — legumes and peas

Avoid – soy products that are not organic, processed soy

Nuts/Seeds:

Allowed – Raw nuts and seeds including almonds, walnuts, hemp, flax, chia, sesame, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, brazil nuts, hazelnuts

Avoid – peanuts; any roasted/salted/flavoured nuts

Animal Products

Allowed – organic chicken, turkey, and lamb; wild game; low mercury fish (Clam, Ocean perch,
Alaskan salmon, tilapia, flounder, sole, catfish, sardines, herring, and anchovies)

Avoid – red meat, processed meat, dairy, eggs, seafood, high-mercury fish (shark, swordfish, king mackerel, tuna, orange roughy, marlin, Chilean bass, lobster, halibut, and snapper), Farmed or Atlantic salmon, fish from the Great Lakes.

Oils

Allowed – EVOO, coconut, grape seed, sesame, walnut, hemp, almond, flax

Avoid – canola, sunflower, safflower, peanut, corn, refined oils, margarine, shortening, salad dressing, mayonnaise

Condiments

Allowed – sea salt, herbs and spices, nut butters, bean dips, apple cider vinegar, Sweeteners: honey, maple syrup, stevia, and agave

Avoid – table salt, MSG, food additivies, preservatives, colouring, Sweeteners: corn syrup, brown rice syrup, molasses, brown sugar, white sugar, glucose, maltose, maltodextrose

Beverages

Allowed – 6-8 glasses water daily, 100% fresh fruit/vegetable juices, Herbal and Green teas, Unsweetened rice, soy, or almond milk

Avoid – Caffeinated beverages including coffee, black tea, and pop, alcohol, dairy, fruit juices high in sugar, vegetables drinks high in salt.

FYI: I did a Google image search of “cleanse” to find a picture to include here. Word to the wise, don’t to a google image search of cleanse. It’s revolting. I think I’ve been scarred by the images that have seared into my brain.

For relief here’s an overly cute picture

and another one for good measure

(images via cuteoverload.com)

Stuff I’ve Made Lately

Here’s what I’ve been up to in my kitchen lately:

Detox Salad with Broccoli and Currants

from Oh She Glows

I’ve made this recipe more times than I can count in the last several months and it is probably one of my favourite salads. I can eat it in massive proportions, so it’s a good thing that the recipe makes a huge batch.

I like to put a little more currants than the recipe calls for.

I also use lime juice instead of lemon and cilantro in place of parsley. Thumbs up.

(Image Source)

Spring Egg Salad

from Green Kitchen Stories

The yoghurt curry dressing used on this mix of boiled eggs and fresh vegetables is very tasty. I like that this recipe comes off as light and fresh yet decadent at the same time.

Though the recipe doesn’t call for it, I blanched my veggies before mixing them in the salad. Also, I left out the grapes and the sprouts. I think there are a lot of variations that you can do with this recipe.

(Image Source, left. That’s my version on the right)

Chicken with Creamy Chive Sauce

from PreventionRD

I have made this dish several times since I first tried it, including once for Matt’s birthday in January. I pretty much buckle at the knees for anything ‘creamy’, and I especially like this recipe because it’s a bit on the healthier side since it uses yoghurt instead of cream. The sauce is honestly to die for.

I’ve made this with both chicken and pork and they are both very good. I even made it one time using red wine instead of white and it came out burgundy in colour and just as delicious. This has been one of my top meat recipes as of late.

(Image Source)

Pasteli

from Leftover Queen

This is the Greek version of sesame candies. It’s rich with honey, has a deep sesame flavour, and is very very sweet. Unlike the sesame bars I’m used to, these are soft and chewy because they use honey instead of sugar (which hardens the candy).

I have only made these once and found them to be a bit on the sweet side, so I would probably not cut them into squares any larger than 1”. I only made half the recipe and it still made quite a large batch.

(Image Source)

Mushroom Ragout 

from David Tani via TheKitchn

So far I’ve made this mushroom sauce twice. It’s fantastic and very deep in umami taste. It makes a really good substitute for a meat-based dish. I’ve made the recipe as written and once with water in place of the mushroom broth (which, to be honest, I didn’t notice was missing). It’s very very good.

(Image Source)

Norwegian Apple Cake 

from Rosa’s Yummy Yums

I was first drawn to this recipe because of Norway in the title and I’ve been all over anything Norwegian since I came back from visiting the country. Then I was intrigued by the high apple-to-flour ratio and the lack of any fat (outside from the 1 egg in the recipe).

I made it this week and it is already half gone. I like that it is light, soft, and moist from all the apples packed in there. It isn’t too sweet or too decadent but is full of flavour from the spices.

It’s the perfect not-so-guilty dessert (I calculated 1/8th of the cake at only 110cals) that could easily double as a breakfast.

(Image Source)

Garbage Can Pizza Oven

Last July Matt called me at the office, to ask me a very important question after spending much of the morning with Zack digging up our crab grass infested lawn:

“Umm… I got a whole bunch of dirt here, you want to make a garbage can pizza oven?”

DO I EVER!

Let’s back up though. How did I know what the hell Matt was talking about?

Well, a few years ago my friend Daniel went to South Africa for an internship with an architectural firm. He returned to Canada with a bunch of terrifying stories of how dangerous and corrupt Cape Town is. . . and some good stories too about cool things that he did (though those ones seem to escape me). Anyway, he also came back with a cookbook for me:

Cooked in Africa by Justin Bonello (which I talked about here)

I’ve only tried a handful of recipes from it, but one that I had been wanting to do since I got the cookbook was the Dustbin Pizza, not just to piss off the neighbours by building a hideous hobo oven in my backyard but also because wood oven pizza is probably the best food in the world.

So I picked up a metal trash can (Edited to add: Make sure you get a garbage can that is not galvanized!) and Matt, Zack, and I got to building the oven when I got home.

How to Build a Garbage Can Pizza Oven:

1) Lay some soil down as a base for the ungalvanized metal garbage can.

Clay soil apparently has the best insulating properties, but we just used whatever we dug up out of our lawn.

2) Lay the garbage can (on its side) on top of the base soil and pack more soil around and on top of the garbage can. Again, the soil will help insulate the fire.

3) Acquire a square pizza stone for baking the pizza on.

Ours is actually rectangular measuring 14”x16”. We originally tried using a stone that was longer than 16”, but it was impeding oxygen flow to the fire so the fire wouldn’t stay lit. It might take some trial and error to figure out what size is best for the trash can.

So we made the oven last summer, but didn’t actually get a chance to cook anything on it until last night! I finally bought a new, appropriately sized pizza stone this weekend so we were able to make our first home made wood-fired pizzas.

How to Make Pizza in the Garbage Can Pizza Oven:

1) Start a fire at the back of the oven.

We set up 2 logs and some small kindling branches and got the fire started with a bit of newspaper. It didn’t take long to catch with the newspaper and the kindling.

The flames were pretty intense: I realized this later when I rubbed my forehead and found that I had actually singed off some of my hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes! That’s intense. Maybe just 1 log next time?

2) Place the stone in front of the fire and allow it to heat up.

We definitely didn’t let our stone heat up for long enough so the bottoms of the pizza didn’t get as crispy as I would have liked. It could probably use a good 10 minutes or so before putting the pizza on it.

3) Slide the pizza onto the stone using a pizza peel thoroughly dusted with semolina or cornmeal.

If you don’t have a pizza peel, you can use the back of a baking sheet instead. It works relatively well as a substitute. We put in two pizzas at a time because they were only about 6”. If you make a larger pizza you’ll probably cook one at a time.

4) Keep oven mitts and a set of tongs handy to rotate the pizzas as necessary.

Obviously, this oven is hot, so oven mitts are a must.
Keep an eye on the pizzas and make sure you don’t burn them like we did with this first batch. Woopsie!

Batch 2: Much better

5) Enjoy your hard earned pizza!

I’m thoroughly excited about the success of this wood oven. Not gonna lie, it’s way cooler than a barbecue. I’m planning on baking some bread in here too this summer.

Next project:

 
Justin Bonello’s Tarzan Roast – a leg of lamb cooked over a fire built in a wheelbarrow. Genius!

Homemade Fig Newtons Recipe

It’s time for another Eating the Alphabet recipe link-up where each month we make a recipe featuring a fruit, vegetable, legume, or whole grain from a different set of letters of the alphabet.

So far I’ve done:

(A or B): Buttercup Squash and Artichoke Pasta
(C or D): Grenadian Oil Down with Cassava (Favourite)

This month is E and F so I decided on figs!

Figs are one of my favourite fruits. They’re amazing when they are fresh in the summer months because they have a great texture is both smooth (from the flesh) and crunchy (from the seeds) at the same time.

Dried figs are satisfying in their own right because of their intense sweetness (one of the main reasons that I love them).

Even the leaves from the fig plant used in cooking, often as a parcel for roasting meat or seafood. I’ve never tried this before but it sounds pretty intriguing.

Aside from their deliciousness, figs are a good source of potassium, a mineral that helps to control blood pressure, and one of the highest plant sources of both fibre and calcium.

There are several different varieties of figs, but the more common ones are Black Mission which have a deep purple skin and Calimyrna which have a green skin (and are my personal favourites).

Fig Newtons are one of my favourite cookies (or should I say, ‘fruit and cake’) so this recipe appealed to me. Since figs aren’t in season right now, I made this recipe with dried Calimyrna figs that I picked up at the grocery store. The result was delicious. Matt and I nearly ate the batch in 3 days. Nearly. The cookie part is more of a cookie than ‘cake’ like a traditional Fig Newton, but I quite liked it.

I will make this recipe again.

Information Sources: 1, 2

Homemade Fig Newtons

adapted from Scientifically Sweet and Our Italian Kitchen
makes 20

Dough:

1/2 c butter
1/2 c sugar
1 egg yolk
2 T milk
1/2 t orange blossom water
1-1/2 c all-purpose flour
1/2 t baking powder

Jam:

1 package (8 oz) dried figs, chopped
1 1/2 c water
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t nutmeg
1/4 c brown sugar
juice of 1/2 lime

Cream together butter and sugar with an electric mixer for 2-3 minutes on medium speed. Scrape the sides of the bowl. Add in the egg yolk and orange blossom water.
In a separate bowl stir the flour with the baking powder and add this dry mixture to the butter mixture a little at a time, mixing on low speed until the dough starts to come together.
Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm (about 2 hours).

Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, combine the jam ingredients over medium-high heat until bubbling. Reduce to a simmer and cook for 30 to 35 minutes, until it is thickened to a gel and very little liquid remains. Cool completely.

Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease an 8”x8” baking dish.

On a floured surface, roll the dough out to a 8” x 16” rectangle, about 1/4” thick. Cut the dough in half (into two 8” squares) with a pastry cutter or pizza cutter.
Lift one square gently off the floured surface and place it into the baking dish. You want the dough to just cover the bottom of the dish so trim off any excess.
Spoon the filling on top and spread it over the dough evenly.
Place the second square of dough on top of the jam and again cut off any excess.

Bake for 22-25 minutes, rotating the baking dish halfway through, until golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool before cutting into squares with a sharp serrated knife.

Sugar-Free Lent

My sugar-free Lent went fairly well. I cheated a few times with hard candies if my sugar craving was really bad and I started to get lax about the sugar-laden condiments, like ketchup or plum sauce, the closer it got to Easter but for the most part I did okay.

I broke my fast at my family’s dinner celebration on Good Friday. Actually, that’s a lie. I broke my fast on Holy Thursday when someone at work offered me a mini cinnabon and I thought, “eh, why not? I’ve never had one before” and gave it a try. Oh heavens! That frosting they use is delicious.

So I broke fast again on Friday with my sister’s homemade birthday cake (that I somehow neglected to take a picture of, I swear I took one!)

2 layers of delicious chocolate cake

filled with strawberry curd

and frosted with white buttercream

Mmmmmm…cake.

And I also had some of the Colomba di Pasqua that I made.

Colomba di Pasqua means Easter Dove. It’s an Italian yeasted bread with candied fruit and raisins that is shaped like a dove and served at Easter. My favourite part is the topping which is a sweet paste of ground almonds, egg whites, almond extract, and sugar that makes the colomba taste like it’s covered in amaretti cookies.

I tried to make my colomba tropical by adding in shredded coconut and candied pineapple that I soaked in coconut rum straight from the Philippines. I thought it turned out quite good!

And I actually learned to properly shape the colomba so it actually looks like a dove.

Sort of. Kind of. You see it don’t you?

Saturday I broke my fast again with Matt when we drove all the way out to the Dairy Freez in Cottam for ice cream. I haven’t been to the Dairy Freez since I was a kid.

It may be blasphemous to say but I think I prefer the sundaes at Dari DeLite on Howard Ave.

On our way home from the Freez we stopped at Schinkel’s in Essex where I found the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten (and yet another way to break my sugar fast):

Speculaaspasta!

What is speculaaspasta you ask? It’s a creamy, smooth spread made from speculaas, you know, the Dutch gingerbread that I deemed to be my new favourite cookie this year. Yes, a spread made from cookies. It’s genius.

It’s a little on the pricey side at $6.50 for this wee jar, but it was definitely worth the money to taste it. I’m not entirely sure how to use it. Mostly I’ve just been eating it by the spoonful out of the jar. I tried some on my colomba and it was heavenly. I can imagine it being very good stirred into vanilla ice cream. My Dutch friend Heather said that her grandparents ate it on thick round crisps.

Matt said he like it, but he is still firmly rooted in Camp Nutella, whereas I might be a Camp Speculaaspasta convert. I apologize to my Italian heritage.