Thursday 22 January 2015

Let Not Light See My Blackberry and Deep Desires

          There's a rainfall warning in Vancouver right now which basically means we're going to get a lot of rain in a short amount of time. This differs from normal when we get a lot of rain in a long amount of time. Not that I'm complaining, grey and drizzly is my climate and perfect weather for trying out a new recipe!
       
           My Pinterest is full of delicious looking recipes that are just asking for a day like today (as well as most of the recipes on the blog!) so I started sifting through looking for one that tickled my taste buds. Seeking a bit of guidance I asked Papa Bear what he was in the mood for and he requested after much humming and hawing (he's not used to having a say in these things) that we have a surplus of frozen blackberries and he'd like some sort of cobbler. One of his summer past-times is hunting down blackberry bushes and picking them clean. I believe we have some on our property along with our raspberry bushes but judging from the seven containers in our freezer right now I suspect he imported from neighbouring properties. He picks and Mum and I make the pies, or cobblers in this case.
     
           I had actually just deleted the one cobbler pin I had as it didn't seem as appealing to me but it was fresh enough in my mind that I could search it out and upon re-examination it looked like a pretty delicious idea. A cobbler, but with a sugar cookie topping instead of biscuits. For anyone unfamiliar with cobbler, it's like the filling of a pie but with a soft biscuit on the top instead of a pie crust. This particular recipe was for a blueberry cobbler so I adjusted it for my own purposes.

Blackberry Sugar Cookie Cobbler


  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/2 tsp. baking powder
  • 3/4 tsp. salt, divided
  • 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar, divided 
  • 2 tbsp brown sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 2 tsp. vanilla
  • 2 pounds blackberries (I didn't weigh, I just eyeballed a good amount)
  • zest of 1 lemon
  • 2 tbsp. lemon juice
  • 1/2 tsp. cinnamon      



  • Combine flour, baking powder and 1/4 tsp. salt. In a separate bowl cream butter, 1 cup sugar and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and mix to combine. Slowly add dry ingredients, mixing until just combined. Wrap dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate. 

    In a large bowl, combine berries, remaining 1/2 cup granulated sugar and 1/2 tsp. salt, cinnamon, and lemon zest and juice. Add a little extra sugar if you're not crazy about the tartness of blackberries, I kept the original amount from the blueberry recipe which Mum appreciated but Papa Bear found to be not quite sweet enough for his tastes. Stir, mashing slightly. Cover and refrigerate 2 hours. 

    Strain berry mixture, adding juice to a small saucepan, and return berries to bowl. Simmer juice on medium heat until reduced by half, about 10 minutes or until you get frustrated by the fact that it's not reducing, crack and accept that your cobbler will be soup. Approximately 30 minutes. Pour over fruit and stir.

    Preheat oven to 350°. Spoon fruit mixture into a 9" x 13" oven-safe dish. Flatten balls of dough between your palms into 1/2"-thick rounds and lay over fruit. Or roll out to 1/2" thickness and use cookie cutters to make fun shapes. I didn't, but I kind of wish I had. Repeat until fruit is mostly covered. Place dish on a baking sheet and bake until the top is golden, about 1 hour. Any leftover dough can be baked off as cookies and snacked on while waiting for the cobbler to bake as they only take about 15 minutes. 

    Original Blueberry Cobbler recipe courtesy of Lady O and can be found here: http://www.oprah.com/food/Blueberry-Sugar-Cookie-Crisp-Recipe

    Wednesday 14 January 2015

    Hummingbird Cake

            Being broke and more or less unemployed (I took a job waiting tables at 6:30 in the morning for $40 a day so according to my bank account I'm still unemployed) I've found myself with plenty of time and unable to leave the house. Basically I'm bored of out my tree and just about ready to hang myself from one! I've done the whole binge watching Netflix thing (check out Broadchurch, so good!), yoga videos, reading, working on acting stuff, I even knit a tea cosy and of course, I've baked. It's tricky being right after the holidays because no one in my family wants much sweet stuff around, well we want it we just know we ought not to have it, so I've been aiming for lighter, less rich items like this fruity Hummingbird Cake.

       Two summers ago I bought a Taste of Home cookbook at a silent auction and I've tried quite a few recipes from it. So far, I've been very impressed and some of the recipes have even managed to become favourites. There are quite a few items in it that call for pre made or packaged ingredients such as cake mix, store bought dough or pudding mix. These are a huge pet peeve of mine and I don't consider them recipes. I'm sorry but store bought mixes taste awful and any "recipe" or "baker" using them loses all credibility in my opinion, if you couldn't sell it in a bakery you didn't bake it. Enough of my rant, onto the cake!

     I halved the recipe for my family of three and we are post holiday so huge slices of cake aren't the best way to fit back into one's jeans. The recipe posted is for the full cake, so if you want to cut it in half just use smaller pans. I used two 3inch rounds so I could still stack with the yummy icing in the middle which worked perfectly, but you could also stick it all in one 9x13 if you wanted to do it as a sheet cake.

    For the cake:

    2 cups mashed ripe banana
    1 1/2 cups canola oil
    3 eggs
    8 oz crushed pineapple, undrained (or pineapple chunks in a food processor!)
    1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
    3 cups all-purpose flour
    2 cups sugar
    1 tsp salt
    1 tsp baking soda
    1 tsp ground cinnamon
    1 cup chopped walnuts

    1. Beat the bananas with the oil, eggs, pineapple and vanilla until well blended.


      2. In a separate bowl combine the flour, sugar, salt, baking soda and cinnamon.
        Add the flour mixture to the banana and beat until well blended. Add the walnuts.

    3. Pour into three 9 inch round baking tins. Bake at 350ºF (180ºC) for 25-30 minutes. Cool completely before icing.


    The original recipe (found here) called for a pineapple icing with shortening, but I was feeling the carrot cake style cream cheese goodness. I used the recipe from the classic carrot cake but added a bit of extra butter and less cream cheese to make it more of a cream cheese/buttercream hybrid.

    For MY icing (or what I can remember, I was winging it):

    1 package cream cheese
    1/2 - 2/3 cup butter
    2 tsp vanilla extract
    1 1/2 -2 cups icing sugar

    1. Beat the cream cheese and the butter until smooth. Beat in the vanilla and then gradually add in the confectioners sugar. Adjust the amount of sugar according to the consistency of your icing. Ice your cake as you desire to do.
    Ta Da!
    I have absolutely no idea why it's called a hummingbird cake but regardless of the name it's delicious and moist and perfect for an afternoon cup of tea.

    -Holly


    Tuesday 6 January 2015

    Toffee or not Toffee

    So this Paul Hollywood guy knows what's up. This is the second time in the last couple of weeks I've used one of his recipes and he has not let me down. The first was my Christmas Morning croissants which I will remake and blog about another time as I was too ill to take pictures (but not too ill to bake!)

      My parents were having a friend over for dinner as one of their five yearly social engagements and seeing as though I'm currently unemployed and bored out of my tree I volunteered to make dessert. It would both keep me entertained and allow me to check one of my "to make" items off my list. I picked a sticky toffee pudding as I've been wanting to try my hand at it for awhile and also if I can be in England, I can at least eat English food with my eyes closed and pretend. In which case I usually pretend I'm being fed by Prince Harry in my country estate wearing Jimmy Choos because, hey, dream big.

    The recipe is pretty simple, I cut it in half as we've been on dessert overload since Christmas and didn't need any leftovers. I also took out a couple ingredients that were either difficult to find or not to people's tastes.

    STICKY TOFFEE PUDDING

    • PUDDING
    • 175g/6oz dates, chopped
    • 1 tsp baking soda
    • 75g/2½oz unsalted butter, softened
    • 150g/5½oz soft dark brown sugar
    • 2 eggs, beaten
    • 175g/6oz self-raising flour
    • ½ tsp baking powder
    • Preheat your oven to 180C/350F and butter a 24x26cm (9½x10½in) baking tin.
    • Put the dates in a bowl, pour on 200ml/7fl oz of boiling water and stir in the baking soda.
    • Cream the butter and the sugar together in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Add the egg, beating well. Fold in the flour and baking powder then stir in the dates and their water.
    • Pour into prepared pan, spread evenly and bake for 20-30 minutes until firm.


    • SAUCE
    • 100g/3½oz unsalted butter
    • 150g/5½oz soft dark brown sugar
    • 150ml/5fl oz whipping cream (double cream)
    • Melt together the butter, sugar and cream in a saucepan over a low heat. Bring to the boil and let bubble for 3-4 minutes, or until the sauce has thickened slightly. Not too long though or it will get hard when it cools and you'll have real toffee!
    • Preheat your grill (broiler) to high. Make holes all over the cooked pudding with a skewer. Pour some of the sauce over the pudding and place under the hot grill. Grill for 2-3 minutes, or until the sauce is bubbling. Keep an eye on it so it doesn't burn!
    • Serve immediately with remaining sauce. 


    Recipe adapted from here.

     I had some leftover sauce which I must say is delicious drizzled over freshly popped popcorn and paired with a nice Early Grey the next day.

    -Holly