Crepes

It's finally starting to feel like spring here, with the weather being sunny, breezy, and 19 degrees today. To me, crepes are  a particularly fitting food for spring because their light and delicate nature reflects the new grass, budding flowers, and baby animals born in this season. An additional bonus is that they can be topped or filled with almost anything you fancy, so I went ahead and came up with...

The Recipe:
Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup whole wheat chapati flour
• 1/4 cup shredded cheese. 
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 whole egg
• 3/4 cup milk

Whisk together in a large spouted container. In a non-stick pan, greased if desired, med-high heat, cover the flat surface of the pan with a thin, even layer of batter. To do this, take the pan off the heat, pour enough to cover about half the area into the centre. Swirl batter in the pan until the surface is evenly covered. Return pan to heat and cover until the steam that collects on the lid falls back to the pan and makes sizzling noises. Crepe's surface should look dull but the colour unchanged. Loosen edges of crepe from pan and flip with a heat-safe spatula. Cover and wait until you hear sizzling from the steam falling back to the pan again. Remove crepe from pan and repeat to finish other crepes. Makes 6 to 8 depending on size of pan

Dry ingredient mix - chopsticks help break apart shredded cheese

Some finished crepes

Brunch. Turns out strawberries and yogurt taste pretty good with black pepper crepes.

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Cocoa Gingersnap Cookies

The cookie monster in me came out this weekend.

The Recipe:
Ingredients:

•  1/2 cup whole grain brown rice flour
•  1/2 cup teff flour
•  3/4 cup buckwheat flour
•  2 tbsp pea fibre
•  2 tbsp dark cocoa powder
•  1 tsp baking powder
•  1/2 tsp salt
•  1 cup cottage cheese
•  1/2 cup low fat cream cheese
•  1 egg
•  1/2 cup brown sugar
•  3 tbsp fresh ground ginger
•  1 tbsp granulated sugar

Sift and mix flours, pea fibres, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt. Process cottage cheese or push it through a sieve, and mix with cream cheese, egg, brown sugar, and ginger. Combine dry ingredients into the wet to form a dough. Shape into small round dough balls and squash slightly. Roll in granulated sugar if desired and bake in a 350F oven for 20 to 25 minutes until cookie is crispy. Let cool a bit and enjoy (with a glass of milk)! 

Cookie dough. The white specks are bits of cottage cheese. They will not be visible after baking. 

yum yum!

Chocolate Chantilly Cake

I'm sure someone else has already invented this cake and gave it a name, but I haven't come across it yet, so I'm just going to call it a chocolate chantilly cake. It has four layers of crispy meringue (that probably won't stay crispy by the time the cake has chilled), and is frosted with chocolate chantilly. I guess it's sort of like a dacquoise, without the buttercream or nuts. It's also meant to be a simple recipe, because other than the little bit of cream of tartar and salt, there are only four main ingredients. Hope you enjoy this rich-tasting cake too! 

By the way, if you know of the proper name for a cake like this, please let me know! University has made me obsessively vigilant about not plagiarizing or taking credit for anything that's not mine. So I definitely don't want to do that here. 


The Recipe:
Ingredients:

• 3 egg whites
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 200 g dark, unsweetened chocolate (you can also use bittersweet)
• 175 mL water

Stir sugar, cream of tartar, and salt together. In a clean bowl, whisk egg whites until they reach a soft peak (or when you don't see anymore clear, runny egg whites at the bottom of the bowl). Gradually add sugar as you continue to whisk. Beat to the egg whites are glossy and reach a stiff peak. Spread into four 1 cm, 15 cm diameter round disks with a stencil onto a lined baking sheet. I used the hole in a removeable bottom pie tin. Make sure the top is even. With the leftover egg whites, scoop into a piping bag (or plastic bag and cut off a corner) and pipe small rounds to use for decoration later. Bake in a 250F oven for 30-40 minutes until the meringue is crisp and dry, and you can easily remove them from the sheet without them sticking. Allow them to cool in the oven. 

In the mean time, bring the water to a boil in a small pot (covered). Take water off the stove and drop in 175 g of chocolate. Whisk to help chocolate melt into the water. Once the chocolate has completely melted and mixed with the water, pour into a large bowl, set over a bowl of ice water, and whisk as if you're whipping cream. The chocolate should begin to firm up and resemble chocolate frosting. Spread the whipped chocolate on each meringue disc generously, keeping 1 cm border clear of the edge, stacking each layer on top of the last as you go. With the remainder of the chocolate, spread onto the sides to cover the whole cake. Stick the mini meringues on the side for decoration. With the remaining 25 g of dark chocolate, you can melt and pipe shapes to add additional decoration to put on the cake. Chill for at least a few hours in the fridge, slice, and enjoy! 

My first time making this; not sure if it was supposed to look like this. 

Meringue disks, before baking

Tada!

Carrot Bread

Now that the school year has ended and I can devote my entire weekend to baking, I decided to try making bread with the stand mixer. I like carrot cake, but wanted to make bread, so I tried to make a sweet bread with carrots. It doesn't taste exactly like carrot cake, but it is reminiscent of it and tasty in its own way. I can never find pumpkin spice powder, and it's not really the season for it anyway, so I just used some five spice powder, which is always abundant in my house. Over the past few days, I've found out that it tastes good with some extra icing sugar dusted on top, or a drizzle of honey. It's also delicious to make peanut butter sandwich with, and even better if I make french toast with it. 

I have a question for you though. I've always thought of carrot cake as an autumn recipe, because of the dense, hearty quality of the cake and the pumpkin spice usually used. But I recently saw a local bakery's display promoting carrot cakes for the spring season. What do you think: Is carrot cake seasonal? If so, which season? 

The Recipe:

Ingredients: 

• 3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup gluten flour
• 2 tbsp pea fibre
• 1 tsp five spice powder
• 1 can semi-skimmed evaporated milk (~1 1/2 cup)
• 3/4 cup carrot puree
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 package instant yeast
• 1/2 tsp salt

Combine dry ingredients (except yeast) in a bowl and stir to mix. In the mixing bowl, place all wet ingredients, except the oil and eggs, and add the yeast. Start to stir with the dough hook attachment at low speed and gradually add the dry ingredients. Add about 3/4 of the dry ingredients and let the dough knead for 5 minutes at medium speed. Scrape the sides of the mixing bowl to make sure all ingredients added are incorporated into the dough. Take dough out of mixing bowl and into a large oiled bowl. Cover bowl loosely with a damp tea towel or plastic wrap, and let rise for at least an hour. Then, return dough to mixing bowl, and while kneading at low speed, add eggs and oil, and the rest of the dry ingredients. Let the dough knead for another 6-8 minutes or so at medium speed. Dough should be smooth, soft, and slightly tacky. Place dough in its baking tin. I used a 9" bundt pan. Cover and let rise as before for at least another hour. Place in an oven preheated to 350ºF (~175ºC) oven and bake for 45 minutes. Check if it's done by tapping the crust. It should sound airy and hollow if it is done. If it sounds and feels dull and dense when tapped, return to oven for another 5 to 10 minutes before checking again. 

Carrot puree

Risen bread

Baked carrot bread (very orange from the eggs and carrots)

Texture inside

Fruit & Syrup Cornmeal Cake

It's that time of the year again, when everything and everyone is just starting to stir from a long winter's nap, and I am recovering from another traumatizing set of exams. As always, a few eager early crops of cherry tomatoes and strawberries from some warmer place spring up to the front shelves of supermarkets. I know it isn't peak season yet, so they aren't very flavourful, but I couldn't resist getting a small box of each. Anyhow, they'll do fine in these cakes because I concentrate their flavours by heating and reducing some of their water content in a pan before adding them into the batter. To complement the fruits, there are also streaks of silky Chinese black vinegar swirling through these cakes. The cornmeal and dark brown sugar gives this cake a heartiness. There's a bit of lingering winter and upcoming spring in this cake to reflect the current weather.

The Recipe:

Sift together dry ingredients: 

• 1 cup whole wheat cake/pastry flour
• 3/4 cup yellow coarse-grind cornmeal
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt

Wet ingredients: 

• 1 cup grape tomatoes
• 1 cup whole strawberries
• 1 cup black vinegar (AKA Chinese Chinkiang vinegar, available at Asian grocery stores)
• 1 cup plain yogurt (not Greek, any fat content is OK, as long as there is no gelatin or thickening starches)
• 3 whole eggs
• 1/2 cup (or half a 250 g block) light plain cream cheese
• 1/2 cup brown sugar

Dice tomatoes and strawberries and heat in a dry, non-stick pan until the fruit pieces look somewhat shrunken and shrivelled. Allow fruit to cool on a plate. Reduce vinegar in the same pan until it is the consistency of runny honey in the pan, or about a third to a quarter of the volume is left. Remove to a bowl to allow it to cool. In a large bowl, beat cream cheese, yogurt, and sugar until well mixed. Add eggs and continue to beat until mixture is smooth. Add sifted dry ingredients in three batches, stirring or blending partially between each batch. Gently stir in fruits until they are evenly distributed. Add reduced vinegar and stir a few times so that streaks of black from the vinegar are visible in the batter. 

Pour into non-stick cake tin of your choice (recipe fits well into a 12-inch round tin, or two 8-inch round tins, or six 4-inch mini-cake tins). Bake at 325°F or ~165°C until toothpick comes out clean. This takes about 25 minutes for the mini tins and 35 minutes for larger tins. Remove cakes from tins whenever they've cooled enough for you to handle them. Slice and enjoy!

Note: Feel free to substitute with any other fruit that taste good cooked. You can also use balsamic vinegar instead of black vinegar – just make sure to use the cheap kind. If you like your cake sweeter and think your fruits match the flavour, you can even drizzle in honey or thick molasses instead of vinegar. 

Strawberries.

Reducing vinegar. It's letting off a intensely sharp, but pleasant smell right now.

A rather thick cake batter with streaks of vinegar visible.

Hot cakes, just out of the oven. A yummy crispy top!

Time to have a slice!