Blog Post List

This blog post list contains the most recent blog posts from The Messy Baker in reverse chronological order. You can also browse by recipe category or use the search function.

These hands turn 80 this summer. These hands have picked strawberries, made jam, kneaded bread, rolled pastry. They have decorated birthday cakes, anniversary cakes and wedding cakes. They have changed diapers, washed clothes, sewn dresses, mended seams, darned socks, stitched buttons, ironed pleats. They have tied shoelaces, braided...

This is my French rolling pin. It doesn't have easy-grip handles. It doesn't have ball bearings. It isn't made from cold, heavy marble. It's just a smooth, tapered piece of hardwood. For years I wondered why anyone would choose this style over the comfy-handled version with ball bearings I grew up with. Then last December, watching pastry chef Anna Olson use one to roll a perfect circle of dough, I saw the Rolling Pin Light. Its tapered form allows you to guide the dough in any direction you want. My other pin bullied the pastry, shoved it about, barked orders at it. The resulting tussle left all parties looking somewhat dishevelled and my ego fully bruised.
Some days you just have to take a deep breath and say, "Well, it tasted great!" The day I broken open my stash of  preserved lemons was one of those days. With bright yellow lemons and deep green mint, I thought I could turn out a dish as pretty as the photo in the book that inspired me. I was wrong.
Monday. One of the most maligned days of the week. According to the Mamas and Papas, not only is Monday untrustworthy, it will leave you crying. All of the time. Now I can't have that. So below is a list of the people who won a copy of my app Kitchen Disasters & Fixes. Since fish seemed to stump a lot of people, I am sharig a few of tips from the Fish & Seafood section, so you're all winners.
According to my mother, I have loved butter ever since I was old enough to sneak a one-pound brick of it out of the grocery bag, quietly peel back the foil, lick off a good inch, rewrap the evidence and slip it back in the bag. I think I was about 4. Today, I consume fat far more responsibly and the cat is the one who sneaks licks of butter.
Although I use this dairy product prudently, my love of butter remains. I cannot imagine Christmas without rich, buttery shortbread. What would boiled lobster be without its melted sidekick? Just another bottom feeder. And popcorn? Don't even think the word "butter-flavoured topping." So, when Stirling Creamery hosted an evening at Ruby Watchco to showcase their new butter collection, I just couldn't say no. Ruby Watchco in Toronto Before this butter-infused evening I thought there were two kinds of butter -- salted and unsalted. And I was wrong. So very, very wrong.

We have our first winner. Joni, who tends to burn things, has won a copy of my new app Kitchen Disasters & Fixes. I'll be giving away a copy of the app each day this week until Sunday, so if you have an iPhone, iPad or...

Hooray, hooray! The month of May. My iTunes app went live today. Okay, I'm not a poet. But I have written a pretty good app. Having had more than my share of Kitchen Disasters, I thought it might be a good idea to share my hard-earned...

As luck — and Murphy — would have it, I encountered some serious computer issues right after the maple syrup trek. I couldn't download photos or work for more than half an hour without the system grinding to a halt. And surfing the web? My...

[caption id="attachment_7278" align="alignnone" width="500"]Maple trees in Ontario, tapped for making maple syrup Jo Marie's maple tress tapped for sap.[/caption] When I was nine, we moved to a house with two huge maple trees in the side yard. Years before, someone had tapped the trees and left the spiles in the trunk. Intrigued by the metal protruding from the bark, I asked my mother what they were for. When she explained, I blithely suggested we make our own maple syrup. Without even pretending to consider my request, Mom said no. At the time I thought my mother — the woman who baked bread, made pastry and even created hand-dipped chocolates for Easter — was being incredibly unreasonable. She wasn't. I now understand why.
Elephant Ear - TheMessyBaker These are elephant ears. Or palm ears. Or palmiers. Or French hearts, or butterflies or glasses. No matter what you call them, these sugar-laced puff pastry treats are one of my all time favourites. Like most things worthwhile, they are a labour of love. And I love my father. So I made a batch to welcome him home after a month abroad on a volunteer mission. But as Murphy would have it, my website went haywire* during the process. I tried to restore the site between rounds of rolling, chilling, slicing and baking. The results? A salvaged blog and a pan of burnt elephant ears. Another senseless waste of pastry.