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.

In this age of pre-made artisanal everything, some foods remain defiant. While you can buy decent heat-and-eat naan in the grocery store, flaky croissants at any good bakery and to-die-for bagels at delis, crumpets remain elusive. The store-bought versions are rubbery and taste like they're sprinkled with vinegar. The real ones? Slightly chewy but light, with only a hint of a sourness. The trademark holes harness a sea of  melted butter on which honey or homemade jam buoy with delight. Yup, I wrote that sentence high  --  on the memory of my homemade crumpets. Although crumpets can be mass produced, their prime is too short to make them mass marketable. Within a couple of hours they morph from golden brown butter sponges into wan, pockmarked hockey pucks. And because crumpets are best only fresh-from-the-griddle, I'm breaking several of my unwritten culinary rules to share this recipe. To make these I:
[caption id="attachment_4899" align="alignnone" width="427" caption="Bob Blumer, the Surreal Gourmet at The Drake."][/caption]   Normally, I sit back and let technology do the dirty work for me. I rely on Random.org because it's neutral, easy to use and absolves me of any bias. But this time, I asked you to sway me with your words, and you did. I gotta say, you are a good-natured bunch. I was expecting horror stories of water balloon bombings or tacks on chairs. The worst gag was a toothpaste tube stuffed with mayo -- but it must have been effective. After I stopped laughing, I spent hours wondering how the heck he'd managed to do it. And Melissa? She dropped by to share a lovely story about Bob Blumer's graciousness. She already owns the book I'm giving away, so wasn't even entering the contest . So, here I am left smiling at your stories and acts of kindness, and kicking myself for volunteering to sit in the judge's chair. But I've no one else to blame, so here goes. The winners of  Glutton for Pleasure: Signature Recipes, Epic Stories and Surreal Etiquette by Bob Blumer are:
Forty Creek Whisky Pecan Pie by TheMessyBaker.com In our home, birthdays are about dessert. It doesn't matter if the ingredients send me to six specialty shops, or if the results require a small team of architecture students to assemble. If you can dream it, I will make it. Providing you're a family member. Two-recipes-in-one, Frozen Lemon Pavlova? Of course, Mom. Hazelnut Mocha Tort with fancy chocolate topping? My pleasure, Allison. Non-Jammy Raspberry Pie? Anything for you, my only Father-in-Law. So this year, when Andrew asked for Pecan Pie I couldn't say no.
Fennel Salad with Maple Candied Pecans - TheMessyBaker.com [box type="info" style="rounded" border="full"] Update: Sorry. The contest is closed. However, the fennel salad recipe remains open to anyone willing to give it a try. [/box] As one of the world's most gullible people, I hate April Fool's Day.  Apparently watching me scramble for the binoculars is a hoot. And my reaction when I discover the rare bird at my feeder is actually stuffed? Priceless. But it's not only family who gets a rise out of me. Last year a respectable Ontario food centre had me believing locally-grown hot-house pineapples were this close to hitting the stores. While the fake bird was private, I outed my pineapple ignorance publicly on Twitter. So, this year, to be safe, I decided not to open my email, read the news or pop over to any of the social networking sites before noon. But April Fools found me anyway. I had written this blog post a month ago. Having arranged a special April Fool's giveaway, I was on top of things and just sitting pretty until March ended. But when I went to my computer, the file was gone. I have never inadvertently lost a post in all my years of blogging. I've had the server crash mid-composition, but never has a saved file gone AWOL. Until today.

Raspberry pie is risky business. Jam-style diehards want theirs sweet, sweet, sweet, while people like me long for a slice that will pucker the palate. After all, the ice cream's supposed to smooth things over. Right? If the filling isn't stressful enough, then there's the crust...

Who knew so many of you were toast fans? And with such diverse tastes. Some like their toast light, others call anything short of dark brown "wimpy." You gobble it slathered with butter of all kinds. -- plain, maple and peanut. While sweet jam go...

Ingredients for Thai Curry - TheMessyBaker.com Today I'm on CTV News at Noon. It's my 7th appearance and I've decided it's time I actually cooked something. Oh, I've diced apples, sliced peaches, mixed salad dressing, stuffed peppers, roasted an array of vegetables and even pulverized chickpeas in the name of hummus, but I've never actually cooked anything. So today, I'm making Thai Curry. Live. Can't you just feel the tension? I can't tell you more than that since my host, Kyle, will be making decisions as we go. Will he pick red curry paste or green? Chicken or beef? And just which vegetable will he toss into the mix? Tune in to find out. For those who can't catch the show, I'll post a link to the clip later. In the meantime, here's the basic recipe we'll be making. It's quick, easy and should be ready to eat by the time you've cooked the rice. Got a favourite Thai dish? Or questions about Thai cuisine? Drop by the comments section. It's always open. In the meantime, here's the basic recipe we'll be using.
As a child, cinnamon toast was the litmus test of illness. If you could choke down a few bites with flat ginger ale or weak tea, then you knew you were going to live. If you couldn't stomach the toast -- or even the thought of food -- you were ill indeed and packed off to the doctor. Although I usually ate cinnamon toast only when ill, today it is a comfort food I turn to on occasion when nothing else appeals. Perhaps it's the small of toasting bread or the intoxicating mix of melted butter and crunchy cinnamon-laced sugar? Either way, I have a soft spot for cinnamon toast. Today is National Toast Day and in a valiant attempt to stamp out toast brutality, a sin for which I am guilty, Gay Lea is hosting a giveaway worth $200 giveaway. The basket includes:
  • A year's supply of Spreadables butter coupons
  • A breakfast cookbook
  • Toast necessities – spreading knives, toast tongs, toast cutter, egg cups, napkins
  • A gift card to Cora’s Restaurant
For the skeptics, Spreadables is not hydrogenated fake food. It's all natural creamery butter with unsaturated canola oil added to make the it spreadable -- hence the name. The giveaway is open to Ontario residents. To enter,
When Staples finally wakes up and realizes there's a fortune to be made with a "Harder Than It Looks" button, I'm buying a couple and mailing them out to the west coast. One's for Joe, co-founder of Rouxbe Online Cooking School, who came up with the video widget idea pictured above. The other is for Marcelo, the magician programmer who wrote the code that makes it work. As for me? For once, I'm smacking the Easy Button. My part in all this was a cinch. I just loaded up the final product. I won't get technical on you, but instead of drinking green beer on St. Patrick's Day, Marcelo ended up spending a lot of time getting the magic code into a format I could upload. Let me be clear. I don't mean a format "even I could upload." I mean a format I, me, Charmian, this blogger here, could upload on her specific site -- i.e: Christie's Corner. Yeah, that's right. Rouxbe wanted to test their widget before rolling it out to other affiliates. And they asked me. Someone should have warned them. The Christie curse followed that little widget around for a few days, but Marcelo managed to wrestle it into submission. As a result, after a lot of work on their end and very little on mine, the Magic Rouxbe Video Widget is up and running. (Joe calls it the Rouxbe Cooking Skill Widget, but it's pure magic to me.) So, what's this mean to you? Potentially a lot.
You know you're getting old when St. Patrick's Day arrives and instead of wondering where you put your green belt and shamrock earrings, you make a mental note not to drive anywhere after 6 PM and place bets on how many drunks are going to stagger by at 3 AM singing Danny Boy at the top of their lungs. Whether you find this video achingly sentimental or innocently humorous will depend on how many green beers and whiskey shots you've had. Since I'm stone cold sober, I think it's pretty funny. But then again, they had me the moment the Swedish Chef bobbed on stage. In honour of St Patrick's day, I'm not wearing shamrocks, downing Guinness or posting a recipe for artificially green food. Instead, I'm typing with a delightful lilt and sharing a recipe for a food that's naturally emerald green and close to my heart. Beans. Gotta love 'em no matter what the calendar says.