Bake with abandon!
I confess, I’ve been binge watching The Great British Bake Off on YouTube ever since two friends recommended it earlier this autumn. I bite my fingernails dreading soggy bottoms, split custard, and under-proofed bread. I’m in awe of the homemade strudel dough, the Charlotte Royales, …
I’m on CTV News at Noon today helping Nancy Richards make homemade root vegetable chips. On the mess scale they’re more work than stovetop popcorn but less bother than pie. And that’s with making your own tzatziki for dipping. Last night I was making chips for the demo …
I always assumed sugarplums were plum-shaped candies made of marzipan and dusted in sugar. When I asked friends and family for their theories, guesses ranged from holiday jellies to booze-soaked prunes. We had never seen, let alone tasted one. To us, these Christmas confections existed only in Clement Clarke Moore’s poem …
The weather has cooled just as I feel squashed against the ceiling of my baking limit. At a time when I can’t face another bag of flour or brick of butter, the overnight temperatures dip to chilly, pull-up-the-blankets digits. I awake to the hum of the furnace, the tip of …
When I was very little, I thought my mother knew everything. Absolutely everything. If I had a question, she had an answer. If I had a problem, she had a solution. She cured my near-fatal bout of the mumps with teeny-tiny vanilla cupcakes. She could …
Seasons jumble in my head. Apricots and black currants are oh-so summer, except when the apricots are peaches and the currants are jam. Then it’s late fall — Thanksgiving to be specific. Confused? So am I. I started out with two tasks on my agenda 1) …
I’m not one for culinary deception. I have never understood why anyone would slip perfectly good spinach into brownie batter or sneak astringent cauliflower into banana muffins. Not only do the flavours conflict, such subterfuge gives respectable vegetables an inferiority complex. So, let me be perfectly clear. When I …
Remember the colour wheel from Grade 6 art class where you learned that blue and orange were complementary colours and if you mixed them together you got icky khaki brown? Eventually, you or the evil genius in the next row figured out all the complementary …
Ask and you shall receive. A couple of weeks ago, I posted to Instagram a shot of my recently purchased, tiny chocolate mint plant. I asked if I should make ice cream or tea. The resounding answer was ice cream. If you insist. This was a …