Baking recipes
Scroll through our posts below to try all sorts of delicious baking recipes from our instagram baking videos. New baking videos are posted the first week of each month on Instagram and Facebook.
To easily find one of our recipes type below:
Pavlova!
Pavlova is the fluffiest of cakes! It’s a GIANT meringue with a marshmallowy centre that you fill with whipped cream and top with fresh fruit! It’s our favourite dessert for any bakery staff party! Named after a ballerina’s fluffy tutu this cake is as light as air!
it’s a mountain of deliciousness!
Pavlova
Yield: 1 approximately 8” round pavlova
Preheat oven to 300F, then reduce to 250*F when you place the pavlova into the oven.
Pavlova:
5 Egg Whites, room temperature
pinch Salt
1 teaspoon Vanilla extract (optional)
1 cup Sugar
1 teaspoon Vinegar
1 Tablespoon Cornstarch
Filling:
1/2 cup Whipped cream
1-2 Tablespoons Sugar
1 cup Fresh Fruit
1 Tablespoon Sugar
In the bowl of your mixer place your egg whites and the pinch of salt.
Using the whisk attachment, whip the egg whites until they start to turn white and foamy.
While the machine is running on a low speed, slowly pour in the sugar until it is fully incorporated, then increase the mixer speed to medium high speed and whip until super thick and fluffy, at least 10 minutes. The meringue should not feel grainy when you rub it between your fingers.
Add the vinegar and cornstarch to the mixer and mix on a medium speed for 20-30 seconds until combined.
Using a bowl or plate, trace an approximately 8” diameter circle onto a piece of parchment paper, then flip oven the parchment so the outline is on the bottom of the paper, and place the parchment onto your baking tray. You can use a little baking spray on the pan to stick down your parchment so it won’t slide.
Load your meringue mixture onto your drawn circle on the parchment. Then gently spread it into the circle shape. You can use the back of a spoon or a spatula to create decorative lines on the side of your pavlova, or just leave it with a rustic look.
Place pavlova into a preheated 300F oven, then as soon as the pavlova is in, REDUCE the heat to 250*F and bake for 1.25-1.5 hours. The pavlova should be crispy feeling on the outside.
Turn off the oven, but leave your pavlova in the oven to cool - about 2 hours (or just leave overnight.)
Once your pavlova has cooled, whip your cream to soft peak and sweeten to taste with sugar (1-2 Tablespoons if usually good for me), place the whipped cream on top of the pavlova.
Chop up your fresh fruits and toss with a little sugar to taste - if your fruit is sweet enough don’t worry about adding any sugar. Place fruit on top of the whipped cream.
Serve right away! So delicious!
Date Bars, some call them "Matrimonial Slice" but you know commitment issues...we're just DATING!
Sometimes I am a 100 year old women, why? BECAUSE I LOVE DATE BARS! They are buttery, soft, crunchy, cinnamon-y, and sweet! Plus, they are made of dried fruit and oats, so as far as I’m concerned they are a breakfast food. If you aren’t into the dates, you can also replace the date filling with the apple pie filling we made for our turnovers a few days ago, just double the apple filling recipe so you use 2 apples!
Date Bars for when your not allowed to go on dates to bars.
Date Bars
Yield: one 8”x8” pan or something of a similar size
Preheat your oven to 350*F
Date Filling:
2 1/2 cups roughly chopping Dried Dates (about one pound)
1 cup Water
1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/4 teaspoon Salt
1 Tablespoon Butter
1 Tablespoon Grand Marnier (optional)
Streusel:
3/4 cup Butter, soft
1 cup Brown Sugar
1 1/4 cup Flour
1 1/4 cup Oats
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/4 teaspoon Baking Powder
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
In a small pot over medium heat cook your dates, water, lemon juice, baking soda, salt and butter until it thickens and forms a puree type mixture. Remove from heat. (If your don’t want any larger date chunks you can puree this mixture in a food processor, but I like the texture so I just leave it as is!)
Add the Grand Marnier if using, then set to the side.
In a large bowl combine all the Streusel ingredients and rub them together with your hands until they are combined.
In a greased and lined 8”x8” pan pour about 2/3 of your streusel mixture and press into the bottom of the pan to form a crust.
Pour all of your date filling on top of the base crust and smooth it out evenly making sure to cover the entire base.
Now take the last 1/3 of streusel and crumble it on top of the date layer.
Bake in a preheated 350*F oven for about 25-35 minutes or until just starting to turn golden brown on the edges.
Let cool, then slice and eat! Or add to your tray of dainties if you are having a fancy team party like I wish I was having right now!
Semifreddo - like ice cream without needing an ice cream maker!
I have a tiny freezer, like literally the freezer on top of my not very large fridge, not ideal for freezing an ice cream maker, but PERFECT for freezing a semifreddo! A semifreddo is a frozen dessert that is made with whipped up cream and eggs to incorporate the air instead of churning it in an ice cream maker. It’s just as delicious as ice cream and saves you from needing a whole machine, which is a win win in my books! You can flavour your semifreddo with whatever you have on hand, or just leave it plain. I used banana, chocolate and frangelico liqueur but you can use anything! Smashed up berries, any type of liqueur, any type of chocolate, even a little cocoa powder would be good!
Just a scoop of semifreddo!
Semifreddo
Yield: 1 loaf pan (8”x3”) or whatever you got! You can even put it into a larger tupperware container with a lid
You will need a freezer for this one, but no oven required!
3 Eggs
1/3 cup Sugar
1/4 teaspoon Salt
1 1/2 cups whipping cream
Flavouring: I used 1 Tablespoon of Frangelico (hazelnut) liqueur, one banana, smashed up, and 1/4 cup dark chocolate, melted. Whatever flavour you decide, you will need about 1/4 cup of that, for example, if you want strawberry, smash up 1/4 cup of strawberries (fresh or frozen will work)
Whip up your cream until they form soft peaks, you want the cream to be a bit floppy still. Place in the fridge while you work on the eggs.
Over a pot of lightly simmering water place a bowl with your eggs, sugar, salt and any liqueur if you are adding liqueur. The bowl should not be touching the water, we are just trying to steam the bottom of the bowl.
Now using a whisk, constantly whisk the egg mixture until it becomes light, fluffy and when you rub it between your fingers you don’t feel any grains of sugar. This is cooking our eggs and melting the sugar in so that it’s safe for everyone to eat.
Remove your egg mixture from the hot water.
Next we will take about 1/3 of our whipped cream and gently fold it into the egg mixture. Once it’s almost fully mixed in, add another 1/3 of cream and continue folding, and then add the final 1/3 of cream until all of it has been combined.
If you are doing a single flavour for your semifreddo fold that into your batter now. I did two flavours, so I divided my batter in half, in one bowl I gently folded in 1 smashed banana, and in the other bowl I folded in 1/4 cup melted dark chocolate.
Now grab your loaf pan and line it completely with saran wrap, making sure there are some bits hanging over the sides so you can pull it out after it’s frozen.
Next pour your batter into the lined loaf tin, I alternated layers of banana and chocolate, then swirled them together by running a butterknife throughout it, but you can spoon them in, or layer them with fresh berries or cookies in the middle, this dessert is something that you can slice and plate, so imagine what your slice would look like when you layer it.
Then you pop your semifreddo into the freezer overnight or longer!
Once your semifreddo is nice and hardened you can pop it out of the pan by tugging on the saran wrap that was hanging over, then flip it onto a cutting board and slice. Beautiful! You can also just spoon it into your mouth, no slicing required! Yummmmmmm!
Bagels...the HOLE-iest bread in town!
Bagels…cream cheese…what better combo is out there!? It’s not very often you get to eat a bagel straight from the oven, at least not in my world, but boy are they delicious! Like most of my bread recipes, this is a whole day affair, but most of that is just waiting around. Perfect for quarantine! You can also start them the day before, then finish them the next day if you are on the ball! Imagine having your friends over for Sunday brunch, just showing off your new found bread skills with freshly made bagels! How impressive! Can’t wait until we can actually have brunch with friends again…one day!
Freshly made BAGELS!
Bagels
Yield: 6 regular sized bagels
Once you get to the boiling stage of the recipe, preheat that oven to 450*F
Sponge:
1 cup room temperature water
1 1/4 teaspoon Yeast (instant or whatever you got!)
1 1/2 cups Flour
Dough:
1 1/2 cups Flour
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon Honey (or molasses if you got it!)
Boiling Mixture:
Approximately 2.5 Litres of water
1/4 cup Brown Sugar (or Honey)
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
Egg Wash:
1 egg
pinch of sugar
pinch of salt
Toppings:
I used poppyseeds, but you can use anything! Sesame seeds, dried herbs, everything bagel spice blend!
In the bowl of your mixer, combine the sponge ingredients - 1 cup of water, 1.5 cups of flour and 1 1/4 teaspoon yeast. Then cover this with saran wrap and let it sit for at least 3 hours. This is the “sponge” which is going to grow and build flavour similar to a sourdough bread while it sits.
Your sponge mixture should now looks very bubbly and have a goopy texture, that is perfect! Now dump in the rest of the dough ingredients - 1.5 cups flour, 1.5 teaspoons salt and 1 Tablespoon honey. Mix using the dough hook of your mixer for about 6 minutes. This is a pretty thick dough, so if your mixer sounds strained just pop it out of the bowl and mix it by hand. The finished dough should be soft and not sticky to the touch.
Place your dough ball into a large greased bowl and cover with a towel or saran wrap or a lid. Let it rest at room temperature for 1 hour.
Remove your dough ball and cut it into 6 equal pieces.
Take each piece and roll it into a ball, I like to cup it in my hand and roll it on the counter top to make a nice ball shape.
Now poke your finger through the middle of your dough ball and stretch it out until you have a bagel shape with a hole in the middle that’s about 1.5” wide.
Place the formed bagels onto a parchment lined baking tray that has been lightly dusted with flour.
Once all 6 of your bagels have been formed, cover them with saran wrap and leave them to rest 20-30 minutes at room temperature. If you want the bake these the next day, you can pop these into the fridge overnight and continue with the rest of the recipe tomorrow, just let your bagels sit out at room temperature for about 30 minutes before you boil them so they aren’t super cold.
While your bagels are resting, bring about 2.5 Litres of water to a boil and add 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1 teaspoon of baking soda.
You can also preheat your oven to 450*F at this time!
Now boil your bagels in the water mixture for 20-30 seconds per side, I did mine 2 at a time so the water didn’t cool down too much.
Once boiled place the bagels back onto the parchment lined tray, trying to make sure not to bring too much water onto the tray.
Now the egg wash! Whisk together your egg with a pinch of sugar and salt, you can use a fork for this, just want to break up the egg so we can paint it onto our bagels.
Using a pastry brush if you got it, otherwise your fingers will do, brush the tops and sides of your bagels with the egg wash, then sprinkle them with your toppings, I used poppyseeds but you can also just leave them plain.
Once they are all egg washed pop them into your hot oven and bake until golden brown and hollow sounding when tapped.
Now devour them with cream cheese! Yay!
Focaccia! *Imagine an Italian Nona saying that*
I have about 20 Italian vacations planned in my Pinterest. Unfortunately I never have time to go to Italy…and now that I have time, I am not supposed to leave my house…how rude! So to fake my dream vacation we are making focaccia and watching movies in Italy in hopes that if I drink enough vino I might almost think I am there…almost! This crispy bread takes a few hours to make but you don’t need to do that much work, basically just move it from one bowl to another every few hours, nothing too crazy! I mean we have time on our hands now, but we don’t want to be labouring away for 6 hours, I have netflix shows to watch!
Focaccia Bread!
Focaccia Bread
Yield: 1 skillet sized pan, or a 9” cake pan, or whatever you’ve got!
Once you get to the final rise you will need to Preheat your oven to 450*F
1 cup Warm Water (needs to be warm to awaken our yeast)
1 teaspoon honey, sugar, or maple syrup
1 teaspoon yeast, I used instant yeast, but use what you got, we’re in quarantine!
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon dried herbs (optional)
2 1/2 cups Flour
Topping:
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1/2 teaspoon Coarse Salt (if not just a sprinkle of regular salt should do the trick!)
Toppings such as: parmesan cheese, chopped garlic, sundried tomatoes, pepperoni, herbs, sliced onion, olives, pesto, really anything you want!
In the bowl of your mixer pour your warm water and honey, stir to combine.
Sprinkle your yeast on top of the warm water, then let it sit at room temperature for about 10 minutes or until foamy.
Now add your olive oil, salt, dried herbs and flour and combine using the dough hook on the mixer.
Using the mixer with dough hook continue to mix the dough for 10-15 minutes, or until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and sticks together around the hook in a ball. If you need to, you can finish kneading this by hand, but I didn’t because it came together in the bowl.
Place the dough ball into a greased bowl and cover it with a lid, saran wrap, or a tea towel and let sit at room temperature until doubled in size, mine took 1.5 hours.
Now grease your pan (I used a cast iron skillet) using about 1-2 Tablespoons of olive oil, this is going to seem like a lot, but the olive oil is there to kind of fry the edges of your bread and make them crispy in the oven!
Place your dough ball into the greased pan and using your fingers spread it out to fill the pan.
Now cover your pan with a tea towel and let sit at room temperature for about 1 hour, until the dough rises up about 1/2"-1” (doubled). If you don’t want to eat this today, you can also pop your focaccia into the fridge instead of letting it rise and bake it off tomorrow or later in the day, just make sure you let it sit at room temperature until it’s risen after taking it out of the fridge.
Preheat your oven to 450*F while the dough is resting in it’s pan.
Using your fingers dimple the dough ALL over so it has lots of imprints, then drizzle it with olive oil, a sprinkle of salt, and any of the toppings you want. This isn’t a pizza, so you want to be able to see some of the dough peeking through, but a nice smattering of garlic or sundried tomatoes or olives is delicious! You can also bake this just with the olive oil and salt.
Pop the pan into your hot oven and bake for 18-20 minutes, or until golden brown!
Now pour yourself some vino, turn on “Under the Tuscan Sun” and eat your focaccia while pretending your on vacation. Heaven!
Cinnamon Streusel Banana Bread because we all have ugly bananas in our freezer!
I love bananas! Not just as a fruit, but I think they are SO cute! I literally have a banana change purse, banana leaf wallpaper and my phone screen is bananas, they are happy, yellow and adorable! One might say I’m BANANAS for bananas! Anyways, last week was pi day, which meant making mucho banana cream pies but now I am left with lots of bananas that didn’t get used up, so what better use than banana bread! If you don’t have a pile of blackening bananas on your counter like me, you probably have a few in the freezer, where all bananas go to die, so lets use them up!
Cinnamon Streusel Banana Bread - a gift from the baking gods!
Cinnamon Streusel Banana Bread
Yield: 1 loaf pan 9”x4” or whatever pan you want to use!
Preheat your oven to 350*F
4 Bananas (or 3 if they are big boys!) - ideally blackening ones or ones from the freezer as they are full of flavour!
3/4 cup Sugar
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup Vegetable Oil - I used canola but anything light on flavour should be good
2 Eggs
1/2 cup Buttermilk (or sour cream or yogurt or 1/2 cup milk plus 1/2 teaspoon vinegar)
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract (optional)
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1 teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
2 cups Flour
Streusel Topping:
1/4 cup Butter, softened
1 cup Brown Sugar
1 Tablespoon Cinnamon
1/4 cup Oats
in a large bowl smash your bananas until they are liquidy, I use a fork, but you can also use a potato masher if that’s easier for ya!
To the bananas add both the regular and brown sugar, you can also add the cinnamon, salt, and baking soda at this point. Stir to combine.
Now pour in your liquid ingredients, buttermilk, oil, eggs and vanilla. Stir to combine.
Now add all your flour and stir together. Don’t overmix the batter here, it’s ok if there are a few lumpy bits.
In a separate bowl place all the ingredients for your streusel topping - butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and oats.
Using your hands smoosh together the streusel ingredients until the butter has been incorporated into the sugar.
In a greased and lined loaf pan place about 1/3 of the batter and spread to cover the base of the pan, now grab a handful of the streusel topping and spread it over top, then repeat this two more times until you use up all the batter and streusel topping, making sure to have a nice layer of streusel topping to place on top of the loaf.
Bake in a preheated 350F oven for about 45-60 minutes, or until a toothpick stabbed into it comes out clean. If your banana bread seems to be browning too quickly, turn the heat down to 325*F. If you don’t use a loaf pan be sure to adjust your baking time, the thinner your batter is, the less time it’s going to take.
Let cool then you are ready to slice and eat! Yay!!!!