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:
Hey! Nice (Cinnamon) Buns!
Cinnamon buns…can you think of a GREATER bun?! The answer is no! Sweet, soft and oh so gooey! They are the perfect breakfast, lunch or dinner! This recipe has a delicious layer of “goo” aka caramel on top (some might call it a sticky bun!), but if you are more of a cinnamon bun with icing type of person, omit the goo and top with your favourite icing instead.
Yield: 12 buns (or you can make 8 ginormous buns)
Ideally use a 9”x13” pan but you can probably use 2 pie pans if you don’t have one
Dough:
3 cups All purpose flour
1/4 cup milk powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons or 1 packet Instant Yeast
2 Tablespoons Sugar
1 1/4 cup milk, warm to the touch but not boiling
1 egg
1/4 cup butter, melted
In the bowl of an electric mixer, place the milk, egg and melted butter.
In another bowl toss together the flour, milk powder, salt, yeast and sugar just to combine.
Pour the dry ingredients on top of the liquid ingredients in the mixer bowl and then mix using the dough hook attachment for 5-10 minutes, or until the dough forms a smooth ball. The dough will still be a little sticky.
Place the dough into a greased bowl and cover. Let rest at room temperature for about 1 hour or until doubled.
Goo:
1/3 cup butter
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup Corn syrup, honey OR maple syrup
1/4 cup heavy cream (if you don’t have cream, omit this and increase your butter to 1/2 cup)
pinch of salt
Combine all the ingredients: butter, brown sugar, syrup, cream and salt in a small pot.
Bring to a boil while stirring, basically we are melting the butter and sugar together, so you don’t need to cook it very much. You can also do this in the microwave if you prefer.
Pour the goo into a greased 9”x13” pan and set it to the side until your dough is ready.
Filling/Assembly:
1/3 cup - 1/2 cup Butter, very soft basically you want it to be the texture of mayonnaise, so almost melted
3/4 cup - 1 cup Brown sugar
1-2 Tablespoons Cinnamon
1/2 cup Add-in (optional): toasted pecans, toasted walnuts, raisins, chocolate chips, OR dried fruits
Once your dough has doubled in size place it onto a lightly floured surface and shape it into a rough rectangle shape. Then roll out into a large rectangle using a rolling pin or wine bottle, whatever you’ve got on hand! Since we are making 12 buns, make sure your rectangle is at least 12” wide, but if it gets a bit longer that is no problem. Mine probably was about 15”x9” in the end.
Smear your super soft butter all over your rectangle but leave a strip about 1” wide across the top edge without any butter. This strip is going to be the end edge of our roll which we will use to stick the dough to itself and seal the log.
On top of the butter sprinkle a nice even layer of brown sugar all over, depending on the size of your rectangle you might need a little more sugar, or a little less, but as long as it’s nicely covered you are set, the measurements for the filling are more by feel, so if you have leftover don’t worry!
Next, sprinkle the cinnamon all over the sugar to your liking. If you are putting any add-ins into your cinnamon buns, you can sprinkle them all over the cinnamon sugar layer now as well.
Now time to roll! Starting at the edge closest to you, move from one side to the other, rolling the dough on top of itself, tucking in the dough into the layer of cinnamon sugar, until you reach the top edge that doesn’t have any butter on it. Your dough should look like a big wormie and be lying on top of the un-buttered strip of dough.
For ease, I like to roll my wormie over so the edge of the dough is on top, then you want to seal the dough together by pinching it all the way from one side to the other so it won’t unravel when we cut it.
Now using your sharpest knife cut the wormie into 12 even-ish pieces. The easiest way for me to do this is to cut the wormie in half, then you will have 2 pieces. Now, take each of those pieces and cut them in half, so now you should have 4 even-ish pieces. Then cut each of those 4 pieces into thirds. Viola! 12 even-ish pieces!
Now grab your pan that has the goo at the bottom (or if you don’t want goo, just make sure your pan is very well greased, or lined with greased parchment). Place your buns cut side down in the goo into the pan, in a 4 across and 3 down pattern.
Cover the pan and let sit at room temperature until doubled and starting to reach the top edge of the pan, about 1 hour. If you want to serve these for breakfast, make your buns the day before, then cover them and place into the fridge overnight. In the morning, take your buns out about 2 hours before baking so they can come up to room temperature and then continue to proof so they are doubled and reaching the top edge of the pan.
While your buns are rising, pre-heat your oven to 350*F.
When your buns have doubled, pop the pan onto a cookie tray (this is purely to catch caramel drips from falling into your oven which would be the worst to clean…speaking from personal experience) and then place the pan with cookie tray into the middle of the oven and bake for 20-30 minutes or until golden brown and sounding hollow when you tap on the dough.
Let the pan sit for about 5 minutes at room temperature so it’s not boiling and then using oven mitts and being EXTREMELY careful, place a baking tray or a large platter (something that is larger than your cinnamon bun pan so it can catch the caramel) on top of the cinnamon buns, and flip them over and remove the baking pan. All your buns and delicious caramel should pour out onto the baking tray/platter, but if there are a few stragglers, just grab a spatula and scrape them out.
Now time to devour these delicious babies! Best served warm!
Roasted Tomato Sourdough Bread!
Sourdough bread is SUPER popular right now! Instead of adding yeast to your dough, you use a sourdough starter which absorbs natural yeast from your environment to give rise to your dough, along with LOTS of tangy flavour! This bread is made with roasted tomatoes, but you can also take that out and just use water if you want a plain flavoured loaf. The process of this bread takes about 1 day, but there isn’t any kneading or mixers involved, just a little tending every few hours. The long wait is what helps build lots of delicious flavour into your loaf.
Crispy Crust full of Tomato Flavour!
Roasted Tomato Sourdough Bread
Yield: 1 loaf
Preheat oven to 375*F to bake tomatoes
Preheat oven to 450*F WITH a cast iron pot with it’s lid inside to heat up as well for baking bread
Tomato puree (you can skip this step and use 2 Tablespoons of tomato Paste if you like!)
1-1 1/2 cups Tomatoes cut into a few large chunks - I just used up any random chunks of tomato or wrinkly tomatoes that were in my fridge
3 cloves of Garlic
1 teaspoon Olive oil
Salt and Pepper
Bread:
1 1/3 cup room temperature water mixed with Tomato puree from above
1/2 cup Sourdough Starter (about 100 grams) - should be nice a bubbly and when you place it in a glass of water, it should float to the top, that means it’s ready to go!
1 teaspoon Dried Basil
2 1/3 cup Flour
1 1/2 teaspoons Salt
For the tomato puree, toss together all the ingredients - tomatoes, garlic, olive oil and salt and pepper in an oven safe pan, and bake for about 30 minutes or until the tomatoes start to roast and break down.
Let tomatoes cool, then puree in a food processor or blender until smooth.
To make dough, place your tomato puree into your measuring cup, then add your water until you get 1 1/3 cup liquid total. We need 1 1/3 cup liquid total, so it doesn’t matter how much tomato puree you end up with as long as the total of tomatoes and water equals 1 1/3 cup.
In a large bowl with a lid, combine your tomato/water liquid, the sourdough starter, dried basil and flour. Stir until there are no bits of dry flour peaking out.
Cover the bowl with a lid and let sit at room temperature for 1 hour.
At this point sprinkle your salt on top and lightly press it into the dough but poking your fingers into the dough all over the top.
Now we are going to do 4 folds.Grab one side of the dough, lift and fold it on top of itself, then turn the bowl 90 degrees and repeat until you get back to where you started and have done 4 folds.
Cover the bowl and let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes.
Repeat step 7 and 8 until you have done the 4 fold FIVE TIMES! This will take 2.5 hours. I put a sticky note on top of my bowl and mark each time I do the folds so I don’t loose track.
Once all your folds are finished, put the lid on and let your dough sit at room temperature for about 1 hour, then place into the fridge overnight or about 12 hours.
After the dough has rested, take it out of the fridge and let it sit for about 2 hours at room temperature.
Plop your dough out onto a floured surface and lightly press it into a rough rectangle shape.
Fold the dough into thirds, like you are folding a letter (Take the base third and fold it over, then fold that over on top of itself).
Now turn the log of dough and take the narrowest end and roll it up into a chubby little bundle.
Now pinch together all the seams so they can’t come apart.
Grab a bowl or basket (or if you have one, a banneton) and line it with a super well floured clean tea towel.
Place your dough ball seam side UP into the tea towel lined bowl, then flip any overhanging towel edges on top of the loaf to cover it.
Place your loaf into the fridge to chill for 3-4 hours (this will help build a little extra flavour), or 1 hour at room temperature.
Heat up your oven to 450*F with a cast iron pot with a lid inside of it, so your pot gets really hot as well. Grab a piece of parchment paper that will fit into the bottom of your pot.
Once your bread is ready to go, flip the bread out of the bowl onto your piece of parchment that fits into the pot and peel off the tea towel. Sprinkle the top of the bread with a little extra flour (this will help your scoring design POP!)
Using a sharp knife or clean exacto blade make a long slice across the top of your bread, just cutting through the top “crust” of the bread, not going too deep into the loaf, this is called scoring and it’s going to allow your bread to expand without cracking. You can also score pretty patterns onto your dough, google has lots of inspiration, leaf shapes, wheat designs, so many ideas! Bakeries score different designs on each bread so they can tell what flavour each loaf is!
Grab your super hot pot out of the oven and place your dough into the pot by lifting it up with the parchment paper.
Toss 1 ice cube into the pot under the parchment paper and quickly place the lid on top, this is going to give it a little extra steam and help make a nice crust!
Immediately place your pot back into the hot oven and bake for 45 minutes.
Remove the lid of your pot and continue baking for about 10 more minutes, or until golden brown and sounds hollow when you tap it.
Remove from pot and place on a wire rack to cool!
Eat!
Honey Oat Sandwich Bread!
Sandwiches are delicious! It’s a meal you can eat anywhere! What makes the best sandwiches? Home made bread! This is a jazzed up version of your typical white bread, it’s got a touch of honey and oats to make things extra delicious!
Soft, fluffy and ready for sandwiches!
Honey Oat Sandwich Bread
Yield: 1 loaf (9”x5” pan)
Preheat your oven to 350*F
1 1/2 cups Milk, warm
2 Tablespoons Butter, warm
2 Tablespoons Honey
2 3/4 cup Flour
1/2 cup Oats
1 1/2 teaspoons Salt
2 teaspoons Instant Yeast
In the bowl of your mixer combine the dry ingredients - flour, oats, salt and yeast. Toss to combine.
In a separate container stir together your honey, warm milk and butter. Then pour into the dry ingredients and knead with the dough hook in your mixer for 6-10 minutes, or until it forms a firm ball around the hook and isn’t sticking to the sides of the bowl.
Place dough into a greased bowl and cover. Let sit at room temperature until doubled, about 1 hour.
Place your dough ball onto a lightly floured surface and using your hands flatten into a rough rectangle shape that is about 8” wide.
Roll the dough up into a log, then pinch the seams together.
Place the dough log into a greased 9”x5” loaf pan, with the seam side going into the bottom of the pan.
Cover with saran wrap and let sit at room temperature for about 1 hour, or until the dough is starting to rise over top of the pan edge.
Bake in a preheated 350*F oven for 30-45 minutes or until golden brown and sounds hollow when you tap it.
Let cool and eat!
Pitas! The envelope of the bread world!
Pitas are a delicious flatbread that puffs up when it bakes, creating a lovely little pocket inside that you can stuff full of yummy things like falafel, meats, salad, really whatever you like! You can also just rip apart the pita and use it as a receptacle for large scoops of dip! Yum! These are little tricker of a bread to make, but even if they don’t turn out perfectly, they will still be super delicious!
Pitas are perfect for dipping!
Pitas
Yield: 8-10 pitas, depending on the size you want
2 1/2 cups Flour
1 Tablespoon Sugar
1 teaspoon Salt
1 1/2 teaspoons Instant Yeast
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1 cup Water, warm
In the bowl of a mixer, stir together your flour, sugar, salt and yeast.
Add the olive oil and water and knead with the dough hook for about 6 minutes, until the dough forms a nice smooth ball that isn’t sticking to the sides of the bowl.
Place dough ball into a greased bowl with a lid and let sit at room temperature until doubled (about 1 hour).
Remove dough from bowl and using a knife, divide into 8 (or 10) even pieces.
Cup each dough ball in your hand and roll it in a circle on the counter until the dough forms a nice little ball. Place on a lined or floured baking tray and cover with a tea towel, then repeat with the remaining dough balls until they are all nice and round. Let rest at room temperature at least 20 minutes to relax the dough.
Grab one dough ball at a time and roll into a thin flat circle about 6-7” in diameter and about 1/8” thick. If your dough is just not rolling out thinly, roll it as much as you can, then place back onto a parchment lined baking tray with a tea towel on top, and let it rest for about 10 minutes (I just waited until I had rolled out all the dough balls), then come back to it and roll it out a little more until it is the thickness you want. By this time the dough will have relaxed a bit and it will allow you to roll it thinner.
Cover all your rolled out pitas with a tea towel and layer in between pieces of parchment paper so they aren’t overlapping.
You can bake these in a 450*F preheated oven for about 4-8 minutes until puffed and lightly golden, or you can bake them on the stove in a pan which I did.
To bake on the stove in a pan, heat your pan to medium-high heat, I found my stove worked best at medium heat, but see what works best for you. Make sure your pan is nice and hot before you add a pita.
Place one pita down flat into the hot pan, as soon as it starts to bubble (about 15 seconds), flip it over, then once it starts expanding flip it again, then your pita might be fully expanded, or your might need to flip it again, depends on the pita. If you are like me, my pitas weren’t all the exact same thickness, so some of them needed an extra flip or two, but use your judgement, if it’s starting to burn, flip it. They only take a minute or two to bake.
Don’t worry if you burn some, they are still delicious, and baking them off is definitely a learning curve! Regardless these pitas are WAY more delicious than anything you will buy in the store.
Enjoy the labour of love and remember, practice makes perfect!
Graham Crackers...well imitation "Graham" Crackers!
Graham crackers… they’re really more of a cookie, but if we can call it a cracker and eat it at any time of the day without judgement I’m down for it! True graham crackers are made with graham flour, which is a whole wheat variety of flour. It’s quarantine, which means I am not leaving the house, and also finding graham flour can be a bit tricky, but if you have whole wheat flour feel free to substitute that in for the oats in this recipe. To add to the “whole wheat” flavour of this cookie…I mean cracker! I added in some quick oats, but if you don’t have those, just use straight up regular flour, they will still be delicious! These crackers are great for making the best SMORES or using as a base in other desserts, which we are going to be doing tomorrow!
“Graham” crackers…ok these are basically a very thin oatmeal cookie but shhhhhh! I’m not telling!
“Graham” Crackers
Yield: 15-20 - 2” cookies
1/4 cup Quick Oats (use whole wheat flour if you have it!)
3/4 cup Flour
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/4 cup Butter, soft
2 Tablespoons Milk
2 Tablespoons Honey (can substitute with corn syrup)
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
In a bowl combine all your dry ingredients - flour, oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. Toss to combine.
Using your hands, rub the butter into the dry ingredients until its fully combined and there aren’t any large butter chunks. It should look like sand.
Add your milk, honey and vanilla, and stir until fully combined.
Place your dough onto a baking tray sized piece of parchment paper, then top with another piece of parchment paper the same size and roll it until it is about 1/8-1/4” thick. If you plan on making square shapes try to roll it into a rectangle shape for easier cutting. Chill your dough with the 2 pieces of parchment until firm, at least 30 minutes.
Take your dough out of the cooler and peel off the top layer of parchment, if it is not coming off cleanly, your dough isn’t cold enough, just put back in the cooler until hard.
Cut out your desired shapes from the dough, you can use a pizza cutter to make squares easily, I made rounds using the edge of a water glass.
Peel the shapes off of the parchment paper and place on a lined baking tray about 2” apart.
Dock each cookie with a fork so they don’t get too many air bubbles.
Bake in a preheated 350*F for 5-12 minutes, until golden brown and delicious smelling!
Eat or save in a sealed container.
Honeycomb Toffee!
Buzz! Buzz! It’s honeycomb time! This candy is a delicious honey flavoured, honeycomb looking treat! Some people call is “sponge toffee” or “sea foam” because it’s light and airy! This treat is perfect for eating on it’s own, but it’s also great covered in chocolate, crushed up on ice cream, put into cake layers, in my world it’s the perfect accent to any dessert!
It’s the bee’s knees!
Honeycomb Toffee
Yield: about a 12”x10” rectangle
1 1/4 cup Sugar
1/4 cup Corn Syrup
1/4 cup Honey
1/4 cup Water
1 Tablespoon Baking Soda
In a 2-3 qt. pot place your sugar, corn syrup, honey and water. Stir to combine and make sure all your sugar gets wet, then scrape down the sides so there aren’t any clumps of sugar sticking to them.
Line a baking tray with a silicon pad or a piece of parchment and grease with baking spray or oil/butter. Place next to your stove.
On a high heat, cook your sugar mixture until it reaches 300*F with a thermometer, this is called the “hard crack” stage, remove from the heat.
Quickly whisk in your baking soda and it is going to start GROWING! Be careful this is still SUPER HOT! Quickly pour your honeycomb onto the greased and lined baking tray. Don’t smooth out, just let it go where it may, the more your smooth, the less bubbles you will have.
Let cool for about 2 hours, then crack into pieces and store in a sealed container.
Pizza Dough!
Pizza party time! Pizza dough is fairly easy to whip together and then you can have both a delicious meal, and a fin activity for your family. Each person can make their own pizza with whatever toppings they like, super fun!
It’s a pizza party!
Pizza Dough
Yield: 3 approximately 9-10” diameter pizzas
Preheat the oven to 450*F with your Cast Iron Pan or Pizza Stone inside so it gets hot hot hot!
2 2/3 cup Flour
1 teaspoon Instant Yeast
1.5 teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon Sugar
1 cup Water, warm
1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
Toppings for your pizza like pizza sauce, cheese, pepperoni, vegetables, pineapple, anything!
In the bowl of your mixer, combine your dry ingredients - flour, yeast, salt and sugar, toss to combine then pour in your liquid ingredients - warm water and olive oil
Knead in the mixer for about 6 minutes, until you get a nice firm dough ball, and the dough is not sticking to the sides of your bowl, but wrapped up around the hook.
Place your dough ball into a greased bowl with a lid and let sit at room temperature for about an hour or until doubled.
Preheat your oven to 450*F with your cast iron pan inside of the oven (or pizza stone) so it gets nice and hot.
If you want to make this ahead of time, you can put your dough in the fridge now, otherwise divide the dough into 3 even portions and take each portion and roll out into a roundish shape 9-10” in diameter.
Add whatever toppings you like to your pizzas.
Once your pizzas are ready, pull your hot pan out of the oven and slide one pizza onto it and quickly place it back into the oven.
Bake for 5-10 minutes or until the cheese is melted and the bottom of your pizza is golden brown and crispy.
Once your pizza is ready pop it out of the pan and immediately place the next pizza on it and pop it back into the oven, and continue until they are all baked!
Now it’s pizza eating time!
Cheese Crackers!
Who doesn’t love cheese crackers, a favourite since the days of eating handfuls of goldfish crackers on the playground! These delicious cheesy crackers can be modified to incorporate whatever grate-able cheese you have in the fridge, which results in SO many fun flavours! I went with cheddar and parmesan because that’s what I had on hand, and as we know, it’s quarantine so I am avoiding the store.
Little cheese bites!
Cheese Crackers
Yield: depends on how you cut them, lets say about 100 small crackers!
Preheat your oven to 350*F
1/2 cup Flour
1 teaspoon Sugar
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/4 teaspoon Baking Powder
1/4 teaspoon Smoked Paprika (you can leave this out or replace it with other spices, things like onion or garlic powder, italian seasoning, cajun seasoning, even rosemary or thyme would be good!)
2 Tablespoons Cold Butter, cubed
about 115g Cheddar Cheese, grated on the smallest sized grater you have (you can replace this with another cheese such as swiss, mozzarella, havarti, whatever you got!)
2 Tablespoons grated parmesan (optional)
1-2 Tablespoons of cold milk or water
Coarse salt for the tops
In a bowl combine all your dry ingredients - flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and smoked paprika (or other spices)
Toss in your cold butter and cheese and combine together by pinching and rubbing the dough with your hands until it looks like coarse sand. We ideally want there to be no large butter chunks left but it still looks crumbly.
Now add your milk (or water) a little bit at a time, I used about 1.5 Tablespoons, but it will vary depending on how dry your cheese is, something like an old cheddar or a parmesan is going to need a little more moisture, while something like a havarti is not as dry and will need a little less. So just add a little bit at a time, stirring them together until you can grab a ball in your hand and when squeezed it will stay in a ball.
Press the dough together into a disk and wrap with saran wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes.
Roll out your dough onto a lightly floured surface and cut into small squares using a pizza cutter, or whatever shape you like!
Bake in a preheated 350*F oven for about 10-15 minutes or until lightly golden on the bottom and cheese-y smelling!
Let cool and eat! Store any extras in an airtight container or baggie.
Cheese-y Garlic Knots!
It’s like garlic bread and dinner rolls were KNOT together in perfect harmony! These tender buns get the addition of delicious cheese, because cheese makes everything more delicious! No pizza parlour required!
Knots of deliciousness!
Cheese-y Garlic Knots
Yield: 8 buns
2 cups Flour
1 teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon Instant yeast
2 Tablespoons Sugar
1/2 teaspoon Garlic Powder (or one chopped garlic clove)
1 cup Milk, warm
3 Tablespoons Butter, melted
1/2 cup Shredded Cheddar Cheese
1 Tablespoon Parmesean
Glaze:
2 Tablespoons Butter, melted
1 Clove of Garlic, chopped (optional)
pinch of Pepper (optional)
pinch fo dried parsley (optional)
In the bowl of your mixer combine the dry ingredients - flour, salt, yeast, sugar, and garlic powder. Stir to combine.
Add the warm milk and melted butter, then mix with a dough hook on your mixer for about 8 minutes or until the dough ball isn’t sticking to the sides of the mixer.
Add your cheese to the dough and knead for one more minute, until fully combined.
Let your dough rest at room temperature for about an hour until doubled.
Place your dough onto a lightly floured surface and cut into 8 equal pieces.
Roll each piece of dough into a wormie about 6-8” long, then tie them together by criss crossing both ends, once crossed, then pinch the ends together and place them onto a lined baking tray.
Once all your dough is knotted, cover your baking tray with a clean dish towel and let rise at room temperature for 30 minutes to an hour, or until doubled in size.
Combine your glaze, mix the melted butter with the garlic, pepper and parsley.
Glaze each bun with the garlic butter glaze, then bake in a preheated 350*F oven for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown and when tapped on the bottom, they sound hollow.
Enjoy!
Mini Egg Nanaimo Bars!!!!! Yes, you read that correctly!
Mini eggs - they’re my addiction! Normally I would be in the midst of making a zillion mini egg cakes and bunny shaped sugar cookies, but alas it’s quarantine! Now I have a ridiculous amount of mini eggs and all I want to do is eat them by the handful…which I do, but we should bake some too! Genius idea - MINI EGG NANAIMO BARS! It came to me as I was eating mini eggs out of a bowl like they were cereal and they are HEAVENLY!
Mini Egg Nanaimo Bars before slicing!
Mini Egg Nanaimo Bars
Yield: 8”x8” pan
Preheat your oven to 350*F
Base:
1 cup Graham Cracker Crumbs
3/4 cup Sweetened Coconut (or unsweetened)
1/2 cup Toasted Almonds, chopped up (can substitute another nut, or replace with graham cracker crumbs)
1/4 cup Cocoa Powder
1/4 cup Sugar
1/4 teaspoon Salt
1/3 cup Butter, melted
1 Egg
Icing Filling:
1/2 cup Butter, soft
2 Tablespoons Hot Chocolate Powder (or 1 Tablespoon Cocoa powder)
2 Tablespoons Milk
1 teaspoon Vanilla
2 cups Icing Sugar
1/4 cup Crushed Mini Eggs (I crushed them in a food processor)
Chocolate Topping:
3/4 cup Dark Chocolate (semi-sweet Chocolate chips will work great!)
1.5 Tablespoons Butter
2 Tablespoons Crushed Mini eggs
Roughly chopped mini eggs for top decor ~ 1/4 cup
In a bowl combine the base dry ingredients - graham cracker crumbs, coconut, almonds, cocoa, sugar, and salt. Stir to combine.
Add your melted butter and egg, and stir until combined.
Pour your base mixture into a parchment lined 8”x8” baking pan, and using your hands press it evenly over the base of the pan until its evenly covered and compacted.
Bake your base for about 10-15 minutes until it feels firm and you can’t see any liquid bits. Let cool.
Once your base is cool, in the bowl of a mixer combine your icing filling ingredients. Start with the milk and hot chocolate powder, stir them together to moisten the powder, then add all the other ingredients - butter, icing sugar, mini eggs, and vanilla extract. Mix on medium high speed until light and fluffy looking 4-6 minutes.
Smear the icing filling on top of your cooled base and evenly spread it out, trying to make the top as smooth as possible. Chill until firm, at least 30 minutes.
In a microwaveable bowl, or a double boiler (if you want to use a stove), melt together your chocolate and butter until fully melted.
Stir in the crushed mini eggs to the chocolate and quickly spread on top of the firm icing layer.
Sprinkle with more chopped mini eggs!
Chill until set, ideally 4 hours.
Cut and eat! These also freeze great!
Ciabatta - it takes a day...but it's worth it! I swear!
Ciabatta is my favourite bread! I have paid a ridiculous amount of money for a single loaf of ciabatta (and I would happily do it again!), but guess what, you can make it at home for pennies! Literally! My food costing comes in around $0.30 whaaaaaatttt! Amazing! It is a labour of love though because it takes about 24 hours to make, but what else are we doing, it’s quarantine! If I am going to have 24 hours to dedicate to a bread it’s now! Yay! This delicious bread starts the day before with a pre-ferment called a biga. A biga is basically a lump of firm dough, I think in theory it was a lump of the dough from your bread baking the day before, but obviously if I made dough it would all be eaten that day. That lump of dough then sits for ideally about 18 hours at room temperature so it can gain lots of flavour and grow some natural yeasts, giving it that sourdough tang without needing to worry about a sourdough starter, because that takes like a week and I can’t be bothered!
Ciabatta Bread before going into my belly!
Ciabatta
Yield: 1 loaf (approximately 10”x4” rectangle)
Biga:
2/3 cup Flour
1/4 cup Warm Water
pinch of Instant Yeast
Final Dough:
1 1/4 cup Flour
1/2 teaspoon Instant Yeast
2/3 cup Warm Water
1 teaspoon Salt
Biga that has sat for 12-18 hours at room temperature
In your mixer with a dough hook combine your Biga ingredients - 2/3 cup flour, 1/4 cup warm water and pinch of yeast. Mix for 3 minutes on a low speed.
You should have a little dough ball, this is your Biga! Place your biga in a greased bowl with a lid/saran wrap and leave at room temperature for 12-18 hours. It should become bubbly and rise.
Once your Biga is ready to go, place it into your mixer along with all of the other ingredients for the final dough. Mix with a dough hook for 4 minutes. This dough is going to look very sticky and goopy, that is perfect!
Place the dough into a greased bowl or pan that has a lid and let sit and proof at room temperature for about 1 hour or until doubled.
Once your dough it ready you will fold your dough ball in half 4 times, I like to use a rectangle pan instead of a bowl when I make ciabatta because it has 4 sides, and i can turn the pan for each fold so I make sure to do this 4 times. Grab the edge of the dough and fold it in half, then turn the pan or bowl 90 degrees and repeat, do this until you get back to where you started and your 4 folds will be complete! Now put the lid on and let sit at room temperature for 1 hour.
Now that your dough has sat, you will repeat the 4 folds like we did earlier. Then place a lid on and let it sit at room temperature for 30 minutes.
Our dough is now ready to shape. Grab a large baking tray and dust it fairly heavily with flour.
Place your dough gently onto the tray and gently stretch the dough into an approximate 10”x4” rectangle shape. Try not to squish the dough, we don’t want to collapse too much of the volume.
Now heavily dust the top of the ciabatta bread with flour, then drape a clean tea towel on top and let it sit at room temperature for 30 minutes.
While the dough is resting, heat your oven up to 450*F and place a clean metal tray on the bottom rack of your oven, this needs to be hot when we bake our bread.
Once your dough is ready to go, place it into the hot oven, on the rack above the one with the hot tray, then grab 1-1 1/2 cups of water and carefully pour it onto the metal pan that is on the bottom rack and its going to SIZZLE and create STEAM! Quickly close the oven to capture all the steam and bake your ciabatta for about 20 minutes. DON’T OPEN THE OVEN! If you take a peak into the oven it’s going to release the steam we just created and we want to keep that steam in there to allow our dough to grow and expand in the oven before it crusts up.
Your ciabatta will be done when it is golden brown and when you tap it with your finger it should sound hollow.
Place your cooked loaf onto a wire rack to cool (this helps steam from forming under your loaf and giving you a soggy bottom!)
Now eat your AMAZING ciabatta bread! I’m eating mine now! mmmm
Tiramisu! It's like we're at a fancy Italian Restaurant... when actually we can't leave the house!
Tiramisu! It just sounds delicious! This Italian dessert has layers of coffee soaked ladyfingers (which we made yesterday!), sandwiched with sweet fluffy mascarpone cheese filling, then topped with a sprinkle of cocoa powder! No Italian restaurant required!
This photo does not capture the deliciousness of this Tiramisu!
Tiramisu
Yield: 1 large serving dish, I believe my glass dish is about 2 litres, but use whatever pan you’ve got, the taller the container, the more layers you will get. You could also make this in a 9”x13” pan
Mascarpone Filling:
1 1/4 cup Whipping cream
4 Egg Yolks
1/2 cup Sugar
2 Tablespoons Frangelico - Traditionally this is made with Marsala wine, but I don’t have any, so use whatever liqueur you got!
pinch of Salt
1 1/4 cup Mascarpone Cheese, softened at room temperature
Ladyfinger Soaking Syrup :
2 cups of coffee
1/4 cup sugar
2 Tablespoons Frangelico (optional)
Approximately 24 ladyfingers (or one batch of the recipe we made yesterday)
Cocoa Powder - for dusting
In a shallow baking dish stir together your ladyfinger soaking syrup ingredients - coffee, sugar, Frangelico. Set this to the side.
In the bowl of your mixer (or by hand) whip the cream to soft peaks. Then leave in fridge until we are ready for it.
Get a pot with water simmering on the stove, we are going to do a water bath! Just an inch or two of water in the bottom of a large pot will be perfect.
Grab a metal bowl the will fit on top of your pot of water and in it place the egg yolks, sugar, Frangelico, and salt. Then stir them together and place it on top of the simmering water pot on the stove. The bowl should not be touching the water, we are just trying to steam the bottom of our bowl and cook the eggs so they are safe to eat.
Constantly stir your egg mixture while it is sitting on the waterbath until the eggs feel warm/hot and when you rub it between your fingers you cannot feel any grains of sugar. Then pour this mixture into the bowl of your mixer and whip on high until cool - it should be super fluffy and marshmallowy looking.
In a large bowl place your softened mascarpone cheese.
With a spatula fold in all of your egg mixture, being as gentle as you can so you don’t knock out too much air.
Now fold in about 1/3 of your whipped cream, again, being gentle!
Then fold in the rest of your cream. Now your filling is complete!
To layer your tiramisu you will start with a layer of ladyfingers. Grab one ladyfinger, dunk it into your coffee syrup on both sides and then place it into the bottom of your serving dish. Continue until you have fully covered the bottom of the pan (mine fit 8 cookies).
Now pour a layer of your mascarpone filling - my container would fit 3 layers of ladyfinger cookies, so I planned to do 3 layers of mascarpone filling, so I poured about 1/3 of the filling on top. but count up your ladyfingers in the base layer and see how many cookies you have for your baking dish and divide the filling evenly.
Continue to layer the soaked ladyfinger cookies, then the mascarpone filling until you use them all up.
Then lightly dust the top of your tiramisu with cocoa powder!
This baby is all finished now, it just needs to sit in the fridge for about 8 hours or overnight to let everything soak into each other.
Yum!
Puff Pastry with a side of Sausage Rolls!
Puff pastry is a super delicious flaky pastry dough with hundreds of buttery layers! Perfect for making sausage rolls! The puff pastry we are making is the SLIGHTLY faster “quick puff” or “rough puff” which is a little easier! Yay!
Look at those flaky layers of puff pastry in our sausage roll!
Puff Pastry
Yield: about 1 pound of puff pastry dough - good for 12 large sausage rolls, or 2 tart tatins!
Preheat your oven to 425*F once you are ready to bake your puff pastry
1 3/4 cup Flour
1 cup Butter, cold - cut into large cubes
1 teaspoon Salt
1/2 cup Water, cold
In a bowl mix together the flour, salt and cold butter, rubbing the butter into the flour but leaving large nickel sized chunks - we want to keep lots of big butter chunks so we can roll them into layers on our next steps!
Pour the cold water into the flour mixture and stir it together until it can be pressed into a ball. You might need to add a little more or less water depending on how your dough is working! I like to dump the dough out onto my counter and press it together into a rectangle shape, then saran wrap it and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Once your dough has rested, roll your dough out into a large rectangle, then fold it into 3rds like a brochure, so the bottom one third of the dough folded up, then the top one third folded down on top of it. This is called a “3 fold”
Roll out your folded dough and repeat the 3 fold again, then wrap in saran wrap and put in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Once chilled, you will repeat the 3 fold 2 more times, then wrap and put in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Now your puff pastry is ready to go! You can store it in the fridge or in the freezer. I cut my puff pastry in half, used one, and popped the other into the freezer for another time!
Sausage Rolls
Yield: 6 large ~3” long rolls
Preheat oven to 425*F
1/2 batch of Puff Pastry
2 Sausages (I used Spulumbos Chicken Apple Sausages but use your favourite!)
2 teaspoons Dijon Mustard
Egg wash (one egg with a pinch of salt and sugar wicked together)
Roll your puff dough out into a long rectangle about 18” long and 5” wide.
Using a sharp knife cut slits down both sides of your puff dough about 3/8” wide and about 1.5” long on each side leaving a 2” wide UNCUT section in the middle, this is where the sausage is going to go.
Smear a little mustard down the middle of your dough where you didn’t cut and then scoop your sausage down the middle from top to bottom, but not going on top of the cut strips on either side.
Starting at the top you will grab one of the cut strips and pull it across the sausage towards the other side, then grab the top strip from the alternate side and pull it across in the other direction so the strips are criss-crossing. Continue down the entire strip of sausage and pinch them together at the bottom.
Using a sharp knife cut the sausage roll into 3” long pieces, or whoever she you would like!
Place your sausage rolls onto a lined baking tray, then paint the tops with egg wash.
Bake in the oven for 25-35 minutes or until golden brown and the sausage is fully cooked through.
Eat!