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:
Cream Puffs with a Lemon Cheesecake Filling!
Cream puffs are made with ‘Choux Paste” which is a dough that is used for ALL sorts of things - eclairs, churros, cruellers, profiteroles, gorgieres and more! It’s a dough you cook on the stove, then add eggs to before piping and baking. I filled my cream puffs with a lemon cheesecake filling, but you can fill them with lightly sweetened whipped cream or a scoop of ice cream for a simple and delicious dessert!
A mountain of Cream Puffs!
Cream Puffs with Lemon Cheesecake Filling
Yield: 24-30 cream puffs
Preheat your oven to 400*F
Choux Paste aka Cream Puff Dough:
1/2 cup Milk
1/4 cup Water
1/3 cup Butter
1/4 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teaspoon Sugar
3/4 cup Flour
~3 Eggs
icing sugar for dusting on top
Lemon Cheesecake Filling:
1 cup (8oz.) Cream Cheese, softened
1/4 cup Icing Sugar
1/4 teaspoon Salt
zest of 1 lemon
In a small pot, bring your milk, water, butter, salt and sugar to a boil.
Once the milk mixture is boiling, add your flour and stir over a medium heat until the mixture become a dough ball and leaves a film on the base of your pot. Transfer to a bowl and cool for a minute or two.
Add your eggs one at a time, stirring to combine after each egg. Depending on how much moisture is in your dough, and how large your eggs are, you might not need all three. You want your finished dough to be soft and when you run your finger though it, it should slowly fill in the gap, but still leave a visible line where your finger had been.
Place your dough into a piping bag and pipe about 1.5” diameter rounds onto a parchment lined baking tray.
If there are little “kisses” poking up from where you stopped piping, wet your finger and lightly press them down so the tops of your cream puffs are flat.
Bake in a preheated 400*F oven for 20-30 minutes, or until golden brown. Try not to open the oven at all (no peeking!) for the first 20 minutes, the cream puffs are creating steam that will help them bake, and we don’t want that to escape!
To make the lemon cheesecake filling, whip together the cream cheese, icing sugar, salt and lemon zest until light and fluffy. If you plan on piping it into your cream puffs, you can place it into a piping bag or a ziplock bag with the corner cut off.
Once your cream puffs are baked, let them cool and fill with your choice of filling! You can use a knife to poke a hole in the base of your cream puff, large enough to fit the tip of a piping bag full of filling, then squeeze it into your cream puff, or you can cut the top of your cream puff off with a serrated knife, scoop some filling into it and then place the top back on once filled, both look cute!
Sprinkle the tops with icing sugar and devour!
Zucchini Muffins!
For when life gives you a GINORMOUS zucchini! These delicious muffins are similar to a carrot cake, but instead of carrots, we use grated zucchini! The flavour is cinnamon sugar, which is always delicious, but feel free to add in other things like dried cranberries or chocolate chips! Yum!
mmmmmmmmuffins!
Zucchini Muffins
Yield: 12 muffins or 1 loaf
Preheat your oven to 350*F
2 cups of grated Zucchini
2 Eggs
1/3 cup Sour Cream
1/2 cup Butter, melted
1/2 cup Sugar
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
1 teaspoon Vanilla (optional)
1 2/3 cup Flour
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/4 teaspoon Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
Cinnamon Sugar for topping (about 1/4 cup sugar mixed with 1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon)
In a large bowl stir together your wet ingredients - zucchini, eggs, sour cream, butter, sugar, brown sugar and vanilla. Stir to combine.
Add your dry ingredients - flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Stir until just combined.
In a greased and lined muffin tin, evenly scoop your batter.
Top the muffins with a sprinkle of cinnamon sugar.
Bake in a preheated 350*F oven for about 25 minutes, or until lightly golden and the toothpick comes out clean when you stab it into the centre.
Time for eating!
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.
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!
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!
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!!!!
Granola Bars - dreaming about when we need quick breakfasts again!
Granola bars are my go to breakfast when I am not stuck in my house avoiding the general public and daily life…oh the days before social distancing, seems like so long ago…it was only 4 days…just a few more to go, right! These babies are easy to prepare and then once cooled you can wrap them up individually and pop them in the freezer, all ready to go for easy snacking!
Granola Bars!
Granola Bars
Yield: 9”x13” pan
Preheat your oven to 350*F
1/3 cup Butter
1/3 cup Brown Sugar
3/4 teaspoon Salt
1 cup Honey or Maple Syrup (if you don’t have enough of either you can supplement with corn syrup, it just doesn’t have as much flavour)
4 cups Oats- ideally old fashioned rolled oats, but use what you have, we’re in quarantine!
2 cups almonds or other nut, toasted lightly in the oven
2 cups shredded Coconut
1 1/3 cup Dried Fruit - I used a mix of dried cranberries and raisins, with a little bit of chocolate chips!
In a saucepan place the butter, brown sugar, salt and honey. Bring to a boil.
While that is heating, mix together the oats, almonds, coconut and dried fruit to combine.
Pour the honey butter mixture on top of the oat mixture and stir to combine.
Grease a 9”x13” pan, then place a piece of parchment on the bottom and grease that as well.
Pour granola bar mixture into the pan and with damp or greased hands just press it into the pan until it feels firm.
Bake for about 20 minutes or until lightly golden.
Let cool (ideally overnight or for a few hours) and slice into bar sized pieces - I like to wrap them individually in saran wrap and pop them in the freezer, but you can also just crumble up the granola and put it into a jar for eating on top of yogurt or fruit. Yum!
Pineapple Upside Down Cake for when the world is upside down!
Yesterday I watched a terribly amazing movie about the BEST surfer from Arizona who goes to Hawaii to surf the North Shore, only he has no idea what he is doing because he is a surfer from ARIZONA! This pretty much sums up my skiing experience - “Hey Deidre have you skied before?” “Oh yes, plenty of times” in MANITOBA! Where we literally skied down a man made hill because we have no mountains. Lets just say I rolled down the mountain for a day and decided never to ski again. Anyways, Hawaii, the land of pineapples is where I wish I was right now, but since I can’t be there lets eat some pineapple!
Pineapple Upside Down Cake
Pineapple Upside Down Cake
Yield: 10” skillet serves 1-8 depending on how willing you are to share
Preheat that oven to 350*F
1/4 cup Butter
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
1 can of pineapple (ideally those rings of pineapple, but I don’t have that so I’m using the chunks of pineapple, use what you got, we’re in quarantine!)
3/4 cup Butter, softened
3/4 cup Sugar
2 Eggs
1 cup Buttermilk or Sour Cream or Yogurt or 1 cup of milk with 1 teaspoon of vinegar
1 teaspoon of Vanilla or Rum if you got it!
2 cups Flour
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/4 teaspoon Salt
In a large skillet or 8”-9'“ cake pan melt the 1/4 cup butter, if you have a skillet you can do this right on the burner, otherwise just pop your butter in the microwave and pour it into the bottom of your pan.
Spread the brown sugar on top of the melted butter, making sure to evening distribute it.
Drain your pineapple (we don’t need the juice for this recipe, but it sure makes a great cocktail!) then fan it on top of your brown sugar. If you have larger chunks like me, you can slice them into thinner pieces and read those on the brown sugar so they look prettier…or not, up to you! Then set this pan to the side!
Now for the batter! Ideally with an electric mixer (stand or hand mixer, both work great) beat together your butter, vanilla/rum if you got it, and sugar. You can do this by hand, you are just going to have a work out!
Once the butter/sugar looks nice and fluffy add your eggs.
You can now toss in the baking power, baking soda and salt.
Next, alternate in the flour and buttermilk (or alternative as listed in the ingredients). I usually do 3 additions of flour and 2 of the buttermilk.
Now smear your batter on top of the pineapple in your pan, try to not smooth around the pineapples too much since they are going to be the pretty top of your cake after.
Bake in a preheated 350*F oven until golden and a toothpick comes out clean
Once baked, let your pan sit for about 5 minutes, then place a plate over the top of the cake and very carefully flip it over. WATCH FOR HOT SYRUP! Then eat while warm and dream of Hawaii!
No Knead Bread you really NEED in your life!
Ever wanted to make bread but you are intimidated? Maybe you have tried making bread and it was a disaster… I have been there and I literally went to school to learn how. Bread can be tricky, but it can also be super simple! This no-knead bread recipe is perfect for when you are social distancing and need something to a)occupy your life and b)eat with your dinner…but tomorrow’s dinner because it takes about 20 hours of resting before you can bake it.
Golden Brown and Delicious!
Cracked Black Pepper and Parmesan No-Knead Bread
Yield: 1 loaf
All-purpose Flour 3 cups
Instant or Active Dry Yeast 2 teaspoons
Salt 2 teaspoons
Black Pepper 1/2 teaspoon
Parmesan, grated 2 Tablespoons
Warm water 1.5 cups
Olive Oil 1 Tablespoon
Mix together the flour, yeast, salt, black pepper and parmesan until combined in a large bowl. The yeast is going to GROW so you want there to be lots of room for your dough to expand overnight.
Stir in water and olive oil until it forms a sticky ball, you can just use your arm and a spatula for this, you don’t need a mixer…it’s like magic!
Put a lid on your bowl, or saran wrap it and let it sit for about 20 hours.
Pre-heat oven to 450*F and place a large cast iron pot with a lid inside while it is preheating so it gets nice and hot. I have an enamelled cast iron dutch oven which works great, but something that holds heat and has a lid is what your looking for. You are basically making a bread oven inside of your regular oven.
Once the oven is hot, you can plop your dough out onto a floured surface and roughly roll it into a ball.
Next pull your pot out of the oven, you can give it a little spray of non-stick cooking oil aka PAM, and plop your bread ball into it. Then place the lid on top and put it back into the oven.
Bake with the lid on for 30 minutes, then remove the lid and bake for another 15 minutes or until golden brown!
I like to take my bread out of the pot to cool on a wire rack so it doesn’t get steamy on the bottom, but voila! Fresh baked bread, easy peasy!