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:
Lemon Cranberry Scones!
Did you see Julie Van Rosendaal and I did a live instagram! What!!! She’s only my idol, no big deal! Just kidding SUPER BIG DEAL! How exciting!!! Anyways Julie made biscuits and I made these lemon cranberry scones!
Lemony and delicious!
Lemon Cranberry Scones
Yield: 6 scones
Preheat your oven to 350*F
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1 1/2 cups Flour
1/4 cup Sugar
1/4 teaspoon Baking Soda
1 1/4 teaspoon Baking Powder
1/2 cup Butter, cold, cubed
1/2 cup Buttermilk
1 Egg
1/2 teaspoon lemon extract (or the zest of 1 lemon)
1/4 cup Dried Cranberries
Glaze:
1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
Enough Icing Sugar to thicken to a drizzling consistency ~1/4-1/2 cup
In a large bowl stir together your dry ingredients - salt, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder.
Using your fingers pinch and rub in the butter until the mixture looks sandy but still has some pea sized chunks of butter.
Now pour in your liquid ingredients - buttermilk, egg, lemon extract, and you can also add in the cranberries at this time too. Stir just until combined.
On a floured surface shape your dough into a rough circle about 1” thick, then using a knife cut the circle like a pie, into 6 pieces.
Place onto a lined baking tray and brush the tops with a little buttermilk and sprinkle with sugar.
Bake for about 15-20 minutes or until lightly browned.
While baking, mix together your glaze, lemon juice and icing sugar, just add enough icing sugar until you get a thin paste.
Once your scones come out of the oven, drizzle the glaze on them while hot.
Now eat! Yay!!
Cornbread - Cake you can eat for dinner!
Anyone else dreaming of the Stampede'? The weirdest 10 days of Calgary’s summer where everything becomes cowboy themed and it’s socially acceptable to wear a cowboy hat in any circumstance. Glorious! Well with cowboy themed things come chili and what goes with chili? CORNBREAD! Yee HAW! Cornbread is a super easy quick bread that you can stir together and pop into the oven while your chili is cooking, or equally as delicious made into muffins in the morning! So many options!
The corniest of breads!
Cornbread
Yield: one 8”x8” pan or a cast iron skillet
Preheat your oven to 350*F
1/2 cup Butter, melted
2/3 cup Sugar
2 Eggs
1 cup Sour Cream (can replace with 1 cup buttermilk, yogurt, or 1 cup of milk with 1 teaspoon vinegar or lemon juice)
1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1 cup Flour
1 cup Cornmeal (I like Yellow cornmeal for the colour, but white will work too!)
Fun flavourings: I used 2 Tablespoons chopped cooked bacon, 1 Tablespoon chopped pickled jalapeños, and 1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese. Other delicious things you can add are whole corn kernels, caramelized onions, roasted red peppers. Or for a sweet variety, blueberries and lemon zest!
In a large bowl mix together your melted butter, sugar and eggs.
Add the sour cream, baking soda and salt. Stir to combine.
Stir in your flour and cornmeal.
Stir in any flavourings you want to add like cheese or bacon! Now pour into a greased 8”x8” baking dish.
Bake for 30-40 minutes or until its lightly golden, springs back to the touch and a toothpick inserted into it comes out clean.
Now enjoy! YAHOO!
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!
Apple Turnovers aka Hand Pies aka DELICIOUS!
What’s better than a pie? A personal pie that fits into your hand! These little pies can be made into any shape, I went for a pop tart-esque shape, but you can make them into triangles or circles or whatever you like! As for fillings, that is completely up to you! I whipped up an apple pie filling, but you can use any canned pie filling, or jam, or even a cheesecake filling! So many options!
Apple Turnovers - the pop tart of your dreams!
Apple Turnovers
Yield: 4 pop tart sized turnovers, or more if you make them smaller
Preheat the oven to 350*F
Pastry:
1 1/2 cups Flour
1 Tablespoon Brown Sugar
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/4 cup Cream Cheese, cold and cubed
1/4 cup Butter, cold and cubed
1/4 cup Cold Water
Apple Pie Filling:
1 Apple, peeled and chopped
1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon
1 teaspoon Butter
pinch of Salt
1/2 teaspoon grated Ginger (optional)
1/4 cup Water
2 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
2 teaspoons Flour
Egg Wash:
1 Egg
pinch of Sugar
pinch of Salt
In a bowl combine your flour, brown sugar, and salt. Stir to combine.
Now add the cream cheese and blend it into the flour mix by pinching and rubbing it in. It should look dry and sandy.
Once your cream cheese is worked in, add your cold butter and using the same pinching and rubbing technique work in the butter, but make sure to stop while there are still some larger pea sized chunks of butter. These are going to make things flaky!
Next we’ll add the cold water and stir until the dough comes together, it will still have some dry bits and look a bit shaggy, but when you press it together it should stay together. Then press your dough into a rectangle shape, wrap it in saran and pop it into the fridge for at least 30 minutes to chill and relax.
Now for our filling! If you want to skip this step you can definitely replace this with canned pie filling or jam. In a pot place your apples, ginger, 1 teaspoon of butter, cinnamon, salt and water, cook over medium heat until your apples soften and start to release their juices.
Stir together the 2 Tablespoons of brown sugar and 2 teaspoons of flour, then dump into the apple mixture and cook until it thickens (about 1 minute). Put this to the side to cool while our dough rests.
Whisk together your egg with a pinch of salt and sugar until combined for your egg wash.
Once your dough is chilled roll it into a large rectangle on a floured surface, about 1/8-1/4” thick. Using a pizza cutter, slice the dough into evenly shaped rectangles about the size of a deck of cards. You should have 8 rectangles altogether, if you need to, re-roll the scraps to get a few more pieces go for it!
Now take one rectangle of dough and scoop about 2 tablespoons of your pie filling into the middle. Brush around the edges with your egg wash, then place another rectangle of dough on top and press together the edges, then using a fork press all around the edges to seal in the pie filling. Slice 3 slits into the top of the dough so the filling has a vent. Place onto a parchment lined baking tray and continue with the the rest of your dough until they are all filled.
Brush the tops of your turnovers with the egg wash and sprinkle them with sugar for a crispy top!
Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown!
Time to eat! Yay!
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!
Angel Food Cake! Popular with Angels AND Devils!
Angel food cake, what a name! I just imagine the Philadelphia Cream Cheese Angel snacking on it while taking a break from her cream cheese bagels. It’s a cake as light , fluffy and white as a cloud! This baby is made without any fat, which means it can be a bit tricky, but I have faith in you! First you make a meringue, then carefully fold in flour and sugar, then once baked you flip it upside down so it doesn’t collapse on itself while it cools! Fun!
Angel Food Cake!
Angel Food Cake
Yield: 1 x 10” Angel Food Cake Tube Pan (ideally with a removable bottom, but use what you got!)
Preheat your oven to 350*F
1 1/2 cups of Egg Whites, room temperature (I had a carton of pasteurized egg whites to use up, but you can also use fresh egg whites, which would be about 12 egg whites)
1 cup Sugar
1/4 teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon lemon juice (or vinegar) or if you have it 1/2 teaspoon Cream of Tartar
3/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons All Purpose Flour
2 Tablespoons Cornstarch
1 1/4 cup Icing Sugar
1 teaspoon Lemon Extract (you can use any flavour here, traditionally it’s almond extract, but vanilla or orange are yummy too!)
Using a sieve, sift together your flour, cornstarch and icing sugar 3 times! Yes, seems excessive but we want those dry ingredients to be light and fluffy! Then set this to the side.
In the bowl of a mixer place your egg whites (make sure the bowl and whisk attachment are super clean and there isn’t any oily residue or else your whites aren’t going to whip). Whip the egg whites with the whisk attachment on medium high speed until they are white, fluffy and starting to look thick.
Now add your lemon juice (or cream of tartar) and salt, and while the machine is whisking on a medium speed very slowly add your 1 cup of regular sugar, don’t dump it in all at once or else it will deflate your egg whites. Basically you want to add a spoonful or two and then once you can’t see it on top of the whites, add another few spoonfuls until it’s all gone.
Once all the sugar is in the whites turn it up to high speed and whisk until you get stiff peaks. You should be able to hold the bowl upside down and the mixture won’t fall out. This is a meringue! Meringue is one of my favourite words.
Remove the bowl from the mixer and add your lemon (or other flavour) extract, and now we are going to add in the flour/icing sugar mixture to the whites by carefully folding it in, in 3-4 additions.
Dump about 1/3 of your flour mixture on top of the meringue and using a rubber spatula,scoop the meringue from the base of the bowl on top of the flour mixture, then continue doing this until it is mostly mixed in, some flour bits will still be showing. Then continue this with the rest of the flour mixture until it has all been incorporated.
At this point your mixture should still be thick and fluffy looking.
Now scoop the batter into your angel food cake tube pan. DO NOT GREASE YOUR PAN! We want a nice, dry, greaseless pan because the batter is going to cling to the sides while it bakes making it nice and light!
Using a butter knife run it through the batter in the pan a few times to knock out any large air bubbles.
Pop your cake into the oven for about 40 minutes or until golden brown and dry looking on top. It should spring back if you touch it with your fingers.
Right when it comes out of the oven FLIP it upside down to cool! Most angel food cake pans have little feet, or a hole in the middle so you can rest it on something and not touch the top edge of the cake.
Once it is cooled, run a knife around the edges, then using the removable bottom from your pan your should be able to push it out and your lovely angel food cake is all ready to be eaten!
I love to eat my angel food cake with whipped cream and berries, but honestly it’s delicious just on it’s own, or if your feeling wild, take a slice, butter both sides, and fry it! Yes, it’s SO good!
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!!!!
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!
Jalapeno Popper Scones...They're popping with FLAVOUR!
I never ate a jalapeño popper until about a year ago…I know what a missed opportunity! A jalapeño filled with cream cheese and then deep fried, yes please! These scones are a flaky bun filled with all that delicious jalapeño popper flavour!
Jalapeno Popper Scones
Jalapeno Popper Scones
Yield: 6 scones
Preheat that oven to 350*F
1.5 cups Flour
1 Tablespoon Sugar
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/4 teaspoon Baking Soda
1 1/4 teaspoon Baking Powder
pinch of Pepper
1/2 cup cold butter, cut into cubes
1-2 Tablespoons chopped pickled jalapeños (or fresh) - these are spicy, so be careful if you don’t like the heat
1/2 cup grated Cheddar Cheese
2 ounces cream cheese, cut into little cubes (you can dust these with a touch of flour if they stick together)
2 Tablespoons chopped Ham or Bacon
1/2 cup Buttermilk (or 1/2 cup regular milk plus 1/2 teaspoon vinegar)
1 egg
In a large bowl combine all your dry ingredients, flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda and pepper. Toss to combine.
Dump all the cold butter into your flour mix and blend it into your flour by pinching and rubbing the butter. You want there to be some larger chunks of butter, and the rest of the flour mixture to look a bit like sand.
Add all your flavourings in, your cream cheese, jalapeños, ham, and MOST of the cheddar cheese, you want to save a small handful of cheese for sprinkling on top of your scones. Toss these to combine with the flour mix.
Pour your buttermilk and egg into the flour mix and stir to combine. You don’t want to mix this dough too much, it’s perfect when your liquid is mixed in, but there are still a few floury looking bits.
Dump the dough out onto a floured surface and press into a circle shape about 1” thick. Then using a knife cut it into 6 triangles, like you are cutting a pie.
Place the scones onto a parchment lined baking tray then brush the tops with buttermilk and sprinkle them with your remaining cheese.
Bake in a 350*F oven for about 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown and delicious!
Eat while warm or dunk into something yummy like chili!
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!