Fall Colours

I love this time of year. Although cooler, it's still bright and full of unique colours everywhere you look. Nature has such an amazing way of putting colours together that you may not think really go together and making it work.

This is the inspiration behind our "Oaks and Acorns" design. The purple and green colour scheme pops on the light natural apron but still remains soft and pretty. 

Our friend Sarah, the gourmet goddess

We hope this apron encourages the "gourmet goddess" in you to do some cooking with the rich and vibrant root vegetables that are in season.

Or, if you prefer the sweeter side and are more of a "baking beauty", go apple picking and try out this apple yogurt cake with a cinnamon sugar streak from The Kitchn. I made it last week...it lasted for 3 days...Yikes!

Enjoy.
xo

Instant Status Upgrade

Are you always labelled a Microwave Maven rather than a Gourmet Goddess? There's nothing wrong with being a little challenged in the kitchen you know. Many a tasty birthday cake has been created from store bought cake mixes. All it takes is a little creativity and presentation to make something not quite from scratch special. No need to hang your head, dear Microwave Mavens, hold your heads high and rejoice in your other gifts!

If, however, you still dream of hearing people exclaiming over your kitchen prowess I have the solution. Go to Kitchen Stuff Plus and get yourself a kitchen blow torch and make creme brulee. I finally bought a blow torch and made this recipe from Canadian Living and it was a show stopper! I had no idea creme brulee was so simple, nor did I know that torching something could be so much fun! You can hang up your Microwave Maven aprons and graduate to Baking Beauty in an instant.

I can't wait to find more recipes that involve torching!

Perfect Birthday Cake

If ever there is a time that one should be allowed to eat cake for breakfast it would be on one's birthday, right? I think I have found my perfect birthday cake. Leave it to my girl crush Joy the Baker to have a chocolate beet cake. With beet cream cheese icing no less. I love beets. Really really love them. They're vibrant, earthy, sweet and rich, what's not to love? Luckily I have decided to celebrate my birthday well into the weekend so there will be plenty of time for someone to bake me this cake. I'll wait....

(photo: Joy the Baker)

Rhubarb Strawberry Tarts

Recently I vowed that I was going to start eating healthier again. All the summer festivities and ice cream were starting to get to me. Then I saw local strawberries at the market (still so tiny and so sweet!) and a friend gave me rhubarb, right out of her garden and my resolve flew out the window. I had to make tarts. I used Lucy Waverman's mini galette recipe and they turned out yummy and juicy, tart and sweet. It's really like eating a fruit salad in a pastry bowl. That's super healthy, right?

Life Lesson Cookies

It was one of those glum kind of days. I had boring paperwork to do and it was raw and miserable outside. I decided that as a reward for slogging through the tedium I would bake cookies (my classic, never fail, oatmeal chocolate chip faves) and have a night of cookies and TV in my pajamas. Somehow, although I have made this recipe a gazillion times, I overdid it with the oats and flour. They were dry and wouldn't stick together. I was suspicious about adding an egg and I wasn't sure about adding more butter at the end so I added a dollop of peanut butter. When I added walnuts I realized I had miscalculated there too, making the dough even drier and unmanageable. I was tempted to just dump the whole thing and run out for ice cream. Instead I decided to use the kitchen as my lab and see if things can be salvaged and become even better in the process. First I added more peanut butter.Things seemed to stick a little better. Then I threw in some raisins. If they weren't going to be my classic chocolate chip cookies why stop at the chocolate chips? They still felt too dry so I added a generous scoop of almond butter. I rolled things in my hands and started to feel better, tedious day and kitchen mishap notwithstanding. Sometimes you have to step back and look at what you are stressing over. It is rarely worth deep sighs and foot stamping. Usually you just need to take a deep breath and decide to enjoy the ride, even if the results seem to be going downhill fast. It is the act of doing that should really matter. If we just allow things to happen and not sweat it, our mistakes can end up being happy accidents and surprise victories.

This was not one of those times.

My cookies were a crumbly, hockey puck textured mess but I am still came away feeling rather Zen and like I had learned something (like read a recipe every now and then even if you think you know it like the back of your hand...).

Healthy Craft Show Snack

I am loving my time at the One of a Kind Show! It is always a wild frenzy getting set up and I am pooped and in need of a massage and a night of bad television when it is over, but meeting my customers and hearing people giggle over the aprons makes it all worthwhile.

The other day my friend dropped off amazing bars to help keep my energy up. Knowing that it is very easy to overload on sugar during these shows (The shortbread! The chocolate bark!) my friend made sure to find a super healthy recipe that was delicious. She passed on the recipe so that I can share it for the next time you need a yummy boost, craft show or no craft show.

Healthy Craft Show Bars
The base: Mix 1/3 cup margarine, 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1/2 cup each of whole wheat flour and bran and press into a 9 inch (un-greased) square baking pan. Bake in 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes until it starts to pull away from the sides of the pan a little. Let it cool.

Topping: In a small saucepan melt 1/4 cup organic natural peanut butter, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 2tbsp margarine over low heat. Remove from heat and stir in 2 eggs, 1 cup rolled oats and 1/2 cup dried chopped fruit (my friend added dried mangoes and cranberries, so yummy).

Spread mixture over base and bake for 20 minutes. Let cool and cut into squares.

Chocolate Bar Coffee Cake

Anyone who knows me knows that I have never met a coffee cake I didn't like. Partly it is because I associate coffee cake with old school visiting - the idea that someone would drop by in the middle of the afternoon for a cup of coffee and a gab session. I love the idea of sitting around with a girlfriend, a cup of something warm and a piece of crumbly cake in front of us. It conjures up images of effortless lazy days, something that is hard to do in our overly scheduled, multi-tasking lifestyles.

With that in mind I decided to bake a coffee cake and and invite a friend over. I used a recipe from my beloved Bite Me cookbook by Julie Albert and Lisa Gnat. It is one of those magical cookbooks where everything turns out - no adjustments necessary. Everything is yummy on the first try.

Chocolate Bar Coffee Cake (How can you go wrong with a name like that?!)
from Bite Me, by Julie Albert and Lisa Gnat

• In a food processor combine 1 cup sugar, 6 tbsp margarine, 2 eggs and 1 tsp vanilla. Process for 2 minutes.
• Mix 1 cup sour cream with 1 tsp baking soda and let it sit for 30 seconds (the sour cream gets all bubbly, very neat!) Then add it to the food processor and mix 3 seconds.
• Add 1 1/3 cup flour and 11/2 tsp baking powder to the mix and pulse until the flour disappears.
• Pour half the batter into a 9 inch square baking pan coated with cooking spray. Cover with half of a topping made with 2 cups chopped chocolate (I used a mix of milk and semi sweet chocolate) 1 cup brown sugar, 2 tbsp cocoa and 1 tbsp cinnamon. (I also added some coconut just because I had a handful to use up)
• Top with remaining batter and then remaining topping.
• Bake for 45 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

Pat yourself on the back for being a Baking Beauty and wait for a friend to come for a visit.

Cupcake Time

The other day I was meeting with a friend and her two wee ones. I decided to make cupcakes, figuring that the three year old would have fun decorating them and when the kids were all hopped up on sugar I could quietly take my leave. I tried to think of what could be kid and adult friendly and found this heavenly recipe for chocolate cupcakes with a cream cheese and orange frosting. Chocolate and orange are always a delightful pair and a cream cheese frosting never disappoints. You can smear cream cheese frosting on an old shoe and it will be delicious. The super wee one was smeared with cupcake and kept screaming for "upcakes", while the three year old spent a lot of time digging holes in the icing before sticking a giant spoonful of it in his mouth. I later witnessed his mom doing the exact same thing (not the digging part, the spooning the icing into her mouth part). Kid and mom approved. Success!

Because I am a bit of a pom pom addict, I decorated a few cupcakes with coloured toothpicks topped with mini pompoms but not necessarily the best adornment with young children around...

Cranberry Orange Loaf

I know Christmas is over and it is now all about New Years Resolutions, eating salads, going to the gym and being virtuous, but I had to bake anyway. I had some left over fresh cranberries in the fridge and I saw this loaf recipe and it just sounded so tasty that I couldn't resist. It has the perfect blend of orange, nuts and tart cranberries and it smelled like a little loaf of heaven when it was baking. It is absolutely perfect. I'm not kidding. I seriously think I have found the perfect loaf. I am definitely making this my go to recipe next Christmas. I will be eating this with my tea in the afternoon (and morning and evening).

I Have Found My Christmas Breakfast Scones

Have I ever mentioned that my sister is the queen of scones? She is. Pretty lucky to have a baking queen as a family member. I have found a new recipe for her highness. Cranberry cream scones with candied ginger. What could be more perfect with a cup of tea on Christmas morning? Her royal bakeness will have to get to work!

The Perfect Holiday Cookie

I know that in the vast world of holiday cookies, there are many that can be considered the perfect specimen: your favourite auntie's shortbread, extra boozy rum balls, painstakingly rolled rugelas, gingerbread men just begging you to bite their heads off...

I know it isn't fair to just say that there is one perfect cookie out there, so I won't. Let me just say that these chewy gingersnaps should be added to the list. The kitchen smells amazing while these are baking, spicy and warm and way better than any holiday scented candle. They are chewy with a bit of crispness around the edges, the candied ginger offers a little kick and the cashews give them a hint of salt. Heaven. Did I mention they freeze well too? These chewy morsels of delight will be a perfect little gift for the holidays.

You can find the genius recipe here.

Meeting a Real Baking Beauty

Our Domistyle customers are the sweetest!

I met a lovely Baking Beauty the first day of the One of a Kind Show. She bought an apron for herself, explaining that it was going to be her Christmas gift from her husband.

Our sweet baking beauty revealed that her specialty is coffee cake. She said that it's super easy and a surefire hit every time. I love coffee cake but have never been successful in making one. She said she'd send me the recipe, along with her no fail apple crumble recipe, as soon as she got home. Sure enough, I received the recipes, along with a report that her husband was very impressed with the thoughtful gift he had "selected" for her.

My volunteer booth buddy baked the cake the same evening and raved about how delicious it was. Hopefully she is going to come by and bring me a piece!

Here are the recipes:

Sour Cream Coffee Cake
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla
1 3/4 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp orange rind (I usually don't add this)

Topping
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional) (I am not a fan of nuts so I usually opt out)
1 tbsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp. butter softened

Preheat the oven to 350F. For the topping, mix together all ingredients in a small bowl and set aside. For the cake, mix together sugar, butter, eggs and sour cream until smooth. Sift flour, baking powder and baking soda together and add the orange rind. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the sour cream mixture. Pour 1/2 of the mixture into an 8 inch spring-form cake pan and then sprinkle about 1/3 to 1/2 of the topping mixture on top. Add the rest of the batter and smooth over your topping. Sprinkle on the rest of the topping and bake for 30-45 minutes until the center is dry.

And the apple crisp
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup rolled oats
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup butter
4 apples
1/4 cup granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 350F. Peel and chop apples and mix with 1/4 cup sugar and 1/4 tsp. cinnamon. Mix together the remaining ingredients and crumble over apple mixture. Bake for 25 minutes.

Could our customers be any sweeter? I think not! Thank you lovely real life Baking Beauty Sarah!

Eerily Easy Cakes

We are in the final hours of Halloween and I am afraid that between travel, shows and crazy apron preparations I have been quite negligent this year. I saw these brilliant cakes on the Sweet Paul blog (who really should be my new best friend) and was impressed by his genius transformation of store bought cakes into something spookily spectacular.

Oat Bar Fail

I had a million and one things to do before heading off to L.A. (can't wait to see you dear Mr. Sunshine!!) and then to Vancouver for the Circle Craft Christmas Market. You know how it is sometimes when you have a gazillion things to do but you suddenly feel an overwhelming urge to do something completely unnecessary? I guess it is the procrastinator in me. I stumbled upon this recipe I had torn out of a magazine. There was a feature on favourite picnic food and I was mesmerized by an oatmeal "flapjacks" recipe. They looked like oatmeal squares but with a touch of lemon. Packing and prepping be damned, it was time to make some oatmeal squares. I rationalized my stalling tactics by telling myself that I could take them with me on my travels as a healthy snack.

I should have known that things weren't going to work out. The instructions were in weight measures rather than by volume. Who knows how much 200 grams of butter is? I searched on the internet for a conversion and instead found persnickety online conversations along the lines of, "Well, you know the weight of a solid isn't the same as a liquid" and blah, blah, blah. Who cares? I just wanted to know how many cups of flour and butter I needed. The recipe called for golden syrup, which, thanks to my persnickety internet teachers, I learned, isn't the same as maple or corn syrup. It is a treacle, more akin to honey but not quite. I was getting tired. I almost packed it in when it called for Muscovado sugar (huh?) which is a dark brown sugar that isn't quite the same as brown sugar. Just how exotic were these oatmeal bars?!

I carried on to the best of my abilities, figuring out the measurements, using a combination of honey and maple syrup and hoping for the best. In the end my bars are more like a flaky baked granola - a far cry from packable tasty oatmeal bars. I guess I should have stuck with the packing and prepping.

Cream Cheese Banana Bread

I have banana issues. I love their creamy mushy sweetness but I can't seem to eat them fast enough. Inevitably my perfect bunch of bananas start to get brown and spotty. As a result I have a stockpile of frozen bananas in the freezer. It is getting dangerous when I open the freezer door. More than once I have had frozen bananas fall on my toes and as innocent as a banana may seem, when a frozen one lands on your bare toes it hurts. It was time to make banana bread.

I found a recipe here that had me intrigued because it involve cream cheese. Cream cheese and a crumb topping no less. It is a show stopping loaf of banana bread with a little extra pizazz. Delicious and my toes will be safe from frozen banana attacks for a while.

First Day of Autumn Apple Crumble

The days are decidedly cooler and it is the first official day of autumn. I guess it may be time to pack away my summer dresses and accept that fall is here. The smell of baking apples and cinnamon is one of the best autumnal aromas. I decided to put on a sweater and an apron and bake an apple crumble. I used Gwyneth Paltrow's fruit crumble recipe that isn't too sweet or heavy-handed on the crumble part. I will start these crisp fall mornings by snuggling into a cozy sweater, sipping a cup of tea and having a scoop of warm apple crumble with a dollop of plain yogurt.

Gwyneth Paltrow's Fruit Crumble Recipe (is there something, anything she can't do?!) from her book My Father's Daughter

• Toss 4 cups of diced apples with 1 tbsp spelt flour in a pie plate
• Mix 1 cup rolled oats, 1/4 cup spelt flour, 1/4 up brown sugar, pinch of salt and 1/4 tsp cinnamon in a bowl.
• Add 4 tbsp butter and mix it all up until crumbly with your hands.
• Throw over fruit and bake in a 350° C oven for 45 minutes.
• Top with mounds of ice cream or eat it in the morning with yogurt for breakfast and pretend that it is a warm granola instead.

Yoga Cookies

My two favourite things combined! Yoga leaves me blissful and cookies are delightful. Combine the two together and you get instant Nirvana!

Find these yogi delights at bakedideas.com.

Mrs. Fields Cookie Recipe

Who doesn't love Mrs. Fields cookies, those gooey bastions of cookie perfection?

I found a recipe claiming to be the Mrs. Fields cookie recipe here and decided to try to recreate the magic. I suspected that a key magical ingredient would have been left out. I've heard of cooks who omit something so that it never turns out quite the same in order to retain their champion cookie/cake/preserve maker crown.

I decided to attempt them despite my suspicions. I baked the cookies for longer than the recipe specified because they looked underdone and my oven can be weird sometimes. Next time I will bake them just as Mrs. Fields instructed. They were very yummy but not quite as magical as the original. I will just have to keep baking (and eating) until I get it right. Someone's gotta do it.

Backhanded Compliment cupcakes

I've been trying to be more healthy lately but every now and then a girl needs to indulge. I found a recipe here and felt my resolve slip away. How can I resist? A cupcake involving Nutella and only 3 other ingredients, topped with cream cheese frosting? It is perfect and goes with my theory that you can top just about anything with cream cheese frosting and it'll be delicious. I was off to a friend's place for dinner with her boyfriend and decided to whip up a batch for dessert.

When it was time to eat the cupcakes my friend's boyfriend commented that they were better than he had expected.

Hmmm.

Is that kind of like when you see someone and they exclaim,"Wow! You look really good! Did you lose weight?" Umm, did I need to lose weight? Did I look really bad before? He quickly backtracked and said, "I mean they are really good. They looked like cupcakes so I expected them to be all cakey but they are really dense, like a brownie."

This is true. I accept his backtracking excuse. They are dense like a brownie but in the form of a cute little cupcake. I see how they could be confusing. Confusing and oh so delicious.

Cookie Dough Cheesecake Bars

Oh no, they didn't! Cookie dough cheesecake bars? It is both genius and diabolical. Despite my vow to get bikini ready this combination is impossible to resist. Naturally, I baked these babies immediately.

From: My baking addiction (recipe here), via: where the sidewalk begins (damn you ladies!)