Iced Nougat Cubes

My dad, like me, can’t live without sweets. I can’t imagine a week a day without chocolate, cakes or cookies, the sheer thought of it chills me to the bone. In addition to our insatiable sweet tooth, we like foods with texture, say dark chocolate with raisins and almonds or crunchy peanut butter. Life is just more interesting with some crunch.

My dad frequently eats something before bedtime while lounging on the couch (a major culprit to his rotund belly), a typical snack would be milky scoops of ice cream sprinkled with toasted hazelnuts or broken bits of chocolate chip cookies. As he’s digging into the dessert bowl, he looks like a 5 year old ripping through Christmas gift wrap on Boxing Day, in other words, hilarious and charming. I prefer something less rich, say a square of Lindt dark chocolate in either the sea salt or intense mint flavour. I slowly nibble off each corner and let it melt on my tongue, prolonging the pleasure and I swear, I sleep much more soundly with a little extra sugar running through my veins.

I’ve owned French Food at Home for a number of years and still, I’m always intrigued by Laura Calder’s delicious ideas whenever I flip through her book for inspiration. Armed with a mandatory post-it dispenser, I frantically bookmark all the recipes that jump to my attention, which is to say, quite a few. 

One particular recipe that stood out for me were these Ice Nougat Cubes. Doesn't it sound like it belongs on the Queen's dinner menu every night? Its name practically beckons you to dash to the grocery store and buy all the ingredients so you can have it ready to eat the following day (you know, in case the Queen stops by for a visit). These nougats are more of a frozen dessert than candy, they are fluffier than ice cream and the flurry of dried fruits, almond brittle and nuts make it fun to eat as the various chewy and nutty textures jostle for attention in your mouth. The best part is its not cloying sweet, so you won’t feel guilty for lying on your bed and mistakenly whiz through three or four of these jewelled cubes. 

It’s a shame it took me more than four years to make these nougats, but like that old saying, good things come to those who wait.  

Tweet

Recipe here!

Cranberry and Pistachio Biscotti plus Other Adventures

I’ve wanted to share this recipe for a while, it’s very dear to me because it was one of my first loves when I was in Montreal. I had browsed through recipes on Epicurious and baked my first of many batches at my cousin’s apartment, wrapped in layers of cotton and wool since the kitchen lacked heat and the best way to stay warm was bake with the oven on at full force. 

 

 

But lately, there hasn’t been much need for that. If you’re like me, live in Toronto, you will know that the winter has been unusually warm. We got a day of furious snowfall right after Christmas, but it’s already starting to melt into little rivers on the streets and given the remarkably good weather, I’ve been doing some exploring.

I couldn’t stop staring at the ROM. It’s a beautiful building that sits on Bloor and Queen's Park, with crystal like structures spilling on the street, its design inspired by the museum's collection of gemstones. I’ve passed by many times but never really took it in till this last week. 

 

 

On the same day, exhausted from hours of walking up and down Bloor street, my friend and I stumbled into Carole’s Cheesecake Café tucked in a little nook on Cumberland street. Their cheesecake has been named the best cheesecake in the city and boy, does it live up to that title. 

I ordered a Taffy Apple cheesecake and oh lordy lord, the filling was fluffier than clouds and as light as whipped cream, but the best part was the topping. There was crunchy toffee and crystallized apples to contrast against the soft filling and then just when your tongue can’t handle the sensory overload, there are slivers of soft cooked apples with a hint of cinnamon. I polished it off my slice in record time. This is serious cheesecake people. 

Later in the week, I discovered a shop that sells imported Dutch products including Speculoos (!!!!). If you remember my love letter, you would know about my mad love for all things Speculoos.  A very kind blogger from across the border also sent me Trader Joe’s version of Speculoos aka Cookie Butter (I love that name) for Christmas. I’ve been scooping it out of the jar with my finger spoon everyday...whoops! So much for making ice cream out of it. 

 

There’s also been a lot of lobster. Lobster bisque, lobster soup, lobster hot pot, and lobster cooked in soy sauce. You should see my parents attack lobster, it's as if it was the end of the world, in other words, hilarious. My mom has the biggest grin and my dad turns into a kid in a toy store.

 

In between meals and finding little gems in what is now my hometown, I’ve been nibbling on these dynamite biscotti. They are insanely addictive, crunchy, crumbly in all the right places, and intoxicate your mouth with the sweet smell of baked eggs and butter. They are undoubtedly festive cookies and would make wonderful treats to ring in the new years say at a potluck. I bet you will have people fighting to get the recipe from you. I certainly would. 

Happy new year and thanks for reading, drooling, commenting and stopping by. May 2012 bring us more luscious and saliva-inducing sweets!

Tweet

Recipe here!

Whole Grain Upside Down Cranberry Cake

I’ve spent the past few days giggling a lot, most times with my dad, at my dad and also behind his back. If you met him, you would know right away he’s a funny man, he doesn’t try to be, he just naturally is.

My friend Bonnie loves to tell the story of the time when she called my house looking for me. My dad picked up the phone and for fun, crooned in a high-pitched girly tone, “moshi moshi?” (Japanese for hello on the phone). Bonnie burst into a fitful of giggles and between breaths asked for me, my dad blushed and handed over the phone to me. We proceeded laughing for a good five minutes and ten years later, we still laugh about it.

The photo above was taken in Beijing during my summer vacation when I was visiting my parents, just in time to catch the Olympics. My dad still works in China and visits every year, though it's not easy to living on opposite sides of the world, we Skype everyday, sometimes with webcam (then again my mom and I can't help but poke fun at his baldness so he rarely turns it on). My mom hates it when we go out and people say we look nothing alike, they never guess that we’re mother and daughter. What do you think? I look a lot like my dad, the same eyes, the same round face, I talk like him too sometimes and I like to think I got his DNA for seeking adventurous foods.

Last week was his birthday and of course, I love birthdays because that means food. We shared a 5 lb lobster cooked in soy sauce plus lots of garlic and scallions, and soon enough, our plates were teetering with gnarly lobster shells and legs. There was a look of deep concentration hanging on my mom's face as she wrestled out succlent pieces of lobster meat, because even though we were there for my dad's birthday, my mom had long since planned to go to this restaurant for its lobster, it's definitely her favorite food.

When we got home, there was a cake waiting. I’ve been meaning to make this cake since I cracked open Alice Water’s The Art of Simple Food and nothing says it’s the holidays quite like cranberries. In keeping with my experiment of whole grain flours, I switched out the all-purpose flour with a mixture of oat, spelt and whole wheat flours, dialled down the sugar in the cake just a tad and added orange zest to the topping for a little kick.

 

We invited my parents’ friends over to share some cake and of course, they obligingly said yes. They wolfed down their first slice and asked for seconds, I don't blame them, I had it for breakfast everyday with a dollop of plain yogurt. It’s a nice cake to have when you don’t want something too cloying, when you crave some fruit and something low-key and rustic. The sour fruit is brought to life with orange juice and a caramel topping and then paired with a moist cake batter that is just right, not too sweet and not too dry. The flours give the cake a nutty, grainy texture that crumbles to bite-sized pieces, perfect for your fork to stab at.

It might not be the prettiest cake, but when you make it for someone who you haven’t seen in a while and manages to cheer you up instantly when you had a bad day, it doesn’t matter.

Happy holidays folks!

Tweet

Recipe here!