Maple Banana Bread

I once went out with a boy who enjoys food as much as I do, we bonded over plates oozing with burrata cheese, plate brimming with fresh ravioli and pizzas bubbling straight from chimney ovens (if you live in Toronto or plan to visit sometime soon, you ought to go to Gusto and order the Polpette—meatballs on pizza?! Aww yeaaaah). Another added bonus was he had sweet tooth big enough to rival mine: Soma Chocolate, lemon bars, cheesecakes, ice cream, we devoured them all.

Aside from food, we also shared an interest in the digital arts and decided to try our hand at making a baking video. For a week, we exchanged emails sharing the most saliva-inducing videos we found, getting inspiration from other food lovers. I’m unfamiliar with cinematography since I’m used to the control of a camera, so you can imagine my excitement on this project. We chose Heidi’s Lemony Olive Oil Banana Bread which took nearly two hours to make, not because it was difficult, but because we were having so much fun.

When I bake, I move swiftly along, my Ipod is playing and my toes tap in rhythm to the wooden spoon beating against the metal bowl, there’s minimal flour spill and by the time the cake pan slides into the oven, the dirty spatulas and measuring spoons are soaking quietly in a soapy bowl. But for this project, we made a mess. As my friend hummed to Bon Iver playing in the background, I surveyed the specks of salt, flour, sugar, and baking soda littered on the black table plus excess olive oil that sat in a glass jar, marking our unsuccessful attempts in catching drool-worthy footage. There were spoons upon spoons splayed out, a teetering tower of dishes to be washed, and best of all, there was the cake in the oven. 

As we ran hot water to clean up the mess and the familiar waft of warm, sweet bananas perfumed the kitchen, a sense of ease passed through me. For a fleeting moment, I wanted to do this everyday, the ordinary washing of dirty dishes, the way he tickled me, how I squealed like a little girl, and how he redeemed himself by wrapping his arms around me.

Yet the cake wasn't as spectacular as I hoped, I was greedy with the chocolate chunks and the banana bread ended up being far too sweet. Still, my friend gobbled up two slices in less than five minutes and declared it delicious. We split up the cake, I gathered my baking tools and headed home.

Then something happened since that banana bread, I can’t quite put my finger on it, but my gut knew that perhaps this boy didn’t want to have any more banana-bread-movie-making days. I never blogged about that recipe because I had originally intended to give you the video, I guess you have to accept that sometimes your expectations won't be met. However, one thing you can do is bake when the craving strikes. I was fumbling through food blogs and found this Maple Banana Bread, a no-fuss recipe, the batter comes together easily and turns out incredibly moist. There’s no chocolate, no walnuts and I skipped the frosting because I prefer my cakes uncomplicated. I brought this to work the next day, welcomed by cheers from my coworkers, something I can definitely expect every time.

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Recipe here!

Whole Wheat Speculoos Snacking Cake (almost)

 
Around this time last year, I was strolling through the beautiful Jardin des Tuillieres in Paris with my closest friend, all the while still screaming in my head, OHMYGOD I’M IN PARIS!! Then, just as the sun was setting, we set out to locate our mandatory pre-dinner snack: extra large scoops of milky gelato.

My Europe trip was without a doubt one of the best trips I’ve had, though it wouldn’t have been the same without my friend Milos. We get along like nutella and bananas and our trip brought us even closer. To this day, we still joke about unforgettable moments from our trip, including the time he lost his glasses in the wave pool at the Gellért Baths and how we desperately dove into the deep-end endless times, lest he be blind for the rest of our trip, only to find out someone was kind enough to leave it with the lifeguard forty-five minutes ago. 

Milos is one not only a great travel buddy, but an amazing friend as well, he’ll listen to me cry, rant, rave, and go off on a tangent about anything, he'll even stay on Skype video chat after I’ve accidentally fell asleep. He’s the only person I know who can make me laugh so hard I lose control of all my bodily fluids. Despite living six hours apart, Milos does a great job of staying in touch, something I’m wholeheartedly thankful for. We met at a mutual friend’s chocolate fondue party (a good kind of friend to have, in case you don’t have one yet), I was attracted to his wild mop of curls and invited him to a dinner party I was hosting the following week, and since then, we’ve bonded over many more meals, snacks, and desserts (SO many desserts).

One favourite food that we discovered in Europe was Speculoos. Oooh, Speculoos, it’s like music to my ears. If you haven’t tried it already, I beg you to cancel all your future plans and make it your new life goal to get a jar of this cookie spread with a sticks-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth texture and the sensational taste of a cinnamony, gingery, and warm spice. Put simply, pure awesome. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about Europe and Speculoos and for a while wanted to make a cake out of it, so this is what I came up with. Milos, a Certified Speculoos Purist would condemn this, declaring it a fraud, “Liar! This ain’t Speculoos at all!” I know it’s not the real thing, but it's definitely Speculoos-inspired, and that to me, is good enough. 

The cake turned out to be exactly what I hoped for: airy, light, not too sweet and easily shared among friends. I brought half the loaf to work and was immediately greeted with big toothy smiles from my colleagues, I kept reasonably sized snacking pieces in a tin box that sat behind my desk and whenever someone popped it open, the room filled with the warm, inviting spices of Speculoos: cinnamon, ground ginger, and ground cloves. A thick slice is good on its own, but it’s even better slathered with a little lot of Speculoos, something I’m sure Milos would approve. 

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Recipe here!

Rosemary Remembrance Cake

In Shanghai, or mostly anywhere in China for that matter, you can get any pet you want. I can count on my fingers all the pets I’ve owned: rabbits, goldfish, turtles, hamsters, puppies, lovebirds, parrots, owls (yes, owls), chipmunks, and kittens. Even though I’m a sincere animal-lover, I don’t have the best track record with pets. For some reason, save for a pair of lovebirds, they all die out on me. 

Before you report me to the SPCA, hear me out. The bunnies were cute and snuggly for a few weeks before they mysteriously got food poisoning, then the goldfish contracted some strange disease and started eating each other, which we figured out when there was a pile of bones in the corner of the tank (to this day, I hate goldfish because of that image forever burned in my mind). The puppy my parents bought me was adorrrable, but we had it for a mere 4 days (four days!!) before it also caught a stomach bug of some sort (do you see a pattern here?). I’ll spare you the details of tragic deaths of the other pets I’d had, but believe me when I say I seriously do love animals.

The moral of my sad pet stories is…I don’t have very good luck with animals or any living thing for that matter. Nonetheless, I was still compelled to pick up a basil plant two weeks ago. I'd swoon over a bushel of basil than a bouquet of roses any day (seriously, am I going to toss a handful of rose petals into my tomato sauce? I don’t think so). I’m proud to say I kept the basil alive for a record-breaking seven days, so when I got a whiff of rosemary at the grocery store I couldn’t help but take it home, because isn’t there that saying? Two herbs are better than one.

Thankfully, both plants are still alive, actually, not just alive, they’re thriving. They sit beautifully on the kitchen counter and motivate me to cook real food instead of reaching into the freezer at dinner for kimchi dumplings.

So this cake, this beauty is the perfect welcome to spring. From the gorgeous Nigella Lawson, comes a rosemary remembrance cake in honor of her grandma, which I think is appropriate since I made this cake in memory of all the pets I had. This golden cake isn’t quite what I expected. I swapped out the all-purpose flour for oat and whole wheat pastry flour which gave it a delicate texture, practically crumbling at the slight pressure of my fork. There is a touch of fruitiness from the cooked apple and an undeniable scent of rosemary, the herb is there just enough to not be overpowering, but rather lingers in the cake’s aura.

The cake is nearly gone, but my herb plants are definitely here to stay. Besides, it’s probably better to practice how to make plants last before graduating on to being a pet owner. 

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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!

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Recipe here!

Apple Spelt Cake

I can’t handle alcohol. Not only do I lack the enzyme to break it down (alcohol dehydrogenase, in case you were wondering), the stuff discolours my face to a bright red, not unlike that of a tomato. My neck and legs morph into blotchy map of continents and oceans. I know I know, I exhibit Asian glow at its finest.

On an empty stomach, alcohol gives me a severe bout nausea, impaired hearing, dizziness and several trips to the bathroom. I don’t touch it unless I have food in my belly, so the alcohol has something to soak up. 

I learned the hard way how careful I have to be when alcohol is nearby. A few years ago, I was about to board a 12 hour flight from Toronto to Shanghai and I had not eaten in several hours, because I refused to given in to the tasteless sandwiches and overpriced fast food at the airport. My carry-on bag was heavy with snacks to carry me through the arduous flight. While my neighbours unfurled the foil-wrapped chicken and rice that smelled nothing like chicken and rice, I was digging into my carrot salad, dressed with just a touch of lemon and cumin. As they stabbed rubbery gray pieces of lifeless meat with plastic forks, I was feasting on homemade granola, infused with shredded coconut and roasted almonds. 

I don’t like the stuffiness and foreignness of airports. I don’t like flying since I usually fly alone and it gets dreadfully lonely. I especially despise the unflattering lights of the airplane washrooms (Is that me in the mirror? When did I look so splotchy? Where did that pimple come from?). So to amuse myself 30,000ft above the ground, I bring homemade snacks, it’s the only thing I look forward to when I fly economy.

Don’t go thinking that the free flow of liquor makes flying bearable. It ain’t so fun when you get up to use the bathroom, faint and bang your head smack dab on the door, the impact reverberating the plane’s cabin and you tumble to the carpet for two seconds, wake up, crawl back to your seat in style (on all fours, no less) and pretend nothing happened even though all eyes are on you, staring with the same wonderment, “WTF?!”

It turns out that chugging down that gin and tonic was a baaad idea (I thought it would be nice to sleep through the flight). I had to endure a nagging, sickening feeling of nausea for the remaining 10 friggin’ hours of my trip. Apparently, the high altitude and cabin pressure heightens the effect of alcohol. Liquor: 1 Girl with Pathetically Low Alcohol Tolerance : 0

So, moral of the story, I try to be cautious with alcohol. I don’t touch gin and tonics anymore, the drink is ruined for me. I do however bake with it. In fact, this cake has 3 (!!) tablespoons of rum. Captain Morgan evaporates in the oven and leaves behind a rich and subtlety dark flavour to the cake, something you wouldn’t expect from a name simply called Apple Cake.

It’s not exactly a pretty cake, definitely not a cake you would ask out on a date. It’s kind of rough around the edges, a little imperfect, but the more you coax her, the more charming she is. Apple pieces are wedged into a buttery batter, making the cake extra moist. I switched out the all-purpose flour with spelt and whole wheat flour to add nuttiness to the cake and it worked beautifully, each squidgy biteful a little nibbly and grainy and bursting with crisp apple flavour.

You ought to try this cake too, it makes a good breakfast especially with a dollop of plain yogurt. I promise no fainting, no raucous behaviour, just save the rum for the cake.

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Recipe here!

Buckwheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

Neither of my parents are bakers. They don’t follow recipes, nor have they owned more than five cookbooks in their lifetime. Unlike me, you will find my night table teetering with cookbooks and food memoirs, because nothing says sweet dreams more than a post-it plastered cookbook.

My parents are Chinese and cook what they grew up eating. They don’t need instructions to tell them to chop up a quarter cup of button mushrooms and fry it with a clove of garlic over a sizzling hot wok with a tablespoon of oil. To finish a dish, my parents always eyeballed how much oyster sauce to dollop into a bowl, followed by cornstarch and water, then stirred with chopsticks and added to the wok contents to create a sauce binding all the ingredients together. When I lend a hand, my mom would look over my shoulder, order me to add more water, which I did, then bark at me again, more water! more water! Because heaven forbid if the sauce thickens too much, coating the dish with an icky sheen of cornstarch. 

My parents move around the kitchen in fluid movements, like the way my dad ‘whisks’ eggs with chopsticks to make an omelet, furiously breaking up the yolk and adding a dash of salt to the bowl. This was one of the first things he taught me in the kitchen, reminding me to only whisk the eggs in one direction, if you start clockwise, don't change directions and whisk counterclockwise. Why? He didn’t even know, apparently his sister told him it was bad luck to switch directions. It’s just a habit that stayed with him and something I always think about when I whisk eggs.

One night, I was helping with dinner and became the designated egg beater. I grasped the wooden chopsticks between my fingers and tried with all might to aerate the eggs the same way my dad did, with gusto, determined to conjure up a flurry of pale yellow bubbles. But alas, a 7 year old lacked those critical wrist skills. It took me many years to master the ease of whisking eggs into a milky mixture with nothing more than chopsticks.

There are more than twenty dishes that my family makes often, none of which are recorded on paper. I could never replicate the dishes since I would have to go by feel and guesstimation. As a frequent baker, I like following recipes, I enjoy the detailed flow of ingredients and though I may stray from a few ingredients, tinkering and adding my own ideas, the essence of the dessert I’m making is still there so I can always recreate it and bring back those memories tied to them.

These cookies have been on my mind for a while. They’re 100% whole wheat, another quality that intrigues me, I’ve always had an interest in using whole grain flours, but never use them frequently. But I think that’s about to change. I found a recipe for a recipe for buckwheat cookies from Bojon Gourmet, although I’ve only eaten buckwheat flour in crepe-form, folded over ham, cheese and asparagus (a real treat if you ask me), I was stoked to bake with it. 
 

I didn’t quite know what to expect at first. The dough looked gray, like It’s Overcast and Gloomy Skies gray, definitely not the happy cookie dough that begs to be baked immediately. Still, I made a batch and despite not intoxicating my apartment with that alluring buttery scent hovering from every corner, they were simply endearing. They won me over.

When I opened the oven door to turn the baking sheets, their middles puffed like giant, floating parachutes and when I took them out to cool, their bellies deflated, leaving behind cute dimples. They are golden brown on the outside, magical rings that I swear, are almost godlike haloes. These go suitably well with coffee and are even better when distributed to people you are very fond of. 

There’s a considerable amount of buckwheat, bestowing the cookies with its undeniably gritty, nuttiness, and just when you wallow in its soft pillowy insides, there is a subtle heartiness from the whole wheat flour. These cookies aren’t overly sweet, which makes me like them even more, a mellow, earthy sweetness is punctuated by the combination of brown and white sugar. A pocket of chocolate teases your tongue in each bite, followed by, my favourite part, a speck of saltiness, which I think sets these cookies apart from their typically sugar-laden cousins. 

Go on, bake a batch and let them charm you too.

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Recipe here!

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Last Tuesday, I woke up at 7:52am and made myself breakfast. I considered my options, I could toast the lone butt slice of bread lying forlorn on the bottom of the fridge, or pour myself some sugar frosted wheat cereal. Though the latter seemed more enticing, there was no plate, no bowl, no spoons in the kitchen. What could I eat it out of? My palm? My mouthwash cup?


I emptied the styrofoam box that held lunch leftovers and dropped a handful of shredded wheats into one side, drowned it in milk and ate each square with my fingers. I never eat breakfast standing up, but since I've been packing, wrapping and taping up all my belongings to for a new home, I didn't have a choice. The kitchen cabinets were stripped bare, and my mom had foolishly forgotten to leave out a bowl and a spoon on our moving day so we could fuel up for our big move.


Random items like pens, magazines, old letters, and eyeliner sharpeners, scattered the table, abandoned, because I had no idea where to pack them. Just to get to the couch, I had to snake through the maze of cardboard boxes that covered every flat surface in the living room. In hopes of killing the bedbugs who ruined my life last year and who may have found their new home in the pages of my cookbooks, I stored my books in garbage bags and left them on the balcony for a year, allowing the damned insects to die a painful death in the long winter months. Finally, last week, on a hot summer afternoon, I had a mini reunion with my cookbooks, my heart skipped a beat when I saw their beautiful front covers again.

As I recovered the chocolate cookbook that my friend Claudia bought for me, I yelped with glee as I flipped through the 167 glossy pages devoted to chocolate desserts in all forms conceivable: soft, sticky, runny, chewy, crunchy, oozing, cakey, and fudgy.

But I haven't been able to decide on what to make from my cookbooks yet, though I do have something else just for you, dear readers, I got whole wheat chocolate chunk cookies.


Repeat after me: whole wheat chocolate chunk cookies. Don't you love how that rolls off your tongue? Actually, it sounds ten times better in a British accent. Whole wheat chocolate chunk cookies. I'm licking my lips just thinking about them.

I baked nearly 3 dozen cookies and gave half a dozen to my aunt who promptly tore threw one particularly plump cookie while watching tv, talking to me and leaving a shower of crumbs on her floor. I gave one cookie to my friend, Liz. Her treat was still warm from the oven and because I was in a rush to meet her, it didn't have time to cool. So when she unwrapped it for a mandatory snack break, the chocolate had melted and clung to the foil, without hesitation, she smeared her cookie into the chocolate and popped it into her mouth. On the same day, my mom went to the movies alone—well not really alone, she brought two cookies with her and nibbled the first one ever so slowly, fighting the urge to finish the second one right away. Take that buttered popcorn!


These cookies are like those tall handsome men you eye from across the bar, with impeccable wavy hair like McDreamy, with a smile so striking, it gives you goosebumps (in a good way) and those piercing green eyes seem to beckon you to walk over and croon Oh hellooo there.

But before you run to your kitchen and dig out your measuring cups, consider yourself warned. These are lethal. Lethal in a sense that they will permeate your walls with the irresistible aromatic combination that is butter, sugar and chocolate (Essence of Butsulate? Harhar, how I amuse myself). Your home will still smell like these cookies hours later. And if you dare bite into one, it will make you weak in the knees, its thick exterior gives way to a soft, chewy cookie, riddled with bittersweet chocolate, the whole wheat flour adds a dimension of subtle nuttiness and complexity you don't normally expect from an innocent looking chocolate chip cookie.


And while we're at it, go get some ice cream (you need to cool down after talking to that handsome fellow anyway), scoop a hefty portion onto a cookie, press another cookie roughly the same size on top, and treat yourself to an ice cream sandwich--it is summer after all.

So friends, go bake yourself a batch of these dangerous cookies. Meanwhile, I'll be scouring my cookbooks for the next best thing.

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Recipe here!