Hilary makes dessert

#operationcovertcookie (and some other December baking)

~ Hilary ~ 10 Comments

I have a serious, serious problem.

I’m addicted to baking for people. Be it my classmates, roommates, family or co-workers, I cannot stop. It has gotten to the level that it is unhealthy and I am in the kitchen for five hours straight. I am surprised my oven hasn’t exploded yet. The worst part? I ENJOY IT. At least I’m not in denial anymore. That’s the first step towards recovery, right?

It all started like this…

As some of you know, I’m interning at the Ottawa Citizen this month. This means that I haven’t been at home with my family for the traditional holiday build-up. Logically, I decided to recreate Christmas home time for myself here in Ottawa. That means lots and lots of baking. Even more than usual. Anyways, my co-worker Matthew and I were in cahoots one day over email and decided to start #operationcovertcookie.

I told him that I was planning on bringing cookies into the newsroom one day, and he said he would join me. Then a flash of what I can only describe as pure genius struck him: a top secret cookie FLASH MOB. People love cookies. People love flash mobs. This plan was brilliant.

Matthew and I got a few of our other co-workers on board, and we decided on the time for our operation to get underway. 13hr30 Wednesday afternoon. Close enough to Christmas that it’s appropriate, but on a random enough day that people are still surprised.

Since I have this perpetual need to impress people through baking, I decided to bake three different kinds of cookies.

1. Peanut butter candy cookies from Bakerella
2. Vegan ginger cookies
3.  Peppermint double chocolate cookies

The latter recipe was a real doozy and made – wait for it – five dozen cookies. Le sigh. What a first world problem, having too many cookies. Luckily Twitter is a wonderful cookie-getting-rid-of tool, and I quickly disposed of (if that’s the correct word) a dozen of them. What are friends for, right?

Anyways, #operationcovertcookie was a HUGE success. We didn’t wear black unitards nor did we don fake cheetah print (both were suggested undercover outfit choices), but it was fantastic nonetheless.

A few lessons/fun adventures from this cookie baking session:

– If you’re prone to eating several cookies worth of raw dough (guilty, guilty, guilty), you will eat EVEN MORE when said dough is vegan and doesn’t contain raw eggs and other things that are normally supposed to be bad for you. The ginger cookie dough was unreal. Plan to eat at least 1/8 of it pre-baking.

– You may have to explain to the clerk at your small, local corner store what Smarties are. You will motion frantically at the M&M’s and say they’re similar and then draw out a spherical shape with your hands. You will ask if they have Christmas-themed Smarties, which will confuse him even more. You will then proceed to buy the normal M&M’s and pick out the green and red ones.

– When trying to be sleuth bringing cookies into an open-concept newsroom, don’t bring a Tupperware that is the size of half of Texas. See, if I didn’t have a baking problem this wouldn’t be an issue. Related: people on buses don’t like people with Tupperware.

– Pampered Chef parchment paper is wonderful. I’m so glad the no name stuff was sold out and this was on sale. It lasts FOREVER.

– Colourful sprinkles improve cookies by a tenfold.

I’m also addicted to photographing cookies. Here’s what you’re stuck with.

Oh yeah, and here are some of the other cookies I’ve made for classmates over the past month…Instagram-ified Not pictured: peanut butter stuffed chocolate cookies. They were good.

Light and fluffy ricotta cookies
Christmas swirl icebox cookies
Peppermint vanilla cupcakes for a friend's Christmas party

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The second day of Tartmas (Chocolate hazelnut ricotta tart)

~ Hilary ~ 12 Comments

On the second day of Tartmas, my true love gave to me, two chocolate hazelnut ricotta tarts, one lemon tart, and a partridge in a pear tree 

This is yet another one of those delicious desserts that I’ve put off blogging. Like the lemon tart I made for the first day of Tartmas, this chocolate hazelnut ricotta tart was originally for the family Christmas party I had with a group of my close friends. For more information on that, see Brittany’s beautiful post.

Also like the lemon tart, we were all too sickeningly full from dinner to even look at dessert. Alert the authorities! After dinner I walked like a caveman up to my room (my back was parallel to the floor and at a 90° angle to my legs, that’s how heavy my stomach was) and put on some stretchy pants. Feeling much better already, I went back downstairs, hid this tart and watched Love Actually for the first time this holiday season. It’s the number one cure to early Christmas food comas, I swear.

The one good thing about not eating this tart at our Christmas party was that I could recycle (there must be a better word for this…) the dessert and bring it into my last radio class on the Wednesday. And so, the tart was promptly frozen and defrosted within three days of making. Radio hunger? Satisfied. I also made a breakfast/dessert pizza for the last class but unfortunately did not get a photo. Will make again. It was delicious.

Just in case you’re wondering, this tart is an excellent choice for those who cower away from overly-sweet desserts. The filling was almost completely ricotta, meaning that it was far more savoury than sugary. The hazelnuts and orange zest were perfect flavour highlights and the homemade chocolate crust wasn’t too shabby either.

Tartmas is turning out to be a wonderful success so far. I can’t wait to see what the next ten tarts have in store!

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Retro banana cream pie

~ Hilary ~ 4 Comments

This was the craving that just wouldn’t quit. Ever since I was gifted a copy of Canadian Living’s Complete Baking Cookbook, I’ve been dying to make this recipe.

Cream pies have always intrigued me (even more recently thanks to this). I think it started when I was in grade four. At the time, I’m almost 100 per cent positive that my mom made some sort of cream pie for the volunteers at my elementary school’s morning snack program. She was insistent that I eat none of said pie, and I was left staring longingly inside the fridge at a dessert that I would never eat. Picture 1o-year-old Hilary pouting. Not a happy sight.

A decade later, I finally decided to take matters into my own hands. Unlike normal people who bake for some sort of occasion, I made this pie on a Wednesday night with no intention to do anything but enjoy it all by myself (possibly in bed). Sometimes you just need to make yourself a pie, right?

In the end, I did end up sharing. For I had experienced pie denial at a young age, and knew that I could never force anyone else to endure such soul-crushing rejection (sorry mom). My roommates got many slices, as did my friend who lives across the street, Lindsay. Lindsay lets us borrow her hand mixer (ours died an unfortunate death). She is very important. Finally, I also shared with my old roommate, Alex. Since we’re not living together anymore, she is not the recipient of random and spontaneous weekday baking spurts. Sharing is nice.

Alex kindly freezing her butt off in order help me take photos on the deck. There was snow.

The layers in this one will blow your mind. Here’s the pie anatomy, check it:
– Graham cracker crust
– Layer of melted, semi-sweet chocolate
– Half the banana cream custard
– Layer of sliced bananas
– Other half of the banana cream custard
– Chocolate chips
– Whipped cream
– Shaved chocolate

BAM. Ten-year-old me is happily jumping about and winning at Chinese baseball right now.

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The Twelve Days of Tartmas!

~ Hilary ~ 6 Comments

On the first day of Tartmas, my true love gave to me, one lemon tart and a partridge in a pear tree

An introduction
Holiday baking always helps get me back in a cooking mood. To freshen things up this year, part of that baking will be tart-themed.

Por quoi?

My one of my best friends Brittany got me a beautiful, nine-inch tart pan as part of my Christmas gift. This particular item was at the top of my Christmas list, since I’ve been finding and bookmarking tart recipes for about a decade now (give or take a few years or so…). Finally, I can make my own.

Hilary Duff: tart ninja (pastry, pre-baking - it's pretty, n'est ce pas?)

If you’re anything like me, then you will have wondered just how it is that tarts come to be. I always thought that tart pans were just like their cake pan cousins, and that you had to find some way to strategically dump out the finished product in a way that didn’t disturb the appearance. In reality, tart pans have a removable bottom. This makes total sense, of course (which is why I didn’t think of it before), and means that my newly beloved tart pan is like a cross between a springform pan and a normal cake pan. Does any of this make sense?

If not, just appreciate the final product.

In honour of my new tart pan, I’ve decided to create 12 different tarts over the upcoming weeks. I will chronicle my choices here, each time accompanied with a line from our favourite sing-songy Christmas story. Don’t roll your eyes at me. I know you secretly love it.

For the first day of Tartmas, I decided to make a refreshing zinger of a dessert: a lemon tart.

Since this is my first time ever making a tart, I didn’t want to get too adventurous and decided that this classic flavour was my best bet. I was ecstatic with how well everything turned out and, would like to shamelessly boast about my uncanny ability to produce a decent tart shell from scratch. I attribute part (okay, most) of my success to Smitten Kitchen’s fabulous “great unshrinkable sweet tart shell.” Any recipe that has such a confident blog post title has got to be good. And it was. Glory.

One thing I will note: tarts are insanely time consuming. Case in point: I spent five hours in the kitchen (/at the dining room table which I transformed into my mixing and rolling station) preparing three desserts. Not even baking them – that couldn’t happen until the next day. I blame the heavy chilling time required of pastry. As in 2 hours after making it (pre-rolling), 30 minutes once moulded in tart pan and about two hours once the tart itself was actually done. Not to mention all the baking, mixing and bowl licking time you also have to throw in.

Moral of the story: T is for tart. T is for time-consuming. But T is also for Totally awesome, which is what this tart was. All is well.

What will the next 11 days have in store? You’ll just have to wait and see…

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Cheddar, onion and pancetta galette (the perfect fireplace fare)

~ Hilary ~ 4 Comments

Leftovers. This yields so many delicious leftovers.

I feel as though there is no better place to write this post than sitting in my living room in front of our faux fire. It’s warm, cozy and satisfying, just like this galette. This dinner was the ultimate “curl up in your pyjamas and eat” (not that I ever do that, nope, never) meal.

But before I talk about that, let me discuss the experience of pie crust making. People have told me that making pie dough from scratch is truly a character building experience. They say it can be a daunting task. Perhaps it is my love of kneading things or my meticulous measurements, but my experience was actually a simple and positive one. The crust recipe you’ll find below is courtesy of the Complete Canadian Living Baking Book, and those folks know what they’re talking about. Needless to say, I’m now on a bit of a pie kick. In fact, I am currently plotting a baking extravaganza to make use of my newfound skills. I’m thinking a banana cream pie might be first up…

This galette actually turned out so well. I was very happy. When I first made the filling (the onion and pancetta) and piled it on to the rolled out dough, I was terrified. The thing was stuffed to its very fullest point and was upright and chubby. I was sure that when I put it in the oven it would simply explode out of objection. Luckily the exact opposite happened, and the onion and pancetta continued to cook down, leading to a flat and visually appealing dinner. Whew. Dodged a bullet there.

And gosh, was it ever pretty. But of course (and this can be classified as a first world problem, fyi), daylight savings time once again conspired against me. I finished making this at a reasonable dinner time (6 p.m.), yet it had still been dark outside for a whole hour-and-a-half. Sadness. No patio photography for me. As a result, the  photo shoot for this dinner was held the next afternoon on my dining room table with a galette that retained little of its fresh-out-of-the-oven splendour. So I hope these are still okay photos. I even put the entire galette back in the oven to try and make it look appetizing again!

Anyways, major noms were had and I’m ecstatic that I added pancetta to the recipe. So freakin’ good.

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