Hilary makes dessert

Pumpkin molasses whoopie cookie pies and Halloween candy bark: embracing seasonal potlucks with Jessey

~ Hilary ~ 10 Comments

And here I thought I would have no time for Halloween baking. I was happily proven wrong.

Last week, my friend Jessey (and founder of the blog I help edit, Local Tourist Ottawa, GO CHECK IT OUT) sent me an email request. Her office was having a Halloween potluck on Thursday and she wanted to know if I could help her make some spooky treats. Of course, I had to make time for a friend. Enabling myself to bake for an entire night wasn’t a bad thing either.

http://twitter.com/#!/jescbird/status/129322588659912704

After I got Jessey’s message, I spent the next few hours searching the Internet for perfect, not-too-difficult-but-still-impressive-looking recipes. I finally decided on the Halloween candy bark from Annie’s Eats and some super huge variation on this whoopie pie recipe in order to not use cake mix.

When Wednesday evening rolled around, it was time to ingredient shop. After a trip to the grocery store in which half of the world’s chocolate supply was carried home on my bike (seriously, I looked like a girl scorned by a terrible, broken relationship), Jessey came over to my place and we started the baking. But not before eating some mini chicken pot pies. Recipe to come.

Secret: I’m absolutely terrified to bake/cook with or for other people. Things could happen. My oven could explode, chocolate could burn, stovetop fires could occur or, heaven forbid, something could even taste bad. This isn’t me lying to you or exaggerating in any way. I’m scared that either A through D will happen and that the friend, family member and/or roommate that I’m with at the time will harshly judge me, comment all over my blog, and thereby destroy any sort of little community I’ve built for myself here. Luckily none of these things happened. I know, you were really holding your breath for a moment.

Hey look! It's me! I look super happy and about five-years-old. Photo by Jessey

In fact, there was only one thing that happened throughout our entire baking time that could be ranked on the “I’m judging you, Hilary” scale. Here’s the story:

It was the end of the evening and Jessey and I were making the filling for the whoopie pie cookies. During my trip to the grocery store, I had put both the all purpose flour bag and the icing sugar bag in one spot. Both were clear, since baking supplies are best bought at the Bulk Barn. Both looked pretty darn similar.

Poor hindsight. Can you spot my error?

The icing for the cookies required a cup-and-a-half of icing sugar. Guess what cup-and-a-half went into the mixing bowl instead? You guessed it. Along with the orange gel food colouring, the filling started to resemble more of a magic potion (like the ones I stored in film canisters in my closet when I was 10) than an actual edible frosting (or anything for that matter). The mistake was spotted and we laughed. I was only flush red for a few minutes.

Other than that, everything was super. Realistically, the whoopie pies were more like delicious, soft pumpkin-molasses cookies with icing smushed in between them. My evening ended with me piping leftover frosting onto cookies and, when those were all gone, piping it straight into my mouth. Attractive, I know.

Jessey and I at the end of the evening (Photo by Jeremy)
Instagram, you take pretty cookie pictures

Moral of the story: you always have time to bake (and icing makes your stomach sore). Jessey said our dessert plate was a hit!

Food photo shoots are always better when your pretty roommates join in!

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A very belated Thanksgiving post (in which I do not make turkey, but obviously dessert)

~ Hilary ~ 3 Comments

Woah, October 23 already? Yeah, I know, we’re now almost closer to American Thanksgiving than we are Canadian. Shame on me.

It has been exactly two weeks since I made these pumpkin toffee tarts with my mom. In fact, it was probably about two weeks ago at this exact time that we were making them – my mom crushing up the Skor bars, me mixing the pumpkin filling and less-than-sleuthly stealing large masses of said chocolate.

The pre-purchased mini pie crusts. That's right, we cheated.
The inner-tart with a toffee base

But before I talk about the pumpkin toffee tarts, lets talk Thanksgiving. That was, after all, why I was at home.

I’ve been lucky enough to travel home every year for Thanksgiving since starting university. The past few trips have become much more family-oriented, which is to say that I let my parents spoil me, play more frisbee with my brother and watch more episodes of Criminal Minds with my mom.

This time around, I also gave in to their life long request of daily exercise. My parents have always been (and rightly so, I suppose) huge proponents of daily outdoor time. This made me miserable as a child. Temper tantrums accompanied trips to the cross country ski trails, whining would ensue while hiking,… you get the picture. Child Hilary was probably the exact opposite of child Brittany.

But now that I’m old, wise and mature (read: 21, still naive and more than occasionally a child), I decided a change of attitude was in order. The nagging of outdoor time has become less of a nagging and more of a necessity in my everyday life. I’ve started night jogging again, which is always nice. And I still bike places. Even in the rain (see: embarrassing skunk stripe of wet up my butt as I bike in the downpour).

Here! Have a pretty picture of leaves.

There was lots of daily outdoor time this Thanksgiving, thanks to Mother Nature who made the entire weekend a beautiful 25°C. It was seriously hot. All the fashionable fall clothing I brought home was laid aside. In its place, my mom’s stretchy workout shorts. Hell yeah.

On Saturday my mom, dad and I went hiking at Onaping Falls, a trail just a short distance out of Sudbury.

Mom and dad, being cute

Monday was another beautiful day, so we went kayaking as a family on Ramsey Lake. It was beautiful and I only pouted a little bit. I wrapped my iPhone in a plastic ziploc bag and tried to take some artistic shots on the water.

It was a lovely, relaxing weekend and exactly what I needed.

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Last-minute Thanksgiving dessert: Apple galette

~ Hilary ~ 3 Comments

Okay, so I didn’t technically make this for Thanksgiving dinner, but it is definitely worthy of such an occasion.

And lets be honest, if it’s Sunday afternoon and you’re still not sure what you’re making for Thanksgiving dessert, well this is probably as easy as it gets. So read on. Or just skip to the bottom in case you’re cutting it close for time and just need to see how to get this baby made as fast as possible.

Thus far I’ve made two versions of this apple galette, one of which we will label the first, the other which will hereon in be called version two (creative, huh?). Also, for those of you who don’t know, a galette is basically a freeform cake of sorts, a dessert whose shape relies not on some fancy pie dish. Even better for last minute bakers.

The first galette was made in Toronto last weekend when I went to visit Matt. Since we were going to one of his friend’s house for a food party on Friday night (for the record, Matt’s friend is Brian, and he has a really awesome blog which you should all read and love), I needed to think of something that could be made using Matt’s limited baking supplies (really, no parchment paper?). The answer was this apple galette. I had been planning on making it earlier in the week, but had completely run out of time. And so, I brought the apples to Toronto in hopes of making the dessert there. Backstory with the fruit: I accidentally bought two kilograms instead of two pounds of apples. This was a tragic mistake.

Version two apple galette was made this past Friday night. It was better in every way: the crust was flakier (I actually followed the instructions) and the apples were more cinnamon-y and tossed in a light coating of lemon juice. The addition of some coarse sugar for decorative purposes didn’t hurt either.

Despite one galette being better than the former, both would definitely be passable in the great chaotic mess they call Thanksgiving dinner. This was a baby dessert (it made four medium-sized servings), so plan appropriately. And please god, be thankful for dessert. I sure as hell am.

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A wonderful day: Jane’s wedding

~ Hilary ~ 1 Comment

I can, with 100 per cent certainty, say that this was the most adorable wedding that I will ever attend. I know that I’m young and will likely be attending my fair share of well-decorated, impeccably planned weddings over the next few decades, but none will ever top this one.

No, it wasn’t organized by a wedding planner nor was it an overly-swanky affair, yet Jane and Jake’s wedding a few weekends ago had more romance and love than a glitter-filled, overdone wedding could ever contain.

I first met Jane in the summer after my second year, when I worked as a Summer Orientation leader in Carleton’s Student Experience Office. Over the summer I was lucky enough to share dozens of lunches with her, and quickly found out about her passion for bees, Denmark and mason jars. I also heard about Jake, the man that she had been dating ever since they met working at Black’s Photography when she was in her late teens. I was over the moon when I finally found out they were engaged.

The wedding took place at Jane and Jake’s house, a beautiful cottage hidden away in the Gatineaus. Their ceremony took place beneath the end-of-September fall colours. It was adorable.

They both wore Birkenstocks. This, I love.

Jane, of course, was a very low-key bride and was in no way as demanding as the bridezillas I’ve seen on popular TLC shows. Maybe I have a skewered perception of how a bride-to-be should behave. Regardless, I was pleased to have that stereotype delicately shattered by Jane’s relaxed wedding nature.

Jane and her famous smile, pre-wedding

I think it was the simplicity of everything that made the ceremony so powerful. I thought everything was perfect, from Jane’s beautiful dress to the petite jars of wedding favour honey to the fact that Jane’s bouquet was a stunning collection of golden sunflowers.

Food was also an integral part of the day, and I’m horrified/excited to admit that I witnessed, for the very first time, a giant pig roasting over a crackling fire. There was a Lord of the Flies raw-ness to the scene. Other than the pig roast, there was cumin-flavoured cheese from Holland, a canoe filled with beer and more hamburgers and hotdogs than I’ve ever seen in my life.

There were also my cupcakes that Jane asked me to make. I was honoured when Jane asked me to bake for her, and of course agreed to make as many cupcakes as I could. That turned out to be six dozen, including a dozen mini GF cupcakes for Jane.

Cupcakes: psychedlic, banana with a milk chocolate frosting, chocolate zucchini with a strawberry yogurt icing
This is when I harassed people into letting me take their picture with the cupcakes

Thank heavens my friend (and Jane’s maid-of-honour) Kristina drove me.

What you can't see is that there is ANOTHER tray on the other side of me

I am happy to say there was only one cupcake casualty throughout the entire, 45 minute drive to Jane’s house. It was in the last 100 metres of our journey, and happened when a banana cupcake decided to pull a tumbleweed and roll down onto my lap. Thank heavens the seat belt and my iPhone braced the fall. Hilary: 0, icing on iPhone: 3.

Congratulations again to Jane and Jake. Your wedding was beautiful and I wish you two all the happiness in the world.

Here are some more sights from the afternoon wedding…

Maid-of-honour and good friend Kristina, looking gorgeous
Just when the wedding couldn't get any better, we were told there were s'mores. This one had a Reese's Cup in it.
Another old co-worker, Natalie, and her boyfriend Tyler
This is three seconds from Jane's house. On her property. Woah.

Four days, six dozen cupcakes, one big icing-induced stomach ache

~ Hilary ~ 1 Comment

Two things must be disclosed about me and my personality before this post begins:

1. I enjoy baking just for myself (you never would have guessed, right?), however the idea of baking for other people, specifically in potluck and/or BBQ settings really sends me over the moon.
2. I am incapable of saying no to any request that requires me to make copious amounts of baked goods.

More specifically, the first-year journalism student picnic that happened last Saturday.

Almost all the cupcakes

When my friend Averie asked if I wanted to bring a dessert to the event, I of course immediately knew that I would be bringing cupcakes. And lots of them. Since I’m not living with five other people anymore, two of whom had consistently hungry boyfriends, it’s a little more difficult to make the mass amount of cupcakes that I used to. I could eat them all, yes, but I’m trying to do things that aren’t detrimental to my health, remember?

Deciding what flavours of cupcakes to bring involved an extensive brainstorming session, one that saw me slumped out on our IKEA futon, scribbling ideas onto a piece of loose leaf. I didn’t want to make too many flavours that I had already tried, nor did I want to be super adventurous and become even more broke than I currently am (damn you Europe).

And so, after much inner conflict and personal indecisiveness, I settled on the following four flavours:

Featuring an attempted journalism-themed photography set-up

– Psychedelic cupcakes with a cream cheese icing*;
– Pumpkin cupcakes with a brown sugar cream cheese icing*;
– Snickerdoodle cupcakes with a cinnamon brown sugar cream cheese icing; and, my personal favourite,
– Mint double chocolate chip cupcakes with a peppermint buttercream icing

*repeat offenders

Once the key flavour decisions were made, I trekked over to the Bulk Barn where I, once again, managed to spend enough to put a noticeable influx in their quarterly budget report.  Okay, it wasn’t that bad, but I did buy so much cake flour, icing sugar and white sugar that it made my black shirt look like I had major dandruff issues. I brushed myself off and headed over to the actual grocery store, buying butter, eggs and cocoa galore. All in a days work.

What came next was not all in a day’s work.

I knew I wouldn’t have time to bake everything on Friday and Saturday and, considering I had training for two different jobs on those days, I knew time would be of the essence. The only logical thing to do was to start baking on Wednesday, before school started. For each of the next four days – Wednesday through to Saturday, I baked a batch of cupcakes a day. Budgeting my time effectively, I left the always-horrible task of icing until about 1:30 p.m. on Saturday afternoon, just a short three hours before the picnic was due to start.

Brief side-tracked confession: I hate everything about icing. Besides eating it. But really. The mixing, the PILES of icing sugar, the back-breaking piping work, the solidified chocolate ganache… the list goes on. </whine>

Oh wait, one more thing. Making icing also means I’m prone to accidents like this. Poor iPhone.

In the end, the cupcakes were done and delivered in time, thanks to a noble steed (my parents and their van) who just happened to be in town for the weekend. Life savers.

For those of you who aren’t j-school nerds, the -30- on the mint chocolate chip cupcakes is how a journalist indicates that a story is done. There, now you learned something today. You’re welcome.

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