Burnt Toast: Musings of a Pastry Chef

My new blog at thesweetchef.com/blog

2010-07-07T12:46:00.000-07:00

Check out my new website for all the latest photos, my blog, free recipes and more!
Stick with me and I’ll fill you in on all that goes on at the bakery.

You can reach me via twitter, face book, linkedin, you tube and right here on my blog. Leave me a comment or send me a message and tell me what’s going on!
April :)

SHOP FOR GREAT FOOD IN GIBSONS, BC THIS HOLIDAY SEASON

2009-12-21T08:58:00.001-08:00

21 December 2009

Build community spirit this holiday season and shop local. Here are my favourite picks for great food in Lower Gibsons. It’s worth the trip!

BAKERY/CAFES

The Sweet Chef, organic artisan loaves hot out of the oven daily, gourmet cookies, holiday baking. http://www.thesweetchef.com/

Truffles, Home-style cooking and baking for breakfast and lunch. Open daily.

264 Gower Pt Rd 604-886-4545

Blackbean Roasting Co, Roasters of organic fair trade coffee, daily breakfast and lunch specials. Licensed http://www.blackbeanroaster.ca/

RESTAURANTS

Smitty’s Oyster House Dock side eatery with friendly staff and casual atmosphere. Watch the boats go by while enjoying halibut fritters and yams fries with malt vinegar reduction. http://www.smittysoysterhouse.com/

Spag Shack, Featuring home Style Italian cooking. Seasonal menu with daily pastas and home made soups.http://www.sitas.ca/

Molly’s Reach, Iconic restaurant where The Beachcombers television series was filmed. Good family fare. http://www.mollysreach.ca/

GROCERY

Seaweeds Market, Organic groceries, fresh organic produce, free range & organic meats, eggs & dairy, and over 300 organic bulk items including herbs and gluten free products. http://www.seaweedshealthfood.com/

CONVENIENCE

Village Store, Everything food for locals and boaters alike. Post office outlet, Purolator Courier, Western Union. 604- 886-3520 416 Marine Dr

Fong’s Market and Gift Shop, Excellent selection of Asian foods and beach accessories. 604- 886-8515 455 Marine Dr

GIFTS

Gaia's Fair Trade Gifts, Fair trade organic coffee, chocolate, sugar and cocoa. 307-287 Gower Pt. Rd 604-8863-7117

La Petit Souris Chocolate, Creating bite size experiences. Place your order online at http://www.lapetitesouris.ca/

Happy 1st Year Anniversary! Shohei Juku Aikido Gibsons

2009-11-25T09:43:00.000-08:00

GIBSONS, B.C. CANADA - Russ and I celebrated our aikido dojo's first year anniversary on Nov 1, 2009. It was a beautiful day with sunny skies and fourteen people on the mat. Tama Sensei and four other students from our sister dojo in Vancouver made the trip over to the Sunshine coast and participated along with our own students. We ended the training with a pot-luck celebration at Howard-san's house. Thank-you everyone for a terrific day!

We received many beautiful and thoughtful gifts. A Japanese tea set, molasses mochi and strawberry Pocky from Tama Sensei. A Japanese scroll from Zen priest ......We'll have to get that translated. A colourful wall hanging from Dallas Sensei (Shinto-Ryu Karate-do, Roberts Creek).

Shohei Juku Aikido Gibsons started in September 2008 with a vision to provide sprited training grounded in the basics. We have 7 adult members and 17 children participating on an ongoing basis. Russ and I are thrilled with the level of enthusiasm and dedication our students show each time they come to class.

Thank-you again for a wonderful first year at Shohei Juku Aikido Gibsons!

Thanksgiving Feast West Coast Canadian Style

2009-10-22T15:10:00.000-07:00

We had a marvelous thanksgiving feast a couple of weeks ago, West Coast Style! We do our best to buy local and eat organic.

It started with two bottles of champagne (Domaine Chandon Brut Classic, a non-vintage from California), Russ' parents, my mom and our kids, Athena and Sasha.The champagne was delicious! Yeasty and smooth with a clean finish. In my humble opinion we could have skipped wine with dinner and had more bubbly!

We served a simple appetizer of olives, my own crusty ciabatta bread, cheese and some great sugared almonds from a local roaster, Haerthe Confections.

We try to serve the veggies or salad before the main meal so the kids get their good stuff before stuffing themselves on bread. Sasha enjoyed the Caesar salad. It's the only way to get him to eat something green! Joanna, Russ' mom, prepped the veggie sticks, carrots, cucumbers, and celery which Athena happily gobbled up!

By this time the free-range turkey was roasting nicely, along with the organic squash from our friends' farm, Greenroom Organics. We stuffed the beast with simple mushroom stuffing. It's the way my mom always does it, with good crusty bread from my shop and without the liver.

Russ mashed up the local organic russet potatoes with butter and lots of whip cream. OMG! I'm never going back to milk in the mashed potatoes again. No wonder restaurant potaoes taste so good! Scary thought to have whip cream in the fridge on an ongoing basis. It was all topped with easy cranberry sauce and generous amounts of pan gravy! Dessert was a simple affair of pumpkin pie, almond pear frengipan and pear grape crostada.

Here's the crew!

Mother's Little Helper_1 - Easy Crumble Topping

2009-10-21T12:30:00.000-07:00

Here's a great tip from my mom:

When making crumble use melted butter instead of cold. Saves you time and it's less work. Here's the recipe:

Blend 2 cup oats with 1 cup flour and 1 cup sugar. Melt 1/2 cup butter and toss with the dry ingredients until crumbly.

Use as a topping for muffins, fruit pies, fruit crisps, coffee cake or sweet quick breads such as banana bread.

Easy Cranberry Sauce

2009-10-08T08:52:00.000-07:00

It's kinda like salsa really. Super easy and super fast! Adds great colour to the holiday table. And the kids like it! Also great on turkey sandwiches the next day.

1 whole orange, peel & all, cut into 1/4's

1 pkg fresh cranberries

1 C sugar

put the whole lot into a food processor

buzz it up until reduced to a pulp

you can leave it more chunky if you like it that way

yum!

8 Ways to Better Pie Pastry (pumpkin pie recipe included)

2009-09-30T14:08:00.000-07:00

This is for people who really don't know what they're doing. So if you know what you're doing you might learn something new!

People ask me, "April, how do you make your pie crust so flaky?"

"Well," I say, "it's all in the handling of the pastry. You want to create layers of fat and flour. Also, knowing when to add the water and knowing when to stop mixing are some of the keys to unlocking the secrets of making flaky pie pastry."

1. Shortening effect: Shortening means to shorten the gluten strands in the flour to produce a tender crust. This is the opposite to bread making where you want to lengthen the gluten strands. (more of that in another blog!) To start with you need some fat. Preferable butter. I like 100% butter in my crust. Butter adds flavour, has a good shortening effect and aids in browning. Vegetable shortening is colourless, odourless, appeals to a wide variety of people and has a high melt point. The other choice is lard. Kind of old fashion and can leave an undesirable taste in the mouth. You can always do a combination of butter and vegetable shortening at 50/50.

2. Blend: Blending is best done by stirring the flour and salt together in a big bowl. Add the butter or shortening in medium sized chunks. The butter/shortening/lard has to be cold, especially in the summer! Use a pastry cutter or a paddle attachment on a stand up mixer and blend until the chunks are about the size of an almond. I know, you're thinking "I thought it was supposed to be pea size pieces!" Pea size pieces gives a more crumbly pastry than larger bits do. So if you want flaky leave the fat chunky!

3. Mix: Mix the water in starting with the least amount of water the recipe calls for and it has to be cold! Too much water leads to shrinking pastry. By hand use a fork and fluff as you go. By mixer do it on low speed. Once all the water is in test the dough by pinching a little of it together between your fingers. If it holds together your done. If not then add more water by the teaspoon full until it comes together. At this point you want to press the dough together rather than knead it. This is definitely a key point! It may look a little rough here but that's okay...it'll smooth out when you start to roll it.

4. Chill: Now that you have a big piece of pastry dough cut it in half and press each half into a disk. Wrap each disk in plastic and chill. Chill for at least 1/2 hour, up to an hour in the summer. Now is a good time to go have a coffee or make the pie filling, or both!

5. Fold: This where things can get complicated. You can skip this if you like but it makes the pastry more flaky! Lightly dust the counter with flour. Roll your disk into a rectangle about 1/2 inch thick. Use a pastry brush to brush away any extra flour before folding. Fold it like a letter, into thirds. Roll it again and fold it again. Okay, now stop. Let the dough rest in the fridge wrapped in plastic. Did you make the pie filling yet? Okay, do that now or take another coffee break.

6. Roll: By now the pastry should be well chilled and if you did step 5 it will be squarish in shape. If it's square, just press the corners in a little to make it more round. Dust the counter with flour. Roll the pastry back and forth a couple of times. Pick up the pastry and turn it a 1/4 turn. Roll it some more. If it's sticking then throw down some more flour. Do another 1/4 turn and some more rolling and you should be there. If not then keep going. If you're using a 9" deep dish then you want a 12" round or an 8" shallow pan and you need an 11" round. Roll two pastry rounds if you're doing a double crust.

7. Line and fill: Lift the pastry dough into the pie pan. Position it in the middle as best you can. Now press it into the pan. Trim the pastry right to the edge of the pan. Add the filling. Brush the edge with water. Place the other pastry round on top of the filling. Make sure the pastry goes right over the edge of the pan. Press lightly to seal the edge. Fold the excess under and crimp as desired.

8. Chill and bake: Chill the whole pie in the fridge for about an hour. This allows the fat to firm up and the gluten to relax. The fat trapped in the layers of flour you made while rolling the dough will create steam and thus make the pastry rise and be flaky. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Pie Recipe

crust: Blend 2 1/2 cups flour with 1 teaspoon salt. Cut in 1 cup butter. Add 1/4 to 1/2 cup water and press together. Divide into two pieces and chill. This is enough for two single crust pies.

filling: Blend 2 cups pumpkin puree with 3 eggs, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin spice blend and 1/2 cup whip cream. Pour into chilled pastry shell and bake 35-45 minutes. Enjoy!

Garden fresh basil pesto and other lovely things to eat!

2009-09-01T11:33:00.000-07:00

Hot, Hot, Hot! Oh man! I gotta say I like the heat. Gets the bread proofing a lot faster, reducing the final proof time to 1.5 hours before going into the oven.That means we can bake more!

My garden loves the heat too. I've finally had success with basil! It's the June heat that got it off to a good start. It's usually rainy and cool on the Sunshine Coast of BC at that time of year.Try my basil pesto. It's very easy and freezes well too. You can freeze the leaves pureed with some olive oil. Pack it into a freezer bag or ice cube trays and you're all set for the fresh taste of basil all winter long.

Basil Pesto: blend 2 cups fresh basil with 1/2 cup olive oil, 3 tbsp toasted pine nuts, 3 cloves of fresh garlic and 1/3 cup grated Parmesan in a blender until smooth.

Here are some great places on the coast Russ and I have gone to with the kids this summer:
Greenroom Organics OMG! the baby tomatoes are sooo sweet! They're like candy! The green leaf lettuce is sweet too, who would have thought lettuce could taste this good!
Henry Reed Produce exceptional array of organic produce including lovely lettuces you can't find at the grocery store.
Fiddlehead Farmer's Market everything fresh grown or hand made on the sunshine coast in one convenient place every Sat until Oct.

At Vancouver we visited our favorite place Granville Island Public Market. I thought after 6 years on the coast that I was over the city but no! everything was beautiful and fresh! I haven't seen steaks like that since the last time we visited. I wish I had a picture for you.

I do have a picture of the jelly fish at Vanocuver Aquarium. The kids just loved it! They had such a great time! We searched for the sloths but they were definitely hiding from the crowds. It's a good idea to get there early if you don't like to wait in line (that's me!). I was pleasantly surprised with the tasty halibut and chips on offer. Crispy, thin batter with just the right amount of fish. I won't shy away from the fast food there. Yum!

At the shop this week, we are making summer peach pies. What a treat! with a little nutmeg and flaky butter pastry. We also have blueberry with a touch of lemon and cinnamon, and how about the perennial favorite our signature apple chai spice with ginger and cardamom.

Hard to believe but pumpkin pies are up next....recipe to follow in my next issue of Burnt Toast.

Let me know what you think of the pesto recipe. Have fun and enjoy!

April Qureshi