baking

Posted on episode 272

Salted Toffee Crisps

For the span of a whole weekend in early December it seemed like I couldn’t look on my social media feeds and subscriptions without seeing a recipe for some kind of homemade chocolate toffee bar.

In fact, I saw this (or a variation of this) recipe online on Youtube, Instagram, and Twitter no less than four times before I got curious enough to copy the ingredients into my shopping list and try my hand at baking my own version.

What is your best winter treat recipe this year?

It turns out it was a fast and simple treat with lots of room for variation (particularly in the topping) making it a year round sweet with opportunity for a holiday twist only limited by your imagination in substituting the nuts for candy, sprinkles, or whatever.

Salted Toffee Crisps

150g Crackers (Saltines or Graham)
250ml Butter
250ml Dark Brown Sugar
500ml Chocolate, Chips (Semi Sweet)
250ml Chopped Nuts (Cashews or Peanuts)
5ml Sea Salt

While you are preheating the oven to 400F you can line a baking sheet with some parchment and tile out the crackers to completely cover the base of the sheet. The butter and brown sugar go into a saucepan and combine to a boil for a minimum of three minutes. An experienced candy maker is going to jump in here and substitute some exacting time and temperatures for the right crack stage of cooking sugar, but I did this blind without a thermometer (because that’s what the internets promised me would work) and it worked just fine. After the boil, the mixture coats the crackers and the baking sheet goes into the oven for five to six minutes. A dash of salt is followed by spreading the chocolate chips on the hot toffee and smoothing it even as it melts into a decadent coating atop the still-hot candy layer. I topped with chopped peanuts, but online I saw crumbled candy canes, M&Ms and other kinds of nuts, too. Cooled, this cracks or cuts into cookie-sized pieces and (if it lasts longer than a few days) holds up in the freezer for the holidays.

Enjoy!

Thirty one topics. Thirty one posts. Not exactly a list… but close. In December I like to look back on the year that was. My daily posts in December-ish are themed-ish and may contain spoilers set against the backdrop of some year-end-ish personal exposition.

Posted on episode 216

Friday Yeast Fail

I banked my evening post on some cast iron skillet focaccia bread. The plan was to bake a zesty round of generously seasoned pan bread, a twelve inch disc of leavened goodness, baked to perfection in the oven and sliced up for some Friday night snacking.

I followed a simple recipe: some flour, yeast, olive oil, spices, salt, water… you know how this goes.

Mixed, I set it all aside to rise.

I waited.

I watched.

I put it into the proofing drawer of my oven.

I waited some more.

I think my failing was relying on store bought yeast. I would have gone the sourdough starter route, but I dreamed up this plan in the afternoon and was hoping for a Friday treat.

The darned thing never rose.

I turned into a cold, wet, oily ball of dough with so little going for it that six hours later I’m pretty much resigned to cooking it up and seeing what happens.

And whatever happens will definitely not be focaccia.

Posted on episode 196

The Artful Joy of Splitting Sourdough

A friend of mine killed her starter.

Dead.

I didn’t ask how. Vacations. Life. A summer heat wave.

It happens.

So a few days later I just split mine and delivered one half it to her in a plastic pouch.

Problem solved, and she could go back to baking loaves.

This marks the third time I’ve split my mother dough into some giftable offspring.

Sharing starter starter seems to me to be almost a core tradition embedded deep in the subculture and shared process of breadmaking.

Starting a new starter from scratch is not difficult, of course, but neither is it a quick process.

Even if your newly gathered and grown starter is ready to use in a couple of weeks, there are countless feedings of wasted flour during that span and even then I’ve found that a good, productive starter takes many more weeks (or months) to mature and hit peak efficiency.

So instead we share. Half for me. Half for a friend.

I did this by scooping half of my starter from its home with a spatula from the little plastic tub where it has lived for the better part of two and a half years. That half went to my friend. Shared, the travelling half got a new home, a fresh feed of its own and a chance to bake bread for another family.

The remainder got a feeding and returned to its corner to enjoy the fresh dosing of flour.

Such a simple act…. but at the same time a clever and marvelous way to spread a bit of sourdough joy with friends and neighbours.

Posted on episode 185

Saskatoon Berries Bonanza

According to thecanadianencyclopedia.ca “Saskatoon takes its name from a Cree word for the sweet, fleshy fruits, which were of prime importance to Aboriginal people and early settlers. On the prairies, saskatoons were a major ingredient in pemmican.“

In my small suburban yard, I have four saskatoon bushes, bushes that thrive as native shrubbery is wont to do, and bushes that each year fill our summers with weeks of fresh fruit literally off our doorstep.

We are in the heart of those few short weeks right now.

Out both my front and back door, these ten-foot tall berry trees are draped abundantly with blueberry-sized purple orbs of sweet, nutty, berry goodness.

We gather as many as we can, even as they slowly ripen through late July and early August, dropping them into our breakfasts, harvesting a handful as a snack, overflowing baking bowls for muffins and pies, and generally eating as much as we can for the too-short season.

If you ever find yourself visiting the prairies of Canada and looking to sample a food that many Canadians feel is a food that defines us locally, go ahead and try the poutine, enjoy fried handful of dough that we like to call “beaver tails” and don’t let anyone tell you that maple syrup is the one true Canuck cuisine.

Instead, set your heart on a slice of saskatoon berry pie, sample a bit of saskatoon preserve on your morning sourdough toast, or just go for a walk in the woods and pick a handful of these local sweet treats from the mid-forest foliage of trees that grow wild everywhere.

I’d save you some, but I don’t think they’ll last.