Just Add Maple Syrup

Moist, green flecked breakfast bread with a nutty bite. Finding a good grainy flour really makes a difference.  I first came across zucchini bread years ago while working on Martha’s Vineyard for a summer. We would bike over to Morning Glory farm in the mornings just to get some of their zucchini bread for breakfast eaten while rocking on their front porch watching the pumpkins sprout. It just seemed so perfect to use courgettes in baking. Easily combined with carrots, chocolate, lemons…..

So I played around with recipes and used a nutty flour here – a multi-grain with various cereals. If you don’t find such a flour easily just add a handful of sunflower seeds, flax, quinoa or other cereals. As for the oils, nut oil adds a nice rich flavour.  For a sweetner, here I stuck to regular brown cane sugar but maple or agave syrup or honey could easily substitute for health and sweetness. The poppy seeds give great texture – just watch out for seeds in your smile afterward!

Ingredients

1 large courgette – finely grated (skin on)

2 eggs

200 gr sugar

125 gr vanilla yogurt

60ml sunflower oil

60 ml nut oil (walnut)

200 gr flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon garam masala

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Butter for greasing the tin

Making

In one (big) bowl cream the eggs with the sugar. Then add the oils, the vanilla essence, the grated zucchini and the yogurt. In another bowl combine the flour with the other dry ingredients. Fold the dry mixture into the wet without over-mixing. Then pour the resulting batter into a greased loaf tin. Bake at about 190  for about 40 – 50 minutes depending on your oven.

A crunchy, dense, no-rise, no-fuss loaf that’s done and dusted within an hour.

Experimenting with different flours is always fun. In France, flours tend to have less gluten and so home bread making has a different dimension.  Seek out a strong bread flour for these kinds of quick breads, even if they are labeled for the machine you can still use them for baking by hand. Look for a high ‘T’ number – the higher the T the higher the gluten content. If you don’t find a flour with muesli already added use a combination of rye and wholewheat flours and add seeds, nuts, dried fruits as you wish separately. Dried cranberries and raisins are good plus the usual mix of sunflower or pumpkin seeds.

Ingredients

350 gr flour (rye/muesli/plain) – often half rye and half wholewheat or another multi-cereal bread flour works best

1 tablespoon sunflower seeds

250 gr natural yogurt (Greek yogurt or other plain yogurt..)

2 tablespoons water

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 tablespoons raw oats

3 tablespoons honey/maple syrup/agave nectar

1 tablespoon nut oil or olive oil

1 tablespoon corn flour or flour (for kneading)

dried fruits and seeds as wanted ( 1-2 tablespoons)

Making

Preheat your oven to at least 200°C.  In a large bowl, mix the flours, the seeds, the oats, the dried fruit and the baking soda. Separately, mix the yogurt, water, honey or maple syrup together.

Slowly, slowly fold in the liquid to the flour until it forms a breadcrumb like mixture.

Pull it together until a rough dough holds together then turn it out onto a floured surface (use the cornflour – scatter it onto your work surface). Knead the dough until it forms a smooth ball coating your hands in the olive oil while shaping the dough into an oblong loaf.  Using a knife score a few lines down the middle or cross-ways.

Bake in a hot oven (200°C) for about 30-40 minutes – you can check by tapping the base – a hollow sound indicates that the bread is done.

Turn out onto a rack and allow to cool. Keeps for a week in a dry airtight place. Excellent when toasted or served with hummus, cheese or marmalade.

Pear and almond tart is a classic dessert. Almond paste is easily located in supermarkets and poaching pears is a quick and easy way to several desserts, accompaniments and a breakfast or two.  Recently, I bought 200 grams of matcha tea almond paste and mulled over ways to use it…

Poached pears, matcha almond paste and good quality cocoa powder make for a sinful dinner party dessert.  Matcha tea is a Japanese delicacy and has been a darling of western baking scenes for years.  It has a subtle taste and while not overbearing definitely adds something to the tart and goes amazingly with the dark chocolate flavour of the cocoa powder.

Ingredients

One tart base – pre-baked

Filling

200 gr matcha tea almond paste (or regular almond paste)

3 tablespoons rich dark natural cocoa powder (good quality makes  a huge difference)

1 tablespoon flaked almonds

4 poached pears

1 tablespoon maple syrup

2 teaspoons sugar

1 tablespoon flour

1 egg

1 egg white

Making

Beat the almond paste with the sugar, syrup, flour and cocoa powder. The add the butter and egg and egg white forming a smooth paste.

Spread the paste onto your tart base and then place a layer of pears fanning them out evenly.

Sprinkle with almonds and bake for 40 – 45 minutes at 180°C

It’s been a while.  It seems that pregnancy and cooking are not always a good combination. Raging hormones have temporarily replaced my taste buds with those of a hungover university freshman and I had no inclination to cook or eat anything healthy or strange or exciting let alone write about it. No offense to college first years.. . But for the last few months I have wanted only simple starchy foods (preferably with ketchup).

Now I’m finally getting back to eating normally even coaxing the lentils out of the dark corner where they have been forced to hide with all the other remotely healthy foods in the pantry.

So as a transition, we have breakfast muffins. Amazing gooey, fruity, yummy muffins. These are sticky and so moist they keep for days. Relatively healthy with no butter they are a good breakfast treat and a great brunch addition.

Baking without using butter may seem entirely wrong to some people and let’s face it baked goods with real butter have a little bit of heaven in them so they have their place in the world. However, you can still have your cholesterol and eat it too…so to speak…

High cholesterol reared it’s ugly head recently in my family and I feel obliged to find ways of banishing le buerre from my parents household. Banish. Not substitute.There is a difference.

So, when baking there are lots of ways of not using butter. It’s just another way of baking. Vegetable and nut oils, fruit compotes, yogurts, buttermilk all can play a part. It just needs different measurements, a little experimenting and a lot of tasting. No problem really.

These muffins use nut oil and honey/maple syrup instead of regular granulated sugar and butter. Maple syrup is preferable for taste I find but both give a nice sweetness.

Fruity breakfast muffins

Ingredients

In one bowl :

2 x 125gr tubs of vanilla yogurt (or plain)

3 tablespoons nut oil

2/3 eggs

2 tablespoons dark rich genuine maple syrup (or 3 tablespoons honey or a mix of both)

200 gr fresh or frozen berries ( a full regular coffee cup will do either)

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

In another bowl:

230 gr flour ( mix whole wheat, plain, spelt, rye…as you wish)

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons raw oats (optional)

Making

Mix the wet ingredients  first. After mixing the dry carefully fold the dry into the wet – but do not over mix the batter.

Pour into muffin tin – makes about 12 medium size muffins (fill each almost to the top for generous sized muffins)

Bake for about 20 – 25 minutes or until a knife comes out clean

Tis the season…autumn meets winter, the appearance of parsnips to confound French people, it’s that period of in-between-the-Thanksgiving(s) plus the Halloween call for pumpkin head carving that will create a lot of pumpkin gut spilling. What to do with it?

Pie! This is a weeks worth of breakfast right there so that alone will make it worth your while.

Pumpkin Pie, nothing revolutionary for some people but I had never made one. No idea what it actually tasted like either.  Minor details. I somehow unintentionally avoided it up to now.  Turns out it’s an acquired taste, a good one, a great breakfast food and it begs to made in savoury form (as most of these pies do). Unsweetened canned pumpkin puree is mostly used for this kind of recipe but canned was not to be found and secretly I didn’t want to go down that road. (The slippery slope of canned goods and all…) Smaller pumpkins or the natural “slices” of the large ones made good candidates for the filling. Carve it up into hunks and roast it for about an hour with a little olive oil until you can put it in the food processor.

A little spice in the filling adds a necessary bit of flavour and the nuts on top give a little toasted crunch to an otherwise rather mushy affair…

Happy Halloween!

Ingredients

Filling
- about 3 good chunks of a large pumpkin (the big slices) chopped and slowly roasted until you can puree it and set it aside to cool (maybe do it in advance)
- 3 eggs
- 2 tablespoons of cornstarch
- 150gr brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Crust
- one pate brisée – make a pastry of short choice and prepare your crust in a wide pie tin
Use half wholemeal flour if you feel like it – this is not a delicate dessert so the crust can take a sturdier flour.
- 1/2 cup finely crushed hazelnuts (the other half you can sprinkle on top)
- 1 tablespoon of maple syrup

Optional (but so important!)
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon garam masala
- 1 teaspoon of freshly grated cloves
- 1 inch of fresh ginger (grated)

Making

You can roast the pumpkin flesh well in advance. An issue may be that the pumpkin puree becomes a little too liquid. The cornstarch will offset that so it’s not a problem. Even if it seems a little “wet” once out of the oven, time in the fridge or time to cool will sort that.

Make the crust in advance, prick the base with a fork and brush the edges with the maple syrup. Instead of baking blind, scatter a layer of the nuts over the base in order to prevent the pumpkin filling from making it soggy. You could experiment here – crushed biscuits, toasted almonds…this will help to create a barrier between the filling and the base. Adds a little something to the taste too. The rest of these crushed nuts or cookies can be your topping.

Once the pumpkin flesh is blended and cooled beat in the eggs, the vanilla extract and the sugar along with any spices you want to add for flavour.  Pour the filling into the base and sprinkle with the rest of the hazelnuts creating a topping.
Bake for about 50 minutes at 190°C.

Serve chilled or a room temp with vanilla ice cream or fresh cream.

Butter tarts. A tart made of butter? Surely not. But it is exactly that, give or take the eggs and sugar and your choice of flavouring. Beyond that detail however, and more importantly, this is by far the best way to gain the love of a Canadian. Or, at the very least, their attention for a few minutes. And with Canadian Thanksgiving approaching it seems only right to showcase some of their culinary highlights. Yes, Canadian Thanksgiving. Earlier then the US but with similar feasting. We’re still unsure of what they’re giving thanks for though…if anyone knows, feel free to share.

Seemingly only known and loved by the poutine guzzling canoeists of the great north, these little tarts are sweet, sugary and delicious. Possibilities for flavourings are endless but the simple butter tart stands alone. Raisins and walnuts seem to be the most popular but I’ve also encountered coconut, toffee, caramel and peanut. All courtesy of The Sweet Oven – a bakery in a strip mall in Barrie, Ontario of all places – where they churn out butter tarts and only butter tarts by the dozen, each day of the week corresponding to a certain flavour. If you happen to live in this location or you’re a Torontonian taking regular trips to nearby cottage country, you should stop and grab a dozen.



These little tarts do not require baking blind and thus the filling seeps into the crust making it a few bites of crumbly, buttery sugar kick..

Make the pastry in advance and chill for at least an hour before attacking. Once made these will keep for a few days and are good served chilled or at room temp.

Ingredients

Pastry:

175 grams all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
(14 grams granulated white sugar
113 grams unsalted butter, chilled, and cut into pieces
30 – 60 ml ice water

Ingredients – for the filling:

70 grams unsalted butter
215 grams light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
60 ml light cream
1/2 cup raisins or 1/2 cup pecans or walnuts (toasted and chopped) (optional)


Making

Pre-heat the oven to 190°C and prepare 2 tart trays/muffin trays will do.

Pastry: I recently read an article on pastry making in an Australian wine magazine. Apparently one should not treat pastry as if it were bread dough. Wonderful advice. Over-kneading develops the gluten in the flour making for tough pastry. Barely touching your dough as it forms a ball is the best way to go allowing the butter to streak your pastry and ensures a moist flaky short crust pastry. Good tips..

Rub the chunks of butter into the pastry to form a loose crumb, using a little water bring it all together to form a ball of dough and turn it out onto a floured surface. Handle as little as possible before placing the ball of dough into some cling film and refrigerating for at least an hour.
When ready, divide the dough in half and roll out onto a well-floured surface in order to cut into rounds. Use a small round bowl or a cutter to make your tarts – these will be placed in the trays and then filled so ensure they’re generous enough to accommodate the batter without being too big.

Once the rounds are in the baking trays place in the fridge while you make the batter.

Make the filling
Cream the butter and the sugar. Beat in the eggs and add the vanilla extract. Stir in the cream until you have a smooth batter.

If using nuts and/or raisin fillings place a spoonful in the base of each tart. Then pour a tablespoonful of batter into each one.

Bake for about 20 – 30 minutes at 190°C until golden brown and crunchy looking on top.

PS: This one goes out to Matt The (Great) Canadian without whom I would never have eaten a butter tart or indeed discovered the hidden delights of a Barrie strip mall.

Healthy brownies are all the rage. Adapted from a cookbook dedicated to cooking with agave nectar by Ania Catalano,  Heidi’s infamous black bean brownies have taken the food blogs by storm.  Now we’ve got red bean azuki brownies. The beans replace the flour, give texture, lend their crumbly nature and render something sinful slightly less so. Can a sweet red bean and rice bowl become a brownie? I don’t see why not. These are light and crumbly and best served chilled. Definitely a winner, a chewy dense chocolaty brownie with none of the guilt…or very little…

Ingredients
200g bittersweet chocolate (70% cocoa solids)
150g unsalted butter
200g cooked adzuki beans
3 tablespoons dessicated coconut
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
4  eggs
300ml maple syrup and/or agave nectar (use about 2/3 maple syrup and 1/3 agave – agave is very sweet)
Chopped nuts would be optional

Making

Melt the butter and chocolate over a low heat and mix in the vanilla essence, salt and then the cocoa powder. At the same time put the beans and the coconut in the food processor and pulse until crumbly. Separately, beat the eggs and the maple syrup mixture until fluffy. Fold the bean mixture into the chocolate then the chocolate mixture into the eggs and sugar. Pour the resulting batter into a well-greased 9 inch brownie tin and bake for about 30 – 40 minutes until done. Chill before serving as they get quite crumbly. Serve dusted with icing sugar.

Book of the day – Mangoes & Curry Leaves: Culinary Travels Through the Great Subcontinent by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid.

This is a beautiful book – I felt bad exposing it to the chaos of the kitchen as I worked through a couple of their recipes but despite the pretty pages and coffee-table decoration appearance,  this book has some very solid content. Rich in stories, advice, methods and a love for the sub-continent, this book will give you itchy feet that at least can be appeased by getting your teeth into some of the recipes. Discover Pakistani Pulao (a curried rice dish) and North Indian dhal – travel through Nepal before deciding whether it’s Bengali fish or Sri Lankan spices that will take your fancy.

That is, if the Goan sunsets and other fabulous images don’t have you booking a one way ticket…

Having recently picked up some atta flour I wanted to try their chapati recipe. It’s always satisfying to tackle and somehow succeed in making some kind of bread, flat or otherwise.  Atta flour is a strong durum wheat flour used for making many Indian flat breads, it’s got a rich brown colour and flavour and is very strong. You can replace it with regular whole wheat flour if needs be but I was surprised at the difference the atta flour made. The chapatis turned out to be quite easy to make if you don’t mind getting a little hot and flustered in the kitchen. Also, best not to have any feeling in your finger tips. Tossing them about the pan as they bubble and bake requires a willingness to get a little burned! They’re best served warm but they keep their crunchiness as they cool and are great for scooping up curries and sauces. The fresh peanut and coriander “chutney” (see below) is a pretty good smeared on top of a warm chapati and served with drinks as an alternative canapé.

Ingredients
250gr atta flour (or whole wheat)
1 cup warm water
1 teaspoon salt

Making

In a bowl, add the salt to the flour and then slowly add the water to form a dough. Knead well on a floured surface until you have a smooth tacky dough as you would for any bread. Then cover (wrap in cling film) and leave to rest for at least two hours. If you put it in the fridge take it out a half hour before you intend to use it.  Divide into small pieces – you’ll get about 15 or 16 from this amount of dough and shape into small balls before flattening and rolling them into thin “pancakes” using plenty of flour to keep the dough from sticking. Heat some ghee, butter or a little oil in a flat pan or skillet before cooking each one.  Cook for only about 30 seconds on each side – until they start to brown and bubble. Quickly keep flipping them before moving onto the next one.  This is where the numb finger tips help. They take no time at all and resist leaving them too long on the heat as they become tough.

Keep warm until serving time.

Take this recipe and remove the cherries…and add whatever you feel like….smoked duck breast, feta, cream cheese, broccoli, sun dried tomatoes, spinach, ricotta, tofu…

What to do with a kilo of cherries?

A spicy cherry compote is one thing you could do (and I did)  but that’s for another day. As it is picnicking and cherry season, a little love for a traditional French grandmother cake is in order. Clafoutis is an old-school cake which comes from the Limousin region. It’s also very easy to put together.  I dare not play around with such things and so this recipe is straight (well, not exactly but…) from the latest edition of the ever trustworthy Cuisine et Vin magazine. The debate about whether or not to leave the pips in the cherries seemingly rages on in certain parts of France, probably where they haven’t much else to do. I left the pips in. Who has time to take them out unless it is truly called for?
Those in the know (and at the centre of the aforementioned debate) say leaving them in gives a better flavour. Who would I be to argue with this? However, you really need to watch your teeth. And that’s coming from a pip swallower…

Note: This recipe could be taken apart and its crepe-like batter used to make all kinds of sweet and/or savoury treats. Think broccoli, tomato, peach, smoked duck, ricotta, bacon, feta, roasted vegetables…

Also – did you know? When in the Auvergne region of France, the clafoutis is known as a Milliard and is often made with other kinds of fruit.

Ingredients

100gr sugar + 20gr for the pan

4 eggs

about 500gr dark coloured cherries (enough for a layer along the bottom of your pan)

Leave the nuts in. It’s tradition. Just warn your eaters first…

350ml (or 35 cl) milk

150 ml (or 15cl) pouring cream

75gr flour

(A little kirsch liquer is usually added too)

icing sugar for dusting afterwards

Making

Pre-heat the oven to 200°C, grease a baking tin. Don’t worry too much about the size or depth.

Beat the eggs into the sugar and add the flour little by little. Add the milk and cream and mix well.

Layer the cherries (leaving them whole if you wish) onto the tin and sprinkle the bottom of the pan with the leftover sugar. Pour the batter over the cherries gently hopefully leaving them in position. Bake for about 30-35 minutes until just golden on top. When done sprinkle with icing sugar and serve warm. Also good when chilled.