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Desserts

Chocolate Rum Creme Brulee

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We topped our Chocolate Rum Creme Brulee with Toblerone bits to help break through the richness of the dessert and add a little more crunch to every bite.

Our luscious, rich, chocolately creme brulee is enhanced with a wee bit of instant espresso and spiced rum, yet still remains creamy with its caramelized sugar topping. Full of flavour we’ve found a little goes a long way.

Chocolate Rum Creme Brulee
Chocolate Rum Creme Brulee

Breaking through the brulee and eating it with the chocolate is a crunchy affair but one we adore. So much so in fact we crushed up some leftover Christmas Toblerone for the top adding even more crunchy goodness to every bite. It was clearly the right thing to do and we are certain any kind of chopped chocolate bar would be equally delicious.

Chocolate Rum Creme Brulee
Chocolate Rum Creme Brulee

What is Creme Brulee?

If creme brulee is a dessert you only hear about when you go out for dinner, we will make it simple for you. Creme Brulee, also known as burnt cream or Trinity cream, is a dessert consisting of a rich custard base topped with a contrasting layer of hardened caramelized sugar. Or as I tell my son, a thick pudding with a candy coating.

Chocolate Rum Creme Brulee
Chocolate Rum Creme Brulee

We’ve been fortunate to try several varieties of creme brulee offering up some very unique flavour combinations and toppings leading us to be inspired in our creations. Do not worry about the rum flavour in this dessert if you want to the kids to have some. It is there only in the background like the coffee.

For this recipe you will need ramekins, small canning jars or creme brulee dishes. We were able to make 8 in small canning jars.

We invite you to check out some of the other Creme Brulee recipes we have tried, tested and adored here:

Pumpkin Creme Brulee
Blueberry Lavender Creme Brulee
Raspberry Creme Brulee

 

Hot Chocolate Waffles

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Food hacks are everywhere these days. On food shows and in my social media feeds with captions like “55 food hacks that will change your life”, or “39 food hacks that will change the way you cook”. I’ve never understood why I would need so many but captions sell right?!

Hot Chocolate WafflesI came up with a food hack by accident. One day while making Nanaimo bars, I ran out of cocoa, substituted hot chocolate powder instead. Hot chocolate powder! It worked. So well in fact I used it again in these delicious hot chocolate waffles.

The kids poured maple syrup, chocolate syrup, whipping cream and powdered sugar on these bad boys. Spring Break Food.

Super Cool Food Hack: Use hot chocolate in place of cocoa powder for all the things. Or at least two.

 

 

 

Broken Glass

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A popular potluck item for decades, Broken Glass is an easy, pretty and show stopping jello dessert to make for your guests or with your kids.

Broken Glass
Broken Glass

We’ve taken this treat to potluck gatherings, class activities and enjoyed them as snacks at home. You can colour code it to a birthday party theme, bridal showers, picnics, or any kind of holiday celebration. Simply pick your favourite jello colours and follow the instructions.

One of my closest friends mom’s made it once for our little girls 2nd birthday party. She made it rainbow coloured and it was such a special treat for us I had to recreate what she did and make it for Valentine’s Day.

Broken Glass
Broken Glass

Plan in advance of your event as you will need two days to let the jello set up. I have little cookie cutters that I like to use to cut smaller shapes and a few in the shapes of hearts.

I used the heart shaped cutters instead of cutting cubes to make jello hearts. When adding them to the casserole dish they went in just before the milk and were selectively placed. To ensure I had an equal mix of red to white I used only 2 small boxes of jello. You could use more however I like the white to show through.

Broken Glass
Broken Glass

The instructions are fairly straight forward to make this dessert. Give yourself time and have fun! Do you have a favourite Valentine’s Day treat you like to make for your family?!

 

Apple Sponge

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There are only so many days in a month and when you have over half a cookbook flagged with recipes to try, the struggle becomes real. Plus kids, activities, events to attend, life in general! But I’m determined and so I made my way through a good handful of recipes from Olia Hercule’s cookbook Mamushka.

The monthly cookbook club I belong to allows you to try any recipe you want and share it to Instagram. There are no other requirements besides check out what others in the club are making. I have found through this process this year there are several recipes I would make again. This being one of them.

This Apple Sponge contains no rising agent. You create height by beating air into the eggs. The cake was moist and using Fall apples harvested at their peak makes it the perfect Autumn dessert. I added salt to the recipe to enhance the flavour but that’s entirely your choice.

Olia’s mom would make this whenever they had a craving for something sweet, calling it biskvit (“a sponge”).

 

 

Aiden’s Gouda Fruit Salad

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My kids love to get into the kitchen and create things. More often then not they announce what they want to make without checking on ingredients first. This salad was the exception as we just so happened to have all the fruit available. Aiden’s Fruit Salad is made by my son Aiden and on this night accompanied quick sandwiches before a busy activity evening.

A fruit salad can include any fruit you want. We never add a dressing or drizzle of honey to our fruit salads as we let the sweetness of the fruit speak for itself.

Aiden's Gouda Fruit Salad
Aiden’s Gouda Fruit Salad

 

 

White Chocolate Lavender Brownies

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Every summer we visit Kelowna and the Okanagan Lavender & Herb Farm. We love to wander the gardens and stop in the cafe to enjoy a lavender infused treat before we leave. We also drop into the little store they have and I always pick up some cooking lavender (or food grade culinary lavender) to play with at home. This is how this recipe came to be. Rummaging through my baking box in the pantry for white chocolate, I discovered the lavender. Having never heard of lavender brownies before I thought dang this could be good. The flavour is very subtle, but 3 out of 4 of us can detect the lavender in the brownies however next time I might try adding a little more. If you can’t get your hands on lavender, just leave it out.

White Chocolate Lavender Brownies
White Chocolate Lavender Brownies

These brownies are simple to make and easy to eat.

 

White Chocolate Lavender Brownies
White Chocolate Lavender Brownies

Cinnamon Butter Cake

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Lately I’ve been going through old small town cookbooks where my mom inspired myself and so many of her family members to submit recipes to the annual cookbook collaboration. I have two of them dating back to the 90’s and as I go through these books carefully page by page, I can’t help but smile when I see an Aunt or a friend with a recipe I so fondly remember. I also have several recipes posted from my Vancouver days where I dabbled with cooking constantly.

Who also has these kinds of books? Please share in the comments!

I often wonder the history of some of these retro recipes. So many of them where taken from early early cookbooks and changed up a bit to become Grandma’s or Mom’s recipe. I recall being at a food blogger conference once where a representative from Random House Publishing said exactly the same thing. Every recipe starts from a book somewhere. While I don’t believe “every” recipe does starts from a book since I’ve whipped up my own from scratch, I’m sure there are many that had a helping hand.

This is one of those retro recipes I took from the book and changed up to suit my tastes. I’ve never heard of it before so I was excited to give it a go. It’s a butter cake but I added a ton of cinnamon into the glaze because why not? Cinnamon has health benefits so I needed something to make me feel better after all the, well, butter!

 

Cinnamon Butter Cake
Cinnamon Butter Cake

It’s moist and perfect with tea or coffee.

 

 

Cinnamon Butter Cake
Cinnamon Butter Cake

 

Watergate Salad Trifle

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Who remembers this popular green salad from the late 70’s and 80’s called Watergate Salad? It’s a salad known by names such as pistachio delight, shut the gate salad, green goop, green fluff and green stuff and these days can be found on the table during Thanksgiving or Easter celebrations.

According to research efforts, the origin of the name “Watergate salad” is obscure: Kraft Corporate Affairs (who makes the pistachio pudding) says “There are several urban myths regarding the name change, but we can’t substantiate any of them. We developed the recipe for Pistachio Pineapple Delight.” It was in 1975, the same year that pistachio pudding mix came out. According to Kraft Kitchens, when the recipe for Pistachio Pineapple Delight was sent out, an unnamed Chicago food editor renamed it Watergate Salad to promote interest in the recipe when she printed it in her column. Neither the article nor editor has been tracked down, however.

Further to this in in 1922 Helen Keller published a similar recipe, calling for canned diced pineapple, nuts, marshmallows, whipped cream and other ingredients. “I ate it first in California, so I call it Golden Gate Salad”. Similar “fruit salad” and “pineapple salad” recipes had been published in the 1910s, and “Golden Gate Salad” was served in some US hotels. The question still begs to be answered, who came up with this recipe or was it an accumulation of recipes as we see so often these days.

Watergate salad wasn’t something we ate regularly in our house, in fact more of an experience we had when we were at gatherings with friends or family. I never did understand (even though I grew up in the era of jelly salads), how a bowl of pudding with fruit, nuts and marshmallows could be a side to a dinner. Inspiration hit and I decided to make this retro recipe into a trifle with real whipping cream.

Cococo Chocolatiers Baking Chocolate
Cococo Chocolatiers Baking Chocolate

Recently we dropped into Cococo Chocolatiers to try their hot chocolate for YYC Hot Chocolate Fest and I noticed they carry baking chocolate. They asked if I would like to sample some and I graciously said yes. Chocolate shavings was one of the items I received  and was excited to use. While making the individual trifles, I added toasted pecan bits to the layers of the trifle along with the Cococo Chocolate Shavings.

If you are having a friends over make this in a trifle bowl and double it for a crowd. This was the perfect amount for four or you could easily stretch it into 6-8 individual servings.

 

Wategate Salad Trifle
Watergate Salad Trifle

 

 

Wategate Salad Trifle
Watergate Salad Trifle

 

Berry Orange Smoothie Bowl

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This Berry Orange Smoothie Bowl contains frozen berries, spinach, avocado, fresh orange, coconut milk and mint. A delicious blended smoothie you can make any time of the year – even when berries are not in season.

Orange Berry Smoothie Bowl
Orange Berry Smoothie Bowl

We created this smoothie bowl, loaded it with healthy goodness and added some extra zing with orange zest and fresh mint.

Orange Berry Smoothie Bowl
Orange Berry Smoothie Bowl

This bright and colourful smoothie is perfect for Valentine’s Day or Canada Day celebrations.

I’m currently participating in a Valentine’s Day Blog Hop Recipe round up with local food bloggers and this recipe is included in the round up!

Orange Berry Smoothie Bowl
Orange Berry Smoothie Bowl

Be sure to check out the other recipes and blogs participating to see what’s cooking in their kitchen this Valentine’s Day which also happens to be a long weekend here in Alberta. They are Merry About Town, Food Mamma, and Edible Life in YYC.

PRO TIPS:

  • If you do not like coconut milk, substitute for your favourite milk or cooled green tea
  • Mix the chia seeds in a well and give a few minutes to plump up before consuming
  • Fresh basil also tastes good in this smoothie
  • Not into smoothie bowls? Pour it into a glass!

 

Pumpkin Creme Brulee

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One of my favourite desserts for as long as I can remember is creme brulee. This year I have been experimenting with creme brulee quite a bit. I tried a delicious summer peach brulee this past August but didn’t get the measurements right, or used to much peach – which added to much liquid and my custard didn’t set. Great flavour though!

It’s important to note when you freely add things to the custard it can easily change the consistency and not set up. And you can over cook the custard (trust me). I tried this pumpkin recipe 3-4 times before I got the measurements right. It’s a delicious option for your holiday meal and feels light when you are eating it after finishing a big meal.

The canning jars are the perfect vessel for brulees, but please be careful when torching your sugar…getting to close to the edge of the glass can cause it to break! While I have admittedly never broke a custard dish from torching, my husband, a former and non practicing fire fighter has broken one of the glasses. It happens and it gets tossed.

Pumpkin Creme Brulee
Pumpkin Creme Brulee

 

 

Pumpkin Creme Brulee
Pumpkin Creme Brulee

 

Halloween Bark

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A great way to use up that extra Halloween Candy, and chocolate is to make bark. You can use dark or milk chocolate in place of the white, and the variations of bark are endless. This year I hit the bulk bins early to pick up some candy for my sons Birthday Monster Cupcakes. I always tend to overshoot the moon and buy more than what I need giving me….leftover candy!

I always find if I don’t get rid of the candy/chocolate, I will eat it. Just a piece here there…but eventually it disappears. So to avoid this temptation, I decided to toss it all into some bark. The kids love it and it goes pretty fast.

Make sure you have chocolate wafers or melting chocolate. Mix everything right in reserving a few pieces to dot on top just to pretty it up. It all tastes the same whether you mix the candy all in, or perfectly drop the pieces on top.

 

Reese Peanut Butter Chocolate Nanaimo Bars

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We have been testing recipes using Reese Peanut Butter Chocolate Spread and came up with these fabulous Reese Peanut Butter Chocolate Nanaimo Bars.

Reese Peanut Butter Chocolate Nanaimo Bars
Reese Peanut Butter Chocolate Nanaimo Bars

I’m beyond excited and fully wearing my fat pants. Why you ask? Well since the product arrived, truth be known, I’ve been diligently taste testing it every day, with a spoon, to ensure it hasn’t gone bad. I do what I have to for the people. Reese Peanut Butter Cups are one of my favourite indulgences and I’ll let you in on a little secret – Reese Peanut Butter Cups taste amazing squished into a S’more.

Reese Peanut Butter Chocolate Nanaimo Bars
Reese Peanut Butter Chocolate Nanaimo Bars

Nanaimo Bars are a dessert served mostly around the holidays and a recipe I know like the back of my hand since I helped my mom make it growing up. The good old Canadian Nanaimo Bar is a Canadian favourite and honestly they can be made any time of the year. Like summer. The Reese’s Peanut Butter Chocolate Spread was the perfect change up for our usual Nanaimo Bar Recipe, they are simply delicious.

Reese's Peanut Butter Chocolate Nanaimo Bars
Reese’s Peanut Butter Chocolate Nanaimo Bars

What ways do you enjoy Reese Peanut Butter Chocolate Spread?!

This post is sponsored by Hershey’s Canada and I’ve been compensated monetarily and with product to create a new recipe.

 

Blueberry Lavender Creme Brulee

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Blueberry Lavender Creme Brulee infuses the essence of lavender and fresh blueberries to form a rich, creamy, delicious dessert.

Creme Brulee is infused with fresh blueberries and lavender
Blueberry Lavender Creme Brulee

What is Creme Brulee

Creme Brulee goes by a few different names; burnt cream or Trinity cream. It’s comprised of a rich custard topped with a hard caramel crust. The earliest reference to creme brulee dates back to a 1691 cookbook!

You can serve your creme brulee slightly chilled or room temperature. It really doesn’t matter and we’ve served it both ways.

Blueberry Lavender Creme Brulee melts in your mouth
Blueberry Lavender Creme Brulee

Why Blueberry and Lavender

For this recipe I was inspired by a Creme Brulee shop at one of our local Farmers Markets. They are no longer around but they offered up several unique variations weekly. Inspiration comes from everywhere!

Have No Fear

Do not fear the brulee. People comment to me regularly how afraid they are to make this dessert. Truth is it’s not so complicated and you can do it!

Blueberry Lavender Creme Brulee
Blueberry Lavender Creme Brulee

Always Torch the Caramel

See here’s the thing. I have tried a few times to broil the caramel in the oven. It Does Not Work people. It’s nearly impossible to get the perfect amount of color without burning it to a crisp or even attempt to caramelize the top evenly.

Here’s a few tips to help get you started.

PRO TIPS

  • Make the custard the day before and let sit in your refrigerator. This gives the lavender extra time to infuse the custard.
  • A small hand held torch works great for burning your sugar.
  • Save some blueberries to add on top when you serve.
  • I use small canning jars for my brulee. Allows for me to put a lid on and keep in fridge until ready to use.
  • You must temper the eggs. Follow instructions carefully.
  • Let the creme brulee cool completely in the refrigerator to set up the custard before serving and bruleeing.
  • White sugar is the only sugar you should use for torching.
A bite missing from the Blueberry Lavender Creme Brulee
Blueberry Lavender Creme Brulee

Looking for more blueberry recipes? Here’s a few popular ones:

Pin this recipe to your Desserts Board and be sure to follow me on Pinterest.

Date Energy Bites

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We are road trippers and campers. With me being from BC, my family living in SK, my husbands family living in MB and us residing in AB, we’ve toured up and down the 4 Western Provinces extensively over the past 15 years. Definitely time to discover and journey to the East and South into America!

Date Energy Balls
Date Energy Balls

I’ve always tried to pack a small cooler for road trips. Fill them with good stuff like cheese sticks, yogurt tubes, and cut up veggies for the road. I wash & cut up a bunch of fruit, put it into larger portable containers and this helps with any hunger that might set in on a trip alleviating the need to stop at a gas station and buy junk food. The kids just pass the container around until they are satisfied, or it is empty. If your kids love hummus, bring it along as a dip for the veggies.

Depending on how long the trip is I will bring along some home made granola or trail mix, and even prepare some Sammy’s On A Stick for the road, or for when we arrive at our destination. Popping some popcorn the night before and separating it into individual ziplock bags, with some pretzels or m&m’s thrown in is one idea the kids love.

These energy bites were created as another road trip option as they are another quick, tasty & healthy bite that can be made a variety of ways. Bites made with dates are naturally sweetened. Also nut free so the kids can take them to school.  So many ways to eat relatively healthy while on the road1

 

Berry Lentil Smoothie

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Smoothies and lentils are not two words you would normally find together. I’d never heard of a smoothie being made with lentils before so when a Canadian Lentils Contest came round for Canadian Food Bloggers, I decided to make smoothie made with lentils and enter the contest.

I didn’t win the contest but I won my kids over as they had no clue their smoothies were made with lentils!

It’s important to use cooked lentils in this recipe as they are soft and puree easily. I add everything into my blender or container at once. We enjoy our smoothies thick like milkshakes as they tend to melt quick. Adding smoothies is a great way to get an added protein boost.

 

Festive Mars Bars Squares

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I am apparently a Mars Bars Squares Virgin. Who knew these delicious treats existed. I learned about them last summer on our way out of town on a camping trip. It always seems to take us soooo long to pack up no matter how many lists, and how efficient I am at getting things ready in advance. We can’t win. So by the time we get out of town we are exhausted by over excited kids and packing up…hence ready for a drink. But we are driving and have to wait for a beverage. So on this particular outing, we opted for coffee instead.

I checked out the GPS and there was surprisingly one on the way to our camping destination. So we stopped at at little place called Latte Da for our cuppa joe and were thrilled to find sweet treats available to. The folks in this little cafe were very friendly and when we walked in, they just so happen to be bringing out this huge platter of, well Mars Bars Squares. Intrigued, we bought a couple and devoured them before we left the cafe. Spectacular. A delicious tasting bite. I asked how they were made and Laurie, the  owner, graciously shared her recipe with me.

I went on to make these a couple times over the summer and then while thinking about my Christmas Holiday Baking Round up, the thought came to me to make them again…but with a little candy cane twist.

 

Festive Mars Bars Squares
Festive Mars Bars Squares

 

Eggnog Sugar Cookies with Candy Cane Sprinkles

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What a crazy past couple of weeks. I remember Halloween..then my son’s birthday and wham here we are just weeks away from Christmas. From frantic bake sale baking, long distance cookie swap baking to mom’s wine night & cookie exchange baking….I feel like I barely came out alive. Maybe I just take on too much every holiday season and need to rethink my strategy next year. To add to all the craziness was the onset of the sick in November. From colds, pneumonia, bronchitis, tonsillitis to ear infections..4 in our party of 5 got hit pretty hard and I was one of them. Seems the older you get the harder you fall and while I don’t usually get sick, I fell pretty hard this time. Which meant no wine for weeks. On the bright side we are all done with being sick and I refuse to let it back in the house any time soon. Bring on Christmas.

One of the cookie swaps I am involved with again this year is the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap 2014. It’s a world wide affair but you have to be a Food Blogger to participate. For a small submission fee (goes to Cookies for Kids’ Cancer), you get matched up with other Food Bloggers in your Country. You always hope you end up with delicious cookies but that is the chance you take when you participate in something like this. It annoys me to no end to hear people complain that their cookies were not that good. Then honestly don’t participate it’s that simple since it’s for charity and it’s fun. The only thing I wish more bloggers would do is get acquainted with the more popular social media channels!! This year I sent my cookie swap cookies to BC and Saskatchewan. A little closer for me and I was happy about that (less travel time).

I had wanted to do a shortbread cookie this year. And after testing out one recipe I totally changed my game plan as I had also been wanting to create an eggnog cookie. For like years. So with just days to spare I came up with I guess a cross between a blossom cookie and a sugar cookie. I say sugar as the ingredients closely resemble a sugar cookie recipe. Took me two tries to get the ingredients right, but I did and it’s pretty darn good. I ran out of chocolate kisses so improvised with chocolate balls. I like this idea so much, my next batch of blossom style cookies will have balls and not kisses.

The cookies I received from Bloggers are: World Peace Cookies from The Blenderist, Coffee Sugar Cookies from Oven Mitt Adventures, and just received is my prettiest package yet, Sour Cherry White Chocolate Chunk Cookies by Wanna Come With. A fun way to get to know other bloggers!

This recipe makes close to 30 cookies so I had lots leftover. So much so I made these Eggnog Sugar Cookies with Candy Cane Sprinkles for another cookie swap!

 

Shareba’s Chocolate Almond Butter Crescent Rolls

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In October I was fortunate enough to attend the Food Bloggers of Canada 2014 Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia. Having lived in Vancouver for several years before migrating East, I was very excited to be returning for a visit, but also looking forward to meeting so many of my Food Blogger friends from across Canada.

Having arrived a day early to just hang out and find some good eats, Friday arrived and I anxiously started to make my way to the hotel as conference registration was officially open. At the registration desk, there were 3 lovely ladies waving everyone in and handing us these ginormous swag bags. Shareba, from In Search of Yummy-ness, was one of them, and I was so excited to finally put a face to all the social media chatter we’d been doing for quite some time.

With a very busy conference ahead of us and Shareba one of the volunteers, we didn’t get to visit to much, but I know the chatter will continue and perhaps at the next conference we will get to visit a little more. Even before we met in person, Shareba had agreed to be a guest poster on my blog and I’m thrilled to introduce her to you and share her recipe for Chocolate Almond Butter Crescent Rolls! Welcome Shareba!

 

Thanks for asking me to share a recipe here at Bakersbeans!

As a Media Studies graduate who has worked on two cooking shows, food blogging seemed like a no-brainer to me.

My blog has changed a lot since I started it back in 2010. I think I only posted 8 times that year! Honestly, I really didn’t start to understand how to “blog” until the end of 2012, and even then my photos weren’t great.

I’ve been putting a lot of time and effort into my blog lately, and I think it’s starting to show. Hopefully, it’s easier for people to navigate my website now and get an idea of what I write about.

My content has been changing over the years, but in general I blog about my experiences with food. That includes things like meals at restaurants, recaps of food events, and highlighting products that I like.

Of course, I write about cooking in my kitchen too. I enjoy sharing recipes that are fairly easy to make at home – basically the food that I like to eat. There’s a mix of healthy dishes and indulgent treats.

Food has been such a big part of my life, and I’m thrilled to be a full time food blogger now. It’s been a struggle to get to this point, but right now I’m happy and I think that’s what matters the most.

Speaking of food… here’s a recipe for something I’d like to eat right now. It’s almost 1AM and all I want is comfort food!

 

For more information, or to contact Shareba, go here:
Twitter: @InSearchOfYummy
Facebook: In Search Of Yummy-ness
Instagram: @InSearchOfYummyness
Pinterest: @InSearchOfYummy
Blog: InSearchOfYummyness.com

Brownie Cake

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Recently I received some samples (cooking sauces and marinade) from Pulo Philippine Cuisine. I started browsing their pamphlets to see how they have used the products themselves. While everything looked tasty, I wasn’t getting inspired and couldn’t get past the basics. So they sat a for a few days. And then like Snow in Calgary in September, it hit me….forget savory…go for sweet.

The Tinaga Island Coconut Adobo Cooking Sauce is so far one of my favourites (ok only got through 2 of 6 so far). It’s both tasty and the great thing about coconut is you can take it to savory or sweet. Plus it had vinegar in it and my mom used to make a chocolate cake recipe with vinegar. I knew I was onto something, so I decided to make Brownies. With the Pulo Coconut Adobo Cooking Sauce you say? Why the heck not. Nobody puts Baby in a Corner….(little Dirty Dancing reference there). Besides isn’t this how all the great recipes are born…trial & error?!

Brownie Cake
Brownie Cake

This recipe started off as a Brownie recipe. As I was making it I went looking for my 9 x 11 baking dish to pour the brownies into. Discovered it was in use and so I substituted the 9×9 instead. And without further ado, this recipe went from Brownies, to Brownie Cake. A substitution gone right.

One minion advised she could taste a hint of coconut in the brownie. Husband mentioned a tiny hint of heat. The flavours were there and I have to say these Brownie Cakes tasted equally delicious with freshly whipped cream and vanilla ice cream.

Tinaga Island is part of the Bicol region of the Phillipines, an area renowned for hot chili and coconut milk dishes. And it’s now on my list of places I want to visit.

 

Orange Waffles

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Recently these orange waffles have become one of our favourites for breakie. We go through stages. We’re crazy like that. We’ve been on a waffle kick for a couple months now. The waffle maker has been taking up permanent residence on the counter. Might need to move and dust under it soon.

A while back I attempted for the first time ever, chicken & waffles. Surprised everyone, as it was a huge hit. I’ve had requests to make it again. Now that I can cook on the BBQ and not smoke up the house with the chicken, I’m excited to cook up another batch of chicken and waffles. Mmmmm.

The orange flavour in these waffles is light but memorable. We almost always have to have them with maple syrup, whipping cream and a little orange zest for good measure. Important to note this recipe only makes 6 individual waffles and if you end up loving them as much as we do, you will need to double the recipe. Just sayin.

 

Coconut Banana Bread

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With so many varieties of banana bread out there, it’s nice to shake things up once in awhile. This Coconut Banana Bread never lasts longer than a day in our family. The addition of coconut and orange zest is not over powering, yet adds a nice subtle flavour boost.

My kids are always asking for banana bread or muffins, but we never seem to have leftover, “ripe” bananas. I finally started buying two stacks of bananas at the grocery stores allowing some of the bananas to become ripe. And baking to be done!

Serve this Coconut Banana Bread with butter, cream cheese or a drizzle of honey. A perfect anytime snack.

Makes 1 loaf.

 

Carrot Lentil Whoopie Pies

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This recipe is the combination of a Carrot Cupcake and a Pumpkin Whoopie Pie recipe. Yes it is possible to put pureed lentils into cookies which is how we got to these Carrot Lentil Whoopie Pies. And the kids don’t have a clue.

Batch one came about last week. Just before I got hit with a wicked head cold and the sick. Needless to say I couldn’t taste them, so I didn’t bother to ice them. Just sent the cookies out as is to friends, teachers at the school and of course my husband’s work mates. The feedback I got was incredible. Words like “exotic flavours” and the perfect amount of spice. Others advised there wasn’t enough spice. All good feedback since I cut back on sugar and oil in this recipe. The other surprise for everyone was they contained pureed green lentils. In fact you can put pureed lentils into most baking for that extra protein kick. Loved the feedback, which helped immensely.

Lentil cookie round two came about today. My sniffer was back, taste buds in check, a few modifications I needed to make were made and I think batch two was way better than the first batch from last week. Will have to wait to hear from the testers again but this time they have been iced.

One thing I decided to change with batch two was only using baking soda. In batch one I used baking soda and powder. The cookies were pretty big. This time, without using baking powder, they still turned out puffy. So the kids are enjoying eating them as singles with a dollop of icing on top. I say whatever works.

This will be my second entry into the Canadian Lentils Contest and my baked goods entry. I further created a Lentil Balls recipe a couple weeks ago, well according to the photo dates, it was March 5th. But the sick and all kinds of other stuff has kept me from getting that recipe posted. Soon I hope.

These cookies are moist, not too sweet, yet flavourful and I’m told delicious as is or with a dollop of icing in the middle.

 

Dulce de Leche Bread Pudding

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This Dulce de Leche Bread Pudding, made in the slow cooker, was part of The Great Cream Challenge 2014. In this challenge I went against two other food bloggers from across Canada, and their recipes. The one with the most votes won the challenge.

While I didn’t win the challenge, I am sure grateful for all the votes and support I received for this recipe. It was a fun challenge to compete in!

This recipe has an Eggnog Sauce that is more seasonal. You could do a vanilla sauce or spiced rum sauce if you want to make this dish any time Eggnog is not available. Or, as my mom used to do, you could make your own Eggnog! Before making this recipe test your casserole/baking dish to ensure it fits inside your slow cooker. I have an oval slow cooker so the baking dish I chose worked well.

My husband devoured this pudding and hopefully you will to. Here’s how we did it.

 

Waffle Cone Fruit Salad

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A fun treat for the kids any time of the year. During Winter you may be limited to using whatever fruit is available in your grocery store. I know we definitely are here as certain out of season fruit that has been shipped in from afar, tends to taste bland and not good. In Summer fresh fruit can be found everywhere.

I’ve been making this waffle cone treat for the kids for years. When I make my fruit salad, the only thing I add in sometimes is fresh, thinly sliced mint. I enjoy the full, sweet flavours of the fruit and don’t feel it needs a dressing. I’ve taught my kids to enjoy these simple flavours as well. If you need to have a dressing with your fruit salad, by all means use your favourite. Or even mix in a little yogurt. You can also buy the mini cones and make small versions of this treat for those “mini” hands.

This recipe is incredibly simple and can be used in many ways: great for birthday parties, an alternative to the constant request of “can I have an ice cream cone”, good camping treats, a quick breakfast with a side of yogurt, make it for lunch with some cheese & crackers on the side, add a small dollop of whipping cream on top, make it for game day or bring to a potluck.

But the best part is the kids can be involved in making this enjoyable treat.