This week’s pastry classes were extremely frustrating and stressful, but I made it through. We made a ton of stuff, which worked out great, as it was my brother’s birthday this week. We made a cheesecake that I haven’t tried yet, but it looks quite good, except for the crack on top. I’m going to go ahead and take a lucky guess about the crack– just after we put our cheesecake in the oven, my partner and I noticed a certain measuring cup full of cream sitting on the tabletop. Oops! To make up for the lack of moisture, I made a nice gooey mixed fruit sauce to go on top of the cheesecake.

We also made 3 different kinds of danishes from one danish dough. We learned how to make rolled, or ‘pigs-in-a-blanket” style danishes, as well as pinwheels, and also diamonds. We filled the rolled danishes with frangipane, the pinwheels were filled with pastry cream and apricot halves, and the diamonds were filled with a fruit mixture. They got a bit squished on the ride home, but you’ll get the jist.

Adding to the panic, we were given 15 minutes to put together a black forest cake from start to finish, with no ingredients prepped. In the process, I managed to cut two of my fingers while cutting the layers for the cake. After digging up some bandaids and gloves, my partner and I pulled together our cake. Slightly sloppy, yes….but we did it.

Lastly, (and the best-tasting) we made a lemon sabayon tart with a Swiss meringue and it was soo delicious. I normally dislike anything ‘lemon meringue-y’, but I really enjoyed a bite of this. We used a pate sucree base, and created the lemon sabayon filling. The Swiss meringue was so fun to pipe on and then torch!

Hello everyone! It’s been a little while since my last post and at last….something NOT pumpkin! After making a New England style clam chowder in my cooking class, I wanted to try to make MY version at home so I could actually taste it- sans pork, and chicken stock. I used vegetable stock with a bit of fish sauce mixed in because I could not find fish stock. The soup turned out fantastic, though not quite as thick as the one we made in school, the flavour was very nice and my family and I enjoyed it for dinner!

Koko’s New England Clam Chowder

• 25 g butter
• 50 g onions, diced
• 100 g celery, diced
• 50 g flour
• 3/4 L vegetable stock, warm, with 1/2 tbsp- 1 tbsp fish sauce added OR fish stock
• 300 mL clam nectar
• 1 sachet (herbs tied up in cheesecloth and left to float in the soup while cooking) consists of 1 bay leaf, 1/2 tsp peppercorns-crushed, 1/2 tsp dried thyme)
• 75 g potatoes, diced
• 350 mL baby clams, canned
• 125 mL Cream, 35%, or milk
• Salt and pepper to taste

Sweat onions with celery until translucent.

Add flour and cook roux until white/blond in colour.

Whisk in heated vegetable or fish stock until smooth.

Stir in clam nectar, add sachet and simmer 15 minutes.

Add potatoes and simmer until tender.

Stir in baby clams and their juice.

Return to simmer, add cream and adjust seasoning, enjoy!!

And now…back to pumpkin! You thought I had stopped!? Nooo…..try these pumpkin cheesecake brownies- they are SO rich you will only need one to satisfy your sweeth tooth, though they are absolutely delicious! The recipe comes from the Beantown Baker.

I’ve been interested in raw foods for a while now but I hadn’t yet dabbled into the actual ‘cooking’/eating of it- until now. I decided I would make a raw cheesecake. As I study to become a holistic nutritionist, I think it is very important to experience many different ways of eating, in order to be able to give effective information to my future clients. I’ll definitely be trying more raw foods but I will probably stick to savoury recipes. I was thinking of purchasing a pack of cookbooks from Kristin’s Raw. Has anyone tried these?

I noticed that most raw foodists use cashews as their cheese and I was curious as to how the flavour would be, especially in a dessert raw food. The crust tasted quite like a Larabar- just fruit and nuts blended throughly. The cashew cheese was actually quite nice and I really felt like it wouldn’t be difficult for me to adjust to. All in all, I think this would probably be a delicious recipe as a treat for any raw foodies out there, and it’s definitely an interesting dish to try. I think smashing some of the berries into a sauce of sorts would be quite nice on top!

The recipe came in my e-mail from Vegetarian Times.

Raw Cheesecake

2 cups macadamia nuts

1 1/2 cups cashews

1/2 cup pitted medjool dates

1/4 cup dried coconut (I used unsweetened of course)

6 tbs coconut oil (liquid)

1/4 cup lime juice

1/4 raw agave nectar

1/2 of a sundried vanilla bean (I just used a regular vanilla bean…not sure if it was sun dried or not)

3 cups mixed berries (I used blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, and cherries)

Place macadamia nuts and cashews in two seperate bowls. Cover each with cold water and soak for four hours. Rinse, drain, set aside.

Pulse the macadamia nuts and dates in the food processor to a sticky, crumb-like consistancy. Sprinkle dried coconut on the bottom of a 8 inch pie plate. Press macadamia nut mixture onto it, to form a crust.

Place cashews, lime juice, agave nectar, coconut oil and 6 tbs water in the food processor. Scrape seeds from vanilla bean into the food processor. Puree until smooth and then pour onto crust. Freeze 1 to 2 hours, or until firm. Slice while frozen, but defrost on counter or in the fridge. Top with berries and enjoy! (*I think the mixing some of the berries into the cashew mixture could be neat as well, but I have not tried it!)

For my dad’s birthday this year, I decided to try something new- instead of a traditional birthday cake, I made a Baked Lemon Cheesecake. The cheesecake was different, in that there was no sour cream or cream cheese in the recipe. The “cheese” part came from ricotta and greek-style yogurt. The finished product was wonderful and actually ended up tasting like a lemon meringue pie! My family loved it, and I’m sure your family will too- recipe coming soon!