Spring time in Paris... We wish!!

Happy First day of SPRING, which also coincides officially with macaron day here in Toronto.

 Lets get this party started, spring. We're tired of this dreary, cold, and wet weather and it's time for spring to, well, spring into action! Paul came back from his fabulous trip to Paris a few weeks back and now he just wants nothing but to be back in Paris. He ate great food, drank great wine, and walked all over Paris.

While there, Paul stumbled upon Ladurée and bought 6 macarons early on in his trip. They were so amazingly good that he recommends that if you're going to Paris, you NEED to stop there. I texted him asking to bring me back a dozen; alas, he couldn't find the store again and didn't bring any back. *cue dramatic music* 

 Paul showed me all his pictures of Paris that he posted on his Instagram account, under the hashtag #parisitshappening 

So we decided to try our hand at making our own marcarons. It's been a long time since I attempted to make macarons and this was Paul's first time. *cue scary, breath taking music!*

Macarons' seem really daunting to make. There are a lot of steps and many people have blogged tips and suggestions when making their own macarons. Do you sift the dry ingredients or do you just mix away. Do you let them sit and dry before baking or do you just throw them into the oven and hope for the best. And did you know that there are two types of macarons?! There are: French and Italian. What's the difference? Well, that's a good question. 

The French method has fewer steps and fewer tools needed. It does call for "aged egg whites" and more wait/dry time for the macarons before and after they cook.  

The Italian method is much more involved and you'll need to multitask while cooking. You'll need to make a sugar syrup, but the wait/dry times are less. Usually in the Italian macarons' you use an Italian buttercream as well. 

We decided to look through old copies of Food and Drink magazine, online, and pinterest to see if we could find a recipe that a) seemed easy enough and b) that we had all the ingredients for. The Sweet Spot's, Earl Grey Macarons with Blueberry compote buttercream; sounds good, right? I checked my pantry and we substituted a couple of things from The Sweet's Spot's recipe: Instead of Earl Grey tea we used English Breakfast, instead of the recommended blueberry compote buttercream (which is a fancy way of saying Italian buttercream); we just made a standard blueberry buttercream (because the egg whites weren't whipping into peaks!) *cue lots of swearing!* 

 So we learned a couple of things from today:

1) When making macarons, you need to schedule yourself lots of time to make them. Don't do what we did and decided at 7:45 that we should bake.

2) When the recipe says to let the piped macarons sit before baking; you let them sit! One tray sat for 15 minutes (which is longer than the recipe calls for) and the second tray we just threw in after piping. YES, you should definitely let them sit. The sitting process allows for the macrons to develop a "shell" that gives them a smooth top and will give them the "feet" around the bottom edge. If you don't let them sit, your macarons will show the piping marks, will fall a bit when cooling, and won't form the "feet" around the bottom edge.

3) To try and make the macarons similar in size, we traced a shot glass onto the back of the parchment paper. Technically this would be a great idea if Paul was better at piping; but this was all experimental.

4) We don't have a solution for this one; but our egg whites wouldn't form peaks. We tried the Kitchen Aid stand mixer, the hand mixer, and even using a whisk. Nothing seemed to work. OK, out with the Italian buttercream and in with a regular buttercream - which I am an expert at making.

Would we make these again... No. We'd rather buy them from an expert who knows exactly what they're doing and we'd rather do what we're both really good at doing: eating macarons!!

Did you know it's organic?

Not to repeat the title, but did you know that it's organic? The zucchini, that is.  Grown from my garden this past summer.  I had so much of it that I had to freeze it. So zucchini, as organic as it is; it doesn't really connect to Parisian baking, so we'll put our Parisian theme on the back burner (get it, a cooking pun!).

So zucchini... what do you do with zucchini? Well, it grills up really well, it's a great substitute for certain pastas, and you can sneak it into chocolate cake! Yes, you read that right, chocolate cake. Since we're adding zucchini to the cake, we thought that we should try to make a healthier version of it, but with all the flavour of regular chocolate cake. Also, my husband has been complaining about all the zucchini in my freezer for the past 6 months.  Therefore for the sake of my marriage, we decided we better bake with the zucchini tonight.

Paul and I looked through a couple of cook books and weren't really happy with what we found. I decided that we were seasoned enough to make our own recipe up and pulled out my copy of Secrets of Fat-Free Baking and started looking at what we could improvise. But before we get to the good stuff, I want to share with you my apple sauce recipe that we used as a substitute for the fat (butter or oil).

Apple Sauce

5 Apples (McIntosh were what I had on hand)
1/2 tsp Cinnamon

Peel, core, and slice the apples and place in a saucepan. Add the cinnamon and cook at medium-high heat until the apples turn into mush (technical terms). Ta-Da!! Applesauce!

This is our Healthier (as healthy as chocolate cake can get) Chocolate Cake

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

For the cake:
1/4 cup of apple sauce
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
2 tsp coffee granules
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 cups zucchini
3 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chopped

1.  Preheat your oven to 325F.  Grease a 9" x 13" pan.
2.  In mixing bowl, cream together the apple sauce, vegetable oil and the sugars. Beat until well incorporated.
3.  Add the vanilla and eggs and continue beating until well mixed.
4.  In another bowl, combine the baking soda, salt, baking powder, flour and cocoa powder.  Give it a good stir.
5.  Add the dry ingredients to the wet in 3 additions alternating with the buttermilk.
6.  Stir in the coffee, zucchini and chocolate.
7.  Bake for 30-35 mins or until a skewer comes out clean

Cool the cake and start the frosting. This is where the health-kick kind of starts to fade...

Chocolate Frosting

6oz of Semi-Sweet Chocolate
1/2 cup Coconut Milk
1/2 cup Icing Sugar

Set a double boiler on medium heat and melt the chocolate. Add in the coconut milk and icing sugar and take off heat while mixing. Voila, frosting!

Paul was skeptical, as usual; but I pushed on and am pretty happy with how this turned out! Not bad for our first attempt at creating a recipe. The consensus on this recipe is that we'd make it again but next time call it a brownie, since it reminded us more so of that than a cake.

We even tried to fancy up the presentation. What's fancier than maraschino cherries? Nothing! 

On se prepare pour Paris

"Hey, what do you want to bake this week?"
"How about something French-inspired"
"Why?"
"Because I'm going to Paris!"
"What?! You lucky bastard!"

So to celebrate Paul getting ready for a short séjour to Paris, we decided to make choux à la crème (cream puffs). Light, fluffy, heavenly cream filled puffs of deliciousness.  Paul thought this would be so difficult... but I convinced him that it was easier than he thought; and of course I was right.

To make the mood even more French, Paul turned on his BRAND NEW record player and we listened to Edith Piaf and ate chocolate (can I tell you the Dairy Milk Marvellous Creations Jelly Popping Candy is all kinds of awesome/the worst idea for diets ever).

The cream puffs are surprisingly easy to make with few ingredients.  First you need to start with the choux paste:

Choux Paste

250 ml of water
1/2 cup of butter
5 g of salt
185 g of all purpose flour (or bread flour)
6 eggs

1.  Preheat your oven to 400F
2.  In a saucepan place the water, butter and salt and bring to a boil. Don't put a lid on the pot when bringing to a rolling boil; the butter will turn frothy.
3.  Add the flour and stir until the paste is formed and it pulls away from the sides of the pot. Take the saucepan off the heat.
4.  Place the dough in a mixing bowl and mix to cool.  When no more steams comes out of the choux paste, you can move to step 5.
5.  Add eggs one by one until fully incorporated. 
6.  Pipe using star shape and bake for about 30 minutes until golden.

Yes, 30 minutes seem like a really long time but if you pull them out sooner, the puffs will have an eggy-taste and no one wants that!

Once all your Choux Paste have been baked, it's time to start the filling. We decided to stick with the classic and made a whip cream filling.

Whip Cream

500 ml of  cream
40g of icing sugar
a splash of vanilla extract

Mix all the ingredients together with a whisk until stiff peaks form. 

Cut the puff pastries in half using a seraded knife and fill with the whip cream filling (we used a star shape pipping tip again).

Once finished, you can dust icing sugar like we did or make a chocolate ganache (we wanted to make the ganache but it was 9:00 pm and we both have to work tomorrow). These will probably not make it to work tomorrow!

Angry Chocolate Chip Cookies

For some weird reason, tonight's baking date turned into a night of angry baking...

 

It all started on a cool December evening after Celine arrived at Paul’s house - maybe it was because it’s been a crazy work week, or maybe because Paul didn’t go grocery shopping, or maybe because it’s kind of cold outside, or maybe it’s because... it was just an angry night.

 

Looking through at least a dozen recipes on the couch and then running to the cupboards to see what Paul had in stock - we decided on cookies; chocolate chip cookies from a pin on pinterest. (We both LOVE pinterest - the ultimate time waster; lets pin random stuff that we’ll never make regardless of how easy a DIY job it ”says” it is!)

 

DoubleTree by Hilton, Chocolate Chips Cookies: DELICIOUS!! (http://www.somethingswanky.com/doubletree-hotel-chocolate-chip-cookies/)

 

The recipe says that it makes 20 cookies, so naturally we doubled it. Not the smartest idea, since Paul’s oven is apartment-sized; which translates to only one cookie sheet at a time. This recipe has cinnamon in it - Paul’s reaction: “really? That’s weird! Lets just not put that in” to which Celine responded with “shutup, it’s going in!” Angry night, much.

 

So after mixing in everything but the dry ingredients, Celine decided to re-read the recipe: chill over night... WHAT? (it was actually a much more colourful response that went something like this:

 

Paul: “Chill over night... really?”

Celine: ”*&$% that *&$%”

Paul: “&$*%(@”

Celine: “Who cares, put them in the oven”

 

Yup, it’s been that kind of night!

 

Cinnamon everywhere, countless blobs of cookie dough on the floor, and all the sugar hardened into a block (thanks, humidifier!); we finally got the first batch in the oven. We baked our cookies for 12 minutes instead of the recommended 15 minutes listed in the recipe.  Paul’s oven may be small, but she’s mighty. We chose not to add walnuts because, really, who likes walnuts in chocolate chip cookies? NO ONE! And if you do, you’re not our friend (unless you are currently our friend and in that case, we forgive you!)

 

The cookies turned out amazing; Celine rates a 4.5 and Paul ranks them a 5 - so good! We followed the directions and scooped about 1/4 cup per cookie - so these are MONSTER COOKIES. And of course Celine and I had to taste test the first batch: four cookies later, we’re so full, but just want to keep eating them!

 

So, why did the night continue to be angry with such delicious cookies around? Well, Celine found out that Paul and his other half went to a expensive steak house (not the KEG) and ordered their steaks medium  and medium-well. According to Celine, “Who does that?” and “you two should be ashamed of yourselves” and “I deserve to go there; not you! You don’t eat steak right!”

 

Then the conversation turned into the fun game of "Lets buy this house”. Celine was not overly  thrilled when she found out that her other half had neglected to update her that a house on her dream-street just went for sale.  And conversation went like this:

 

Celine: "I can’t believe he didn’t tell me!”

Paul: “Did you really dream about that house?”(b/c she did actually have a dream about the house)

Celine: “Not the point. Love the house” - then MLS came out and Paul started commenting:

 

Paul: “the kitchen’s ugly, the bedroom’s ugly, but it has an arch doorway”

Celine: “It’s on my dream street!”

Paul: “It’s pretty ugly"

Celine: “Shut up”

 

Long story short:  angry night - amazing cookies.

 

Paul/Celine - “Now why can’t I lose weight?”

Back on the Maple

So... it's been a couple of years since we've last posted... and we're thankful to our faithful three followers for waiting so patiently for our next blog post. We've experienced some life changes, some new adventures, some new "hellos" and some sad "goodbyes"; but the one thing that remains the same: is our friendship and our love for all things maple and butter.

We've thought things through since our last post and decided that the pseudonyms "Mr. Crumbs" and "Ms. Butters" aren't really working for us anymore. They don't let you know more than that one really likes bread and the other really likes butter. So, it's time for a change and since so much has happened over the last two years, we thought we'd start with introductions of who we really are.

Céline, a.k.a. "Ms. Butters" has a major addiction to anything sweet, but is choosey with only indulging in homemade VS. store bought. (Unless it's a nice bakery, or a really good chocolate shop, or really cheap Halloween candy, or... she just may have a sweet tooth!). Céline is also the proud mama of healthy little girl with her mama's sweet tooth (we were both really worried during Céline's pregnancy - she couldn't stomach anything sweet! Phew, glad that's over with!).

Paul, a.k.a. "Mr. Crumbs" is definitely a lover of anything bready: bread, muffins, cookies, bread! He has no problem eating store bought or homemade; anything goes.

With that over with, we can get to the important stuff: the food! As many of you (or three of you) know, Céline and I love the LCBO's food and drink magazines. And apparently Maple flavoured things, as most of the recipes we test out tend to have maple somewhere in them. And since it's the end of November our thoughts went to Christmas baking. Which, to us means COOKIES!!!

To restart our renewed blog, we're doing a double-whammy post and are testing two recipes: Peppermint Spritz Sticks and Double-Double Maple Walnut Cookies (which we then realized once we starting mixing, that we were out of walnuts... pecans it is!). 

Peppermint Spritz Sticks:

We were really hopeful for these. They were really cute and super easy to make. How can anything be bad when it looks so professional, being piped onto parchment paper with the fancy tips. Well, we were wrong. They're taste like a cookie that freshens your breath as you chew. Maybe we added too much peppermint extract, or maybe they just aren't our type of cookie. Céline was out of vegetable shortening and we improvised with lard - keeping it old school. But we're pretty sure that that wouldn't make them any better. The one thing that we like was that they weren't too sweet and this recipe could be easily modified. Paul thinks that instead of using peppermint extract; use vanilla extract and 1/4 tsp. ground cardamom could make them a little better.

Out of five, we'd give this recipe a two. Sorry Food & Drink, recipe fail. But our second recipe, Double-Double Maple Walnut (or Pecan) Cookies turned out MUCH better.

Double-Double Maple Walnut Cookies:

We mixed these up first, as they had to chill in the fridge for an hour. Or, if you're Céline, the freezer for 20 minutes.  It does use quite a bit of maple syrup and at point one of us quoted "I'm dripping maple syrup".  We must admit, these are pretty tasty and look pretty too.  Perfect for a cookie exchange!  I give this recipe a solid 4 stars but that might be because I love the maple icing so much.  Paul also give the recipe 4 stars.   Good job redeeming yourself Food and Drink. 

Should of added more butter!

Pecan Cinnamon Cupcakes/Cake

It's been a couple of months (ok, a lot of months!) and our blog has remained quiet; but there's been MANY reasons. Renovations, work, and trying to keep up with the day-to-day demands; But, Ms. Butters has an even better excuse! Pregnancy! Trying to find the time to get together, bake or cook, and photograph and write a post is pretty hard when you're on pregnancy-time. You've all heard of Caribbean-time; well this is much funnier to watch! Mr. Crumbs can remember one night in particular when Ms. Butters actually fell asleep standing up!

If you're a regular, then you know that we heartily promote butter being added to pretty much everything! Dry cake batter - add butter, vegetables seem a little bland - add butter, that glass of milk boring you - add bu... well, maybe that's too far! But the reason for this post is a little different. It all starts with our infamous Maple Carrot Cake, our first recipe that we tested.

We've nicknamed it the baby-popper and when Ms. Butters' baby shower came around; Mr. Crumbs couldn't think of a better thing to bring - besides his gifts! Unfortunately, the cake didn't do the trick and Ms. Butters remained very much pregnant! We're not blaming this on the cake - and are still very much believers that the nickname sticks - we should have just added more butter; plain and simple! (forget what mother nature says!!)

Batter Up!

However, since we've brought it up - lets talk about some of the amazing gifts Ms. Butters received from her FANTASTIC baby shower! Guests were encouraged to bring a children's book instead of the traditional card. Some brought back GREAT memories like the Mr. Men book collection, others were soft cuddly things like the monkey blanket, and some were new finds like "Go the F**K to Sleep" book. Can you guess which one Mr. Crumbs purchased!?

The gifts were well received and our Mamma to be thanked everyone, as she waddled around the room. Now, back to that cake!

Fresh out of the oven

Throughout Ms. Butter's maternity leave she sent Mr. Crumbs  many text messages and emails,  planting the seed that she hadn't had cake in a while. She shared that sugar didn't seem to be well received by baby-butter - SHOCK! - and she was missing it terribly! So to assist in the waiting period; Mr. Crumbs decided to do a bit of research and make Ms. Butter's a CONGRATULATIONS cake for her and her new arrival - well, more for her! Sifting through recipes and cook books, Mr. Crumbs finally decided upon something - a recipe from the LCBO - and chose Pecan Cinnamon Cupcakes - but instead of cupcakes Mr. Crumbs would make it a cake! With the continued successes from the LCBO; this became the natural choice. The recipe stated it would make a dozen cupcakes; so doubling the recipe would make a very nice layered cake.

While Ms. Butters was whisked off to the hospital - but still managed to keep track on the progress of the baking and share updates with all that she was going through: how far dilated she was, the joy of an epidural, and discussions between having a c-section and a "natural birth" - Mr. Crumbs is a very GOOD friend! (and yes, he wrote this particular blog so he can edit it however he wants!) With the cake baked and all the previous text messages erased from his mind - he began to make the icing - not the usual butter cream, but something more: a toffee-esque sauce with icing sugar whisked in. It seemed a bit tricky at first, but turned out AMAZING! If you're a fudge lover, then this icing is for you!

Bring to a rolling boil - the icing - pre-icing sugar

The icing does set pretty fast, so you need to ice those badboys right away - and since Mr. Crumbs decided NOT to make cupcakes (well, he made four as he had a bit of left over batter) he thought it'd be a lot faster! WRONG! The icing set pretty fast and with icing sugar still in the air, he spatula'ed that cake faster than he'd care to share. Since this was a Pecan Cinnamon cake - Mr. Crumbs thought he'd jazz it up by sprinkling chopped praline pecans between the two layers and on top.

All in all the cake was great - not that Mr. Crumbs would know; it's still sitting in the fridge waiting for the happy family to return home. However, those four cupcakes that he conveniently made were eaten and praised by the Crumbs-home. Even the cat liked the icing!

Some modifications that Mr. Crumbs made were:

- Instead of making cupcakes, he made a layered cake using 9" cake pans
- Doubled the cake recipe and tripled the icing recipe
- Instead of using chopped toasted pecans; Mr. Crumbs used chopped praline pecans - sugar, how bad could that be!
- Mr. Crumbs also whipped the icing once the icing sugar was added to ensure that it was thoroughly incorporated and, more importantly to break up the crystalized sugar.

The cake/cupcake can stay out at room temperature for 2-3 days or in the refrigerator for up to a week (if it lasts that long!). Also it would go great with an ice-cold glass of milk!

The Cake... man, it's heavy!!

To conclude this post; Mr. Crumbs just wanted to finish it off with: Congratulations Ms. Butters; my friend - we are so happy to welcome your new family member into the group - and considering that this baby is yours; we all know that we have a future-foodie on our hands!

Happy Birthday Baby Butter!

How do you like your coffee... cake

With a chill in the air, the scarves out of the closet, and the leaves changing from vibrant greens to golden reds: Fall; what's better than that! After giving out the last of the mini chocolate bars, Halloween is now officially out of the way. The jack'o'lanterns have found their way to the curb, the ghosts, ghouls, and skeletons have been boxed up and put away to scare another day, and the spider webs have mostly been gathered from the bushes - now time to focus on the next big celebration.



Apples and Cranberries

 What better way to celebrate then to blog and bake - and what's better than cake? Nothing you say... well, we agree - cake is "the end all be all" to Ms. Butters, especially since any leftover cake slices often become that night's main dinner option.

Ms Butters and Mr Crumbs are getting super excited for Christmas (the stores have all their shiny holiday nick-nacks out on display... so no, we don't think it's too early to get excited) and we decided to pull out an older copy of the LCBO's Holiday Magazines out to get in the spirit.



Apple Cranberry Tea Cake

 We wanted to have something with fruit; because fruit goes with dessert which = delicious.  We found an apple cranberry tea cake and it sounded festive enough without being too Christmas-y.

The nicest thing about this recipe is that the only thing Ms. Butters didn't have in her pantry were cranberries and they were easy enough to pick up. The recipe suggests fresh cranberries, but we like the ease of frozen - plus the grocery store hasn't gotten fresh ones yet.

Using a spring form pan, we buttered (Ms. Butters surprisingly used an appropriate amount when Mr. Crumbs would have been much more liberal) the pan and put in 2/3 of the dough and layered on the apples and cranberries. Mr. Crumbs put on the rest of the dough and Ms. Butters felt that the cake needed more cranberries (as Mr. Crumbs diced up more apples than what the recipe called for - next time read the recipe!).

We felt that this recipe worked out really well and enjoyed how easy it was to make. This cake is the best served hot out of the oven or later in the day. Ms. Butters recommends that this cake freezes well and even tastes better ice cold with a warm cup of tea or hot chocolate.

Ready for the oven!

One thing that we would do differently next time with this recipe would be to include all the ingredients, as we forgot to add the sliced almonds. To modify, we would double the cake/dough recipe and possibly add cinnamon to the dough as well as sprinkle the top of the cake with raw sugar to add a crunch and sweetness to counter the tartness of the cranberries.

P.S: LCBO is using the incorrect picture on their website, which is why our pictures look so different.