Dessert By Candy

Buckwheat Oats Date Square

Ingredients

• 225g Medjool dates, pitted and torn in half
• finely grated zest from 1 tangelo
• juice from 1 tangelo topped with enough water to make 190mL (3/4 cup)
• 50g (1/4 cup) raw Muscovado sugar, optional
• 3/4 cup rolled oats (quick cooking or old fashioned)
• 3/4 cup buckwheat flour
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 125mL (1/2 cup) melted coconut oil

Method

1. Preheat oven to 400F. Line a 8-inch square baking pan with parchment paper.
2. In a small sauce pan, simmer dates, tangelo zest, juice, and water over low heat until soft, about 10 minutes. Mash with spoon or spatula to a paste. Set aside.
3. In the bowl of a food processor, combine sugar, oats, buckwheat flour, cinnamon, cardamom, baking soda, and salt in 5 pulses. Drizzle in coconut oil and pulse until mixture turn into wet crumbs.
4. Divide 3/4 of the crumbs into prepared pan and press with fingers to form the crust. Dollop date paste on top of crust and spread with offset spatula into an even thin layer. Sprinkle on remaining crumbs evenly on top and lightly pressed with fingers.
5. Bake for 25-30 minutes until top is brown and feels sturdy. Cool in pan.
6. To make neat cuts, chill pan in refrigerator for 60 minutes before slicing into 9 or 12 pieces with serrated knife.

One Prep, Two Meals

For time crunch weeknight dinners, nothing pleases me more than having all my ingredients washed, cut, and ready to cook. This is especially true for dishes that require meticulous prep involving long list of ingredients. Last weekend I spent a leisurely afternoon slicing up a storm and the result was not one, but two different dinners that satisfied my cravings for Korean food.

I never really thought about it but bibimbap and japchae are remarkably similar. One is rice bowl topped with rainbow of toppings and the other stir fried sweet potato noodles tossed with the same spectrum of colours. I think this is the best way to describe my streamlined dinners:

Persian Orange Torte with Cream Cheese Frosting

One of my most memorable pastry experiences in Sydney was Black Star Pastry in Newtown. The closet-size store was packed with customers at any given time and with good reasons. Never mind that I felt so out of place in hipster central. Everything was prepared with great care and absolutely delicious. I only wished I had stomach room to sample more from their creative selection of cakes, pastries, and cookies. It’s been over 10 months since I returned home and I still dream about their Orange Cake with Persian Fig.

I did a bit of digging around and discovered to my surprise that the cake is gluten free. The incredibly moist crumb is result of using whole boiled oranges in the batter. Using whole boiled oranges is not a usual practice with cake baking. How curious! These two clues led me to Claudia Roden’s Middle Eastern Orange Cake recipe. It appears this is a common cake to serve in cafes in Australia. Black Star Pastry’s interpretation included a luscious cream cheese frosting and loaded with rose petals, pistachios, dried figs, and quince paste. I set out to recreate this cake in my home kitchen.

Apple Cider Soft Caramel

My summer plan for Candy By Candy fell through when I got too busy digging myself out of some emotional turmoil. I am disappointed by my lack of commitment but also relieved that the troubles are mostly behind me now. I still have plenty of supplies that I bought when I planned for my pop up shop including stacks of wrapping paper and pounds of couverture chocolate. I am determine to put them to good use even though my plan has changed.

For years I made caramel candies and painstakingly cut squares of wax or parchment paper to wrap them individually. It was labour of love. Pre-cut twisting paper is definitely money well-spent if you make candies even on a semi-regular basis. The paper remains firmly twisted around the candy instead of unravelling. The clear cellophane twisting paper shows off the candy in attractive and professional manner. I cannot recommend them enough. The only issue is that cellophane twisting paper are hard buy retail in Toronto. I ordered mine in the US ($25.95 for 1000 sheets) and delivered during my travels.

Kuzumochi, Summertime Treat

I’ve been avoiding the oven since the weather warms up. My kitchen feels so empty without the constant output of bread, cookies, and cakes. Just as well because I have other things on my mind. It almost feels strange that I am 100% back into my training routine. Seven weeks and counting! The last two years have been filled with so many injuries and illnesses that I don’t recall any consecutive stretches of training lasting longer than a few weeks. It was always stop and go in hopes of stopping a turning tide. It feels unreal that my effort today may one day transforms to speed on wheels. I am afraid to hope because the disappointment will be crushing…if? when? training is once again out of the question.

Last weekend I looked up my to cook list and kuzumochi caught my attention. A few months ago, I stashed away all the special ingredients for this traditional Japanese summertime delicacy and totally forgot about it. Good thing I remembered because those ingredients are not cheap in North America. It would have been a huge waste if they end up sitting in the dark corners of my pantry for years. Luckily, sourcing the ingredients is the toughest part. The recipe itself is ridiculously easy.

4C Bar: Cider, Crispies, Caramel, Cinnamon

I am learning quickly about candy making. An important part of my education is experimenting with different techniques and styles. I am familiar with making dry and wet caramel thinned with cream after the caramel reaches the desired degree of caramelization. However, I did not try making it with every ingredient all in the pot from the start. This was the reason that drew me to Liddabit Sweets’ Passion Spice Bar. The description of this chocolate bar is enticing enough on its own: passion fruit spiked caramel with a touch of cayenne and rice crispies enrobed in chocolate. Mmm.

I had one little problem though. It is not trivial for me to source passion fruit puree.  The uniquely tropical tart flavour of passion fruit cannot really be substituted. Thankfully, the recipe suggested an alternative of using three times the volume of passion fruit juice. While the caramel cooks, the excess water evaporates to create a more concentrated dose of flavour. I decided to take that idea one step further and used unfiltered apple cider and cinnamon instead. Cider, Crispies, Caramel, and Cinnamon. That’s 4 Cs in one!

Candy By Candy: Quick, A Hostess Gift!

Do you find yourself in a bind for an emergency hostess gift? The last few years I was rarely in that situation thanks to diligent canning and preserving. Last year, I made a conscious decision to slow down my jam-making activities to reduce backlog in my larder. As a result, I don’t have many ready-made hostess gift anymore. On the other hand, my friends let out a collective sigh of relief. Finally, no more jam!

Last week I needed to come up with a quick hostess gift while juggling a few other baking projects at the same time. I wanted something easy to make, keeps well, travels well, and can be slowly savoured over weeks. I made sesame candies not too long ago and they certainly fit all the criteria. The only problem was that I was not 100% happy with the result last time.

Baked Tapioca Pudding with Azuki Swirl 西米豆沙焗布甸

Here is a dessert I learned to make as a kid and updated with adult sensibility. Native Hong Kong cuisine has a lot of fusion dishes with equal parts Cantonese and colonial British influence. Dim sum restaurant is a wonderful breeding ground for such innovation with its small plate dining concept. Sunday dim sum brunch with my grandparents always included classic stalwarts like har gow 蝦餃 shrimp dumplings and shumai 燒賣 pork dumplings. But there would be treats for the kids and baked tapioca pudding was my top favourite. The very western baked vanilla pudding is given an Asian twist with tapioca pearls and swirls of sweetened lotus seed paste 蓮蓉 or azuki bean paste 豆沙. I burned my lips many times because the hot pudding was just too tempting.

It did not take long before I learned to make my own under my mother’s supervision. The ubiquitous recipe came printed on the iconic yellow box of cornstarch that was found in every household. Actually, it still comes with every box. See the 80s magazine clipping on the left (that perm!) and my fresh box of cornstarch on the right? It’s reassuring to know that something doesn’t change.

The problem is, it did not taste very good now that I think about it. Much too rubbery! I should not be surprise since the cornstarch-heavy recipe came from the cornstarch company. Actually, even the ones I ate at dim sum restaurants were like that. I much prefer my pudding on the softer side.

Gluten Free Sandwich Bread Success

I have been curious about gluten free baking for some time. Some recipes are inherently gluten free, like macaroons. I consider them entry level items. A step up the difficulty meter is recipes that benefit from little gluten development, such as quick breads. You probably come across muffin or pancake recipes that urge you to stir gently or the baked good would turn tough. My personal favourite is using buckwheat flour for these kinds of application. The holy grail for gluten free baking is of course bread whose texture and structure depend on gluten development. Those lovely open crumb is the direct result of the elasticity of gluten.

More and more of my friends have chosen a gluten free diet for health reasons. Few are intolerant of digesting gluten but many confess that their overall physical wellness improve. Personally, I choose to maintain a balanced diet that does not exclude any particular food groups. However, the challenge of gluten free baking intrigues me. With the extra time of staying at home last week, I took the chance to experiment with gluten free sandwich bread.

Lazy Girl's Buckwheat Waffles

I love the taste of buckwheat and use it regularly for baking. At the waffle party, I prepared a batch of overnight yeasted buckwheat waffles using Orangette’s recipe. It inspired me to utter the word ethereal. One caveat is that the recipe requires planning ahead and Saturday night is usually not the time to stir a batter (oh that is absolutely not an euphemism). I want buckwheat waffles that I can whip up at spur of the moment.  I want a recipe that doesn’t involve fussy steps like separating the eggs or whipping extra egg whites into clouds.

Generally speaking, I like to use 1:1 ratio of gluten free flour with all purpose wheat flour. The wheat flour helps with developing structure and the gluten free flour asserts its unique taste. With buckwheat, experience told me I can usually get away with using 100% buckwheat flour without compromising texture for pancakes and waffles. I am quite pleased with these gluten free 100% buckwheat waffles.