Sticky toffee pudding

I'm sure the protests will roll in, but I'm a much bigger fan of British puddings than Italian desserts. Despite the innate passion of the Italian people, there is something much more indulgent about a good old warm English pudding, dripping with cream, loads of moist cake.
As they are in everyday life, English desserts are straightforward - what you see is what you get. And so when I was writing my Christmas menu, I didn't realize until later that I planned to make not one but two English desserts: cherry chocolate trifle, and sticky toffee pudding.
My parents beseeched me: Please make something light for dessert. They're keen to keep their cholesterol and weight down. But I told them I had been waiting to make sticky toffee pudding all year. Because it's that kind of dessert - rich, multi-layered, dense, interesting depth of flavour, that you crave on Christmas Day. And so I turned, once again, to Jill O'Connor's amazing "Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey" book.

Ingredients for the cake:
2 cups pitted dates (about 12 ounces)
1 1/2 cups water
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups bleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Ingredients for toffee sauce:
1 cup unsalted butter
3 cups firmly packed dark brown sugar
2 cups heavy cream
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt

vanilla ice cream for serving

Directions (adapted from O'Connor's recipe):
Butter muffin tin or spray with cooking tray. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Combine dates and water in saucepan. Bring to gentle boil, reduce heat to simmer and cook uncovered until dates have absorbed water. Remove from heat and stir in 1 teaspoon of baking soda. Let stand for about 20 minutes.

Meantime, sift together all dry ingredients for cake, and then set aside. In another bowl, beat together butter and brown sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, and then add vanilla. Stir dates into batter. Gently fold dry ingredients wet batter.

Fill muffin cups and then bake for about 22 to 28 minutes until tooth pick comes out clean.

While baking, make the toffee sauce. Start by combine butter and brown sugar over medium heat in saucepan. Cook until they melt then add cream, vanilla, salt. Increase heat high and bring to boil. Reduce to simmer and cook, stirring frequently until sauce thickens, 6 to 8 minutes.

Remove cakes from oven and poke tops with wooden skewer then drizzle warm sauce atop cake. If you like, add some vanilla ice cream.

Would I make this again?
Yes, I would, but for special occasions that call for rich sweets like this one.

Grade:
Four stars out of five. Yes, it was delicious, and one of my ultimate indulgences. But I can see that it won't be to everyone's taste. My only complaint is that for whatever reason, my oven temperature wasn't staying consistent, and I had to keep a sharp eye on the temperature on my thermometer.
Turns out I should have watched it more carefully because this batter was more sensitive than I thought. The puddings in my older, darker muffin tin burned on the bottom. But that wasn't a big problem as this recipe made about 18 servings, and that was much too much. (If you run into this problem, simply cut away the bottom, you will be soaking it in yummy toffee syrup anyway.

Nigella's cherry chocolate trifle

I bought this glass bowl just to make this trifle for Christmas. If chocolate custard and sour cherries and chocolate pound cake don't spell Christmas dessert, what does? In my mind, Christmas dessert should be indulgent, should be creamy, should be luscious, moist, decadent. Should make you feel guilty. Hence - cherry chocolate trifle. I must admit, I'm a sucker for Black Forest cake, so the ingredients in this pudding were a no-brainer. Even if you don't like Black Forest cake, however, chances are you'll fall head over heels over this one.
If you don't have a trifle bowl, like I didn't, try a large glass bowl. As long as your guests can see the layers of gooey, luscious, decadence, it will do.
Here's the recipe, as created by Nigella Lawson. You can also find it in her book "Nigella Feasts":

Ingredients:
2 (approximately 12 ounces each) chocolate pound cakes
1/2 cup black cherry jam
1/2 cup cherry brandy
2 cups drained bottled sour cherries (recommended: Morello)

Custard:
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, minimum 70 percent cocoa solids, chopped
1 1/3 cups plus 1 tablespoon milk
1 1/3 cups plus 1 tablespoon heavy cream
8 egg yolks
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
1/3 cup cocoa

Topping:
3 cups heavy cream
1-ounce bittersweet chocolate

Directions:
Slice the chocolate pound cake and make jam sandwiches with the cherry jam, and layer the bottom of a large wide trifle bowl. Pour over the cherry brandy so that the cake soaks it up, and then top with the drained cherries. Cover with cling wrap and leave to macerate while you make the custard.

Melt the chocolate on low to medium heat in the microwave, checking after 2 minutes, though it will probably need 4 minutes. Or you can place it in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Once the chocolate is melted, set aside while you get on with the custard.

In a saucepan warm the milk and cream. Whisk the egg yolks, sugar, and cocoa in a large bowl. Pour the warm milk and cream into the bowl whisking it into the yolks and sugar mixture. Stir in the melted chocolate, scraping the sides well with a rubber spatula to get all of it in, and pour the custard back into the rinsed saucepan. Cook over a medium heat until the custard thickens, stirring all the time. Make sure it doesn't boil, as it will split and curdle. Keep a sink full of cold water so that if you get scared you can plunge the bottom of the custard pan into the cold water and whisk like mad, which will avert possible crisis.

The custard will get darker as it cooks and the flecks of chocolate will melt once the custard has thickened. And you do need this thick, so don't panic so much that you stop cooking while it is still runny. Admittedly, it continues to thicken as it cools and also when it's chilling in the refrigerator. Once it is ready, pour into a bowl to cool and cover the top of the custard with cling wrap to prevent a skin from forming.

When the custard is cold, pour and spread it over the chocolate cake layer in the trifle bowl, and leave in the refrigerator to set, covered in cling wrap overnight.

When you are ready to decorate, softly whip the cream for the topping and spread it gently over the layer of custard. Grate the chocolate over the top.

My substitutions:
I couldn't find plain chocolate pound cake at the grocery store, and didn't have the time to make my own, so I used a denser Belgian chocolate loaf cake. It worked just fine.

Would I make this again?
Yes, definitely, but only for a large group. This recipe can serve at least 16 people, if not more. It can be a lot of dessert for people who are used to just fruit and biscuits at the end of their meal.

Grade:
Five stars out of five. Beautiful, delicious, indulgent. And it even tastes better the next day once all the ingredients have settled and fused together. How can you go wrong?

Spiced apple walnut cupcakes with brown sugar buttercream

These spiced apple walnut cupcakes, with brown sugar butter cream frosting, and dulce de leche filling, hit the right spot during the holidays.
It was my first time making butter cream, and despite my apprehensions, it worked. I'm not a big fan of butter cream but this brown sugar version is a nice alternative, it masks the strong taste of butter and is easy to work with.

Star of Bethlehem cupcakes

I made these cupcakes for our annual cousins' Christmas party and had high hopes they would turn out like the ones in Susannah Blake's book "Cupcakes" -- which contains some great ideas for amateur bakers, by the way.

But as the clock continued to tick ever faster and I realized I was going to be late for the party, it quickly became obvious that the frosting - a standard one made of icing sugar, egg whites, and lemon juice - required more patience and time that I had.

Festive cheesecake pops

These were my contribution to the holiday potluck at my workplace and they were well-received. As one of my co-workers put it, anything on a stick is good. Indeed.
I flagged this recipe for cheesecake pops just about as soon as I cracked open the cookbook "Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey," by Jill O'Connor. I've said this before, and I'll say it again, this book is just dreamy. It makes me want to want to roll around in flour and dark brown sugar until I finish every single recipe in the book.

Recipe adapted from "Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey"
Ingredients:

5 8-oz. packages cream cheese at room temperature
2 cups sugar¼ cup all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
5 large eggs
2 egg yolks
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
¼ cup heavy cream
Boiling water as needed
8-inch lollipop sticks
1 pound chocolate, finely chopped – you can use all one kind or half and half of dark, milk, or white (Alternately, you can use 1 pound of flavored coatings, also known as summer coating, confectionery coating or wafer chocolate – candy supply stores carry colors, as well as the three kinds of chocolate.)
2 tablespoons vegetable shortening
Assorted decorations such as chopped nuts, colored jimmies, crushed peppermints, mini chocolate chips, sanding sugars, dragees) - Optional

Directions:

1. Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 170C/325F

2. In a large bowl, with an electric mixer set on a low speed, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, flour and salt until smooth. Add the whole eggs and the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well (still on a low speed) after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and cream.

3. Lightly grease a 10-inch cake tin (not a springform pan). Pour the cheesecake batter into the cake pan and place in a larger roasting pan. Fill the roasting pan with boiling water until it reaches halfway up the sides of the cake pan. Bake until the cheesecake is firm and slightly golden on top - 35 to 45 minutes.

4. Remove the cheesecake from the waterbath and cool to room temperature. Cover the cheesecake with plastic wrap and refrigerate until very cold, at least 3 hours or up to overnight.

5. When cold and very firm, scoop the cheesecake into 2-ounce balls and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Carefully insert a lollipop stick into each cheesecake ball. Freeze the pops, uncovered, until very hard - at least 1 to 2 hours.

6. When the cheesecake pops are frozen and ready for dipping, prepare the chocolate coating. Place the chocolate wafers in a microwave-proof bowl. Microwave on high for 30 seconds. Remove and stir. If the chocolate is not completely melted, microwave for 30-second intervals, stirring until smooth. (Or just melt some chocolate in a bowl over some boiling water.)

7. Quickly dip a frozen cheesecake pop into the melted chocolate, swirling quickly to coat it completly. Hold the pop over the melted chocolate and shake off any excess. Place the pop on a clean parchment paper-lined tray to set. Repeat with the remaining pops, melting more chocolate if needed.

Refrigerate for up to 24 hours, or until ready to serve.

My substitutions:The only way I strayed from the recipe is in the sprinkles I used for decor - I used festive red-and-green poinsettia sprinkles, bright red sanding sugar, sweetened flaked coconut, and white snowflake sprinkles.

Would I make this again?
These would make a lovely hostess gift and add a bright dash of colour to any sweet table. Already I'm planning the next batch, this time only with white chocolate and pastel coloured confetti sprinkles. While I read that some other food bloggers halved the recipe because they ended up making too many cheesecake pops, I did indeed end up with between 30-40 pops, so the recipe was accurate for me. However, I wish I had bought more chocolate. I bought about one-and-a-half pounds, which was more than the recipe called for, but I used every last drop and became increasingly nervous as it began to run out.

Grade:
Four stars out of five. While these are delicious and pretty, they are also time-consuming. I started two nights before actually serving them. On the first night I made the cheesecake then put it in the refrigerator. On the second night, I scooped out the cheesecake balls, froze them for a couple of hours and then decorated them. Unless you're a veritable Betty Crocker who stays at home, most of us can't finish it in one go.

Cappuccino cupcakes with dulce de leche filling

These mouthfuls of chocolatey, coffee-flavoured, bites of goodness are not for the faint of heart.
If even a smidgen of sugar makes your heart pitter-patter, you may want to gaze longingly at these cupcakes from afar.
OK, who are we kidding? If you're anything like me, you'll barely be able to resist sinking your teeth into the unadorned fresh-out-of-the-oven cupcakes.
It was all I could do to save these for my sister's dinner party instead of eating them before the frosting had barely settled. And who could blame me?

Butterscotch pudding

When I began collecting bone china tea cups - Aynsley, Royal Albert, and Limoges - I vowed to myself that I wouldn't just put them in storage, dust them once a year and gaze at them longingly. So I've been on the hunt for a recipe to showcase in my beautiful tea cups.
And finally I found the perfect recipe for butterscotch pudding while perusing pastry chef David Lebovitz's scrumptious food blog.
It's the perfect solution when you're entertaining several people and don't want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen away from your guests. Not only can you create individualized portions but you prepare them in advance. Then once it's time for dessert, all you need to do is pull them out of the fridge and accept heartfelt compliments.
Lebovitz tells his readers that if they are the kind of people who want to press plastic wrap on top of the pudding to prevent the skin from forming, he wonders why they are eating pudding in the first place? I can't say I'm a pudding purist. In fact, I'd probably try to avoid the skin from forming if I could, but there was no need to worry in this case - after chilling these for about four hours, they came out just right.

My substitutions: My only additions were dollops of homemade whipped cream, raspberries, and white chocolate hearts made of compound chocolate - which does not need any tempering. Also, I used dark brown sugar rather than cassonade and despite Lebovitz's warnings, there was no curdling.

Would I make this again? Yes, it would make a delightful dessert alternative for a young girl's birthday party, or even for a spring-time tea party. The recipe came through without any problems and it hit just the right notes. Gorgeous to behold, a treat to taste. And the dash of whisky elevated this dessert from a childhood favourite to an adult indulgence.

Grade: Five stars out of five. This one covers all the bases - straightforward directions, short list of ingredients, easy to prepare in advance, and easy to plate for even the most amateur pastry chef.

Part two: What's cooking for Christmas?

I admit, I've been neglecting the blog, but with good reason. With the Canadian parliamentary crisis, and my book publishing course drawing to a close, all of my active brain cells have been otherwise occupied.
Here's my promised update on my "What's Cooking for Christmas" series for CTV.ca's holiday guide.
With just a couple of weeks to go before Christmas, if you're still desperately rifling through gravy-splotched recipes, here are some new ideas:

• Try award-winning cookbook author Bonnie Stern's latkes recipe.


• Or maybe you have no time? Try the "Surreal Gourmet" Bob Blumer's five-minute turkey dinner.


• If you'd like to inject some Asian flavour into your holiday meal, try globe-trotting gourmet Naomi Duguid's Thai sticky rice.


• You must have heard of food writer Jennifer MacLagan by now. In her latest book "Fat" she makes the case the maligned "greasy killer" is not only delicious but good for you. She shared with me her recipe for shortbread.


• And finally, master of French cuisine Didier Leroy shared with me his recipe for honey-roasted chestnut soup.

Not to give too much away, but I've finally cemented some of my own holiday menus. For my sister's dinner party, apple spiced walnut cupcakes with buttercream frosting. For my friend's holiday brunch, I'll make hazelnut scones and mango butter. For my work potluck, festive cheesecake pops.

For my cousins' Christmas get-together, I'll make vanilla cupcakes with dulce de leche filling and fondant. For Christmas eve dinner, I'll take either a cherry-chocolate trifle, or cappuccino cupcakes with chocolate frosting. For Christmas Day, Tana Ramsay's ham, spinach and Gruyere croissant ring, which I've made once before to great fanfare, and sticky toffee pudding. I'll post pictures, I promise.

Cupcake Decorating 101: My Designs

When I signed up for an all-day designer cupcake decorating class at Bonnie Gordon's School of Confectionary Arts, it was all I could do not to tell everyone who crossed my path. Her wedding cakes have been featured in countless magazines and Hollywood movies and I'd been drooling over her cakes for years.

While I can say I am confident with my baking abilities, I was always intimidated by decorating.
I did my best copying the finished product in my cookbooks, but I stayed away from pastry bags, and tips, and coloured buttercream.

No more! Not only did I come home with seven beautiful cupcakes, but a bag full of gel food colouring, a cupcake turntable, piping and decorating tips, and even fondant and gum traganth.

Cupcake crazy

Today, I spent way too much money on cupcake wrappers. Three dozen wrappers for - wait a minute, I don't want to admit it. Let's just say, enough to buy a nice pair of jeans. The whole selection is available online at Paper Orchid. Stay tuned, I promise to post photos as soon as I use these. I also picked up the black filigree wrappers and the watermelon-coloured flower design wrappers.

Hot-pink beet risotto and creamy butternut squash soup

These recipes are from David Rocco's "Dolce Vita" eponymous cookbook. I must admit, I was skeptical before I opened the cover. Rocco is no professional chef, and he is the first to admit it.
But his enthusiasm for Italian food and zest for la dolce vita more than makes up for it. So when I saw his simple recipe for this savoury soup, and I saw that I had all the ingredients on hand, I decided to try it.

Butternut squash soup, or zuppa di zucca

Ingredients:
4 tbsp butter; 1 potato, cubed; 1 butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cubed; salt and pepper; 3 cups vegetable stock; 1/2 cup whipping cream; freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano; truffle oil for drizzling.


Adapted directions:
Melt the butter and add the potato, squash, and seasonings. When they've slightly caramelized, pour in enough stock to cover the veggies. Turn the heat down to medium and simmer for about 10 minutes. Now pour into blender and puree. Pour back into pot and add cream and cheese. Drizzle oil in each bowl, and grate Parmesan on top of the soup.

My substitutions:
I made sure the cream was room temperature before adding as I've curdled soup before and it ain't pretty. Also, I roasted chestnuts, chopped them, and put them in the middle of the soup bowls before serving. I was inspired by Didier Leroy's recipe for honey-roasted chestnut soup. As garnish, I also topped each bowl with a chestnut.

Would I make this again?
Yes, in fact, this week. I'd add more vegetable stock though, as this soup thickened quite quickly.
Grade: Four stars out of five. This soup is flavourful, indulgent, rich, the colour brightens up your table, but it was much too thick. I tried to correct it by adding more stock and cream later on, but it was too late. You might even consider using a smaller potato, and I encourage you to use more stock from the get-go.


Risotto with beet puree, or risotto con pure di barbabietola

I don't have kids, but if I ever have a picky eater for a daughter like my girly girl of a sister, I'm convinced this hot pink side dish will do the trick.

Ingredients:
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil; 2 tbsp butter; 2 shallots, finely chopped; 2 cups risotto; 1 cup white wine; salt; 4 cups vegetable stock; 2 cups fresh beet juice; freshly grated Parmesan; truffle oil for drizzling.

Adapted directions:
Heat up the olive oil and butter and saute the shallots until see-through. Add the rice and stir until it's translucent - this won't take long. Add the white wine. Once it is absorbed, add some salt, lower the heat, and add a ladleful of the vegetable stock. When the rice has absorbed the stock, add some more. Keep going in this fashion. Just before the al-dente stage, add the beet juice. Once it's absorbed, served with a drizzle of truffle oil and Parmesan.

Would I make this again?
Yes I will, when pairing this side dish with a dominant main dish. In this case, I served the risotto with sauteed chicken with mustard cream sauce. It was a mild, but beautiful addition. Truth be told, it's more striking in look than it is in taste. When I first saw "beet juice" in the ingredients, I was hesitant, but then I realized I could simply boil my beets, use them in a salad, and then freeze the right amount of juice in a freezer bag until I needed it. This worked perfectly.

My substitutions:
I didn't make any.

Grade: Four stars out of five
Risotto is finicky - you have to watch it closely on the burner or you will end up with mushy rice. It's not pretty. But if you're careful, you can really wow your guests and add a punch of colour.

Chocolate and Zucchini's chocolate-dipped hazelnut marbles

Pressed for a last-minute sweet for dinner guests, after my macarons failed miserably, I turned to my copy of "Chocolate & Zucchini: Daily Adventures in a Parisian kitchen." Penned by food blogger extraordinaire Clotilde Dusoulier, I read this book cover-to-cover on a train ride from Paris to Amsterdam. It holds a special place in my heart for several reasons: Clotilde's was the first food blog I ever read and bookmarked; I bought this book at Paris' legendary Shakespeare and Company bookstore; and finally, all the recipes I've tried, so far, are divine.
To find some inspiration for my after-dinner sweets, I turned to the chapter entitled Mignardises, French for the "sweet bites" that you get with your coffee at a high-end restaurant. Clotilde says in her blog that the word comes from mignard, "an old-fashioned word which, as a noun, means a small child, and as an adjective means delicate, graceful and pretty."
I happened to have all the necessary ingredients to make the Chocolate-Dipped Hazelnut Marbles, or Billes de Noisettes au Chocolat in French, so I happily set forth.
The end result was these elegant bites of hazelnut heaven that like miniature candied apples and taste like the Ferrero Rocher. The list of ingredients is short and to the point: 1 cup of shelled hazelnuts, 3/4 cup of confectioners' sugar; fine sea salt; 2 teaspoons honey; and 3 ounces of good-quality bittersweet chocolate.

Directions:
In short, you husk the toasted hazelnuts and pulse them with the sugar and salt in a food processor. Then you add the honey with a tablespoon of hot water, and stir the mixture. After leaving the bowl in the refrigerator, you shape the paste into marble-sized balls and plant toothpicks in each one.
After melting the chocolate, and this is the tricky part, you dip the marbles in the chocolate. Rather than try to twirl the marble in the melted chocolate, use a small spatula to spread the chocolate around the hazelnut paste.
Leave the top uncoated so that the paste peeks through. Let the excess chocolate drip off and then let rest somewhere for a couple of hours in a cool place.

My substitutions: I used dark chocolate rather than bittersweet chocolate. Also, despite the directions, I grew impatient and threw the tray in the fridge, despite the recipe warning against this tactic. I wish I had Clotilde's foresight because my husband opened the fridge door and the whole tray went tumbling down. Luckily for me, and him, I had tried them before they had set completely. The recipe also suggests making the marbles with almonds or pecans.

Grade: Four stars out of five. While I will make these chic mignardises again, happily, they were tricky to make and time-consuming too. Set a couple of leisurely hours aside to make these from start to finish, turn on the Carla Bruni tunes and have a glass of wine. Otherwise you'll be sweating when you're in a rush to shape these tiny marbles and dip them carefully in the chocolate. And you might be tempted to, like I did, put them in the refrigerator.