Jam and Soda Bread

One of the things I used to love to do with my mother was make jam every summer. We would go and get fresh fruit from either a local farm or the farmers market. Growing up I don't think that we ever had store bought jam in our house thanks to my mum. We made strawberry, raspberry, apricot, peach and when my mum could could find them damson plum jams. My daughter likes jam but my husband doesn't have much of a sweet tooth and jam lasts a long time in our house. I still make jam every year for my dad though because the store-bought stuff just doesn't measure up. When you make jam though it has to be tested, bread is fine but soda bread or scones are much better, especially freshly baked and still warm. Soda bread is a very easy recipe (when you remember all the ingredients) and I make it regularly for my dad and daughter.

For my husband's birthday I made his favourite dessert....cheesecake. This is a baked cheesecake that I have been making for many years. It's one of the few desserts he actually likes. This time I made a little mistake that I won't be making again. I was out of graham cracker crumbs for the base so I used cookies instead....big mistake. Let's just say that after clearing out my kitchen of the smoke from the drippings on the bottom of the oven the cake was saved. Thank goodness for self-cleaning ovens!!! Everyone enjoyed the cake though so it was a success.

Trifling around.....

One of the desserts that has always meant Christmas to me is trifle. It's long been my favourite and last year I attempted to make my first one. It was a success (according to my family anyway). This year I made 2 trifles, an adult friendly Chocolate/orange one and a child friendly chocolate blackcurrent/strawberry one.

They were both big hits. The chocolate/orange trifle was supposed to be a "candied orange and chocolate trifle" however since the candied orange part did not work out all that well I substituted the candied orange on top with grated milk chocolate. No one knew the difference and it was much nicer in my opinion. This one was made with the cake soaked in grand marnier and the whip cream topping had white chocolate incorporated with it. Although I'm not a fan of white chocolate the whip cream really balanced out the flavour and it was nice a creamy.



The second trifle was made with blackcurrent jelly soaked into the chocolate cake with strawberries and blackberries layered in the middle and whip cream with shaved milk chocolate again. Both were very simple to make and they were certainly enjoyed by all.

Pumpkin Spice Muffins

Ok, so it's a little past pumpkin season but I had to share these muffins that I made after Thanksgiving with my leftover pumpkin puree. I love, love, love pumpkin spice anything and muffins are no exception. The Tim Horton's at my work for some reason was not selling them this year. So...I was left with no choice to go the healthier and much cheaper route of making my own. Well I found this great recipe online so I decided to try it out. The muffins were a bit dense but delicious and the best part was that my 6 year old loved them as well. They made for a very special 'treat' and I've been baking them regularly ever since.

Update on baking

I found a recipe for some healthy muffins...ie: no sugar added and tried making them. Well they turned out great and I now make a batch regularly to have for breakfast each morning. They take almost no time to make now that I am becoming more and more experienced with baking.

Easter Cookies

It has been longer than I thought since I last updated my blog. I have been baking just not blogging, since I'm new at this hopefully you will all forgive me. I'll start with the "Easter" Empire cookies that were made for my family coming over for Easter dinner. My 6-year old helper was great at decorating the cookies as you can see.

Pastries

Truth be told the inspiration behind my newly found hobby has more to do with my upbringing than my mixer. My mum was a great baker, she didn't make anything fancy just perfect pastry every time and simple recipes mostly handed down from my grandmother. I used to look forward to coming home or visiting on the days my mum had baked to find butter tarts, almond cookies, ginger cake, scones and so much more. I have tried a few of my mum's recipes including the butter tarts and scones with great success. I have not yet been able to find her ginger cake recipe but I am still diligently searching for it.

Anyway here are butter tarts that I made using store bought pastry shells but the filling is all from scratch.

From Newbie Baker