The Baking Medic

Pear + White Chocolate = Delicious Muffins

It’s the Easter break here in St Andrews and most students are off cavorting away somewhere on the Continent. Alas, for medics, the 2 week break finds us at home or still in the Bubble looking longingly outside as we get our first days of spring.  Such is the lot of people who have midterms the first day back from the “break”.

But I still found some time to make these muffins.  A few months back, I made a Glazed Pear & White Chocolate Bundt cake.  I loved the combination of pear and white chocolate, two soft sweet complementary flavours.  So this past weekend, I was running low on a few ingredients and was looking for a recipe to use up a couple of pears that I had sitting around.  See I was butter-less, which pretty much rules out 75% of cake and cookie recipes.  So I decided to go looking for a muffin recipe and I found a great basic buttermilk muffin recipe.  The recipe originally called for berries, but I substituted the same volume of chopped up pear and white chocolate chips.

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Omg. This mousse is divine!  And I think it’s most defining feature is that it’s eggless — so no consuming raw eggs (although I confess to regularly trying the cookie dough) or any fiddling about with beating until “soft peaks” form.  The secret to this mousse is that it uses cream cheese and whipped cream to achieve it’s smooth creaminess and lightness.  This recipe was adapted from a version I found on one of my favourite blogs, Closet Cooking.  Kevin there adapted it from a recipe from the Dairy Farmers of Canada — which explains the prominent use of dairy products in the recipe.

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Almost halfway through Week 2, my studies are definitely well underway… and I’m already well behind on notes! ;_; But nothing says procrastination productive distraction like baking and I’ve already brought in treats for my classmates a few times! :) This cake is from my Golden Book of Chocolate, one of the most amazing chocolate cookbooks every published.  I was surprised and impressed by its comprehensive introduction, packed full of information about the history of chocolate, it’s production, and it’s role in the economic world of today.  The language is a bit grandiose, but it was informative nonetheless.

However, what really sets this book apart is the variety and quantity of recipes.  There are over 300 of them! And every single recipe is accompanied by a mouthwatering, foodgasm inducing photo.  It’s a pleasure simply to sit down with a cup of tea and slowly leaf through it’s golden pages. » Read the rest of this entry «

Cheesecake Brownies with Raspberry Marble

Although I routinely get the ‘brownie-shakes’, it’s not often that I crave cheesecake.  But last week, the urge hit and I couldn’t ignore it: I just had to make something with cheesecake in it.  Since I had decided that bars would be more practical if I wanted to share these with my colleagues at work, it was just a matter of choosing the type of base I wanted.

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So I’m very much behind on my posting again.  That’s not to say I haven’t been baking! Indeed, I feel like Ive been baking more than ever.  Perhaps it’s in procrastination – I’ve got a midterm this afternoon! *gulp* Go figure that I choose the morning of the midterm to post and not anytime in the past two weeks.

This post will be a quicky.   Just some pictures to let you know that I haven’t given up on this blog. :) If you want the recipe, just give me an email and I’ll be happy to send it too you! » Read the rest of this entry «

A thing of beauty!

Wait, did she just say… low-fat? Hellz yes I did.  This delicious cake uses a grand total of three tablespoons of canola oil — three! That’s less than a quarter cup, yet the cake manages to stay light and moist.  Dry and crumbly “diet” cakes begone!

Right, and now for an explanation that’s a little less random.

Yes this cake is a low fat version of the popular lemon poppyseed cake.  For a while now I have been wanting to try so called “lite” baking to see how these goods compare to the real deal.  Now as I’ve done some recipe perusing before, I had a vague idea of what ingredients to expect.  Namely, using applesauce as a fat substitute (in place of butter or oil) and egg whites instead of whole eggs. » Read the rest of this entry «

It seems my blog is running away from me again.  It’s probably been a week since I last posted, and I’ve got at least four things waiting to go up!  Still I suppose it is still better to have too many things to blog about than too few.

This post happens to be about a fresh peach and blueberry galette and my first solo venture into the world of pastry making.  You might think “solo venture” is an odd way to phrase it, but it’s the truth.  In the past, I’ve helped my Grandma make her famous apple pie (whose Grandma doesn’t make the most delicious apple pie you’ve ever tasted?) but I’ve always eschewed pastry making in favour of the more simple “throw everything into a bowl and stir” approach to baking. » Read the rest of this entry «

I can think of almost no better way to start the day than eating a plateful of steaming blueberry cakes, smothered in sweet syrup with a few sausages or pieces of bacon on the side.   You may find it a bit strange, but in Canada it is common practice to eat your sausages with the syrup.  That way you get the sweet taste of maple melding beautifully with the savoury, saltiness of the bacon.  Try it sometime!

The recipe is quite simple and comes from our good friend, Victor, who has made these for years before finally sharing with us his recipe. I find it varies just a little bit each time I make it.  So if the batter looks too runny, add a bit more flour.  And if it looks too thick, dribble a bit more milk into the batter. » Read the rest of this entry «