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    • Sourdough Pizza

      Posted at 8:32 pm by smoothiesandsundaes, on April 13, 2018

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      It was Megan’s birthday a couple of days ago, and everyone was expecting me to cook a multi-course meal, do some kind of binge-eating, or travel downtown for a fine-dining experience (ending with a visit to Roselle for desserts, obviously!). But these days, Megan and I really enjoy a good night in: trying a new recipe or an old faithful, opening a bottle of wine and relaxing in our PJs.

      We tried making pizza in the cast iron last week and were so thrilled with the results, that we decided we had to make it again for Megan’s birthday. This recipe could still use a little tweaking, but delicious nonetheless. Continue reading →

      Posted in recipes | 0 Comments

    • Carrot Cake Meets Chad

      Posted at 12:11 am by smoothiesandsundaes, on February 6, 2018

      IMG_4265At the end of last year, Royce and I welcomed the latest (and possibly heaviest) addition to our library: Modernist Bread. We had been looking forward to this moment for more than a year, and thankfully we were not disappointed! The breadth and depth of this thing is overwhelming! We weren’t quite sure how to begin —  for now, the plan of attack is to make at least one recipe per week and meander our way through the recipes and techniques. While the size is intimidating, the content – thankfully –  is not. Currently, we’re in the sourdough section and we’ve been having a ton of fun with the variations!

      Continue reading →

      Posted in Bread, recipes, sourdough | 5 Comments

    • A Better Brownie Recipe

      Posted at 5:25 pm by smoothiesandsundaes, on January 9, 2018

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      In my cooking program, students typically have the freedom to explore whatever recipes they want, with a budget and a final consumer in mind of course. When students create a savoury dish, it normally goes to a catering gig or to clients of the food bank. On the other hand, sweets often end up in the stomachs of hungry teenagers. If you know teenagers like I do, it won’t come as a surprise that each year there are requests for a few common items: cookies, brownies and a molten lava cake.

      A major challenge of giving students freedom with their recipe choices is consistency. If we want to be able to sell the product, and avoid wasting ingredients, we need to have some confidence in the results. One goal of mine is to come up with a reliable set of recipes for some of these favourites. First up: the brownie. Continue reading →

      Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments

    • Rum and Coke Mini Gummy Bears

      Posted at 3:39 pm by smoothiesandsundaes, on December 3, 2017
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      Isn’t he cute?

      A fun approach to this recipe would be to make two batches – one coke gummy mixture and one rum gummy mixture and pipe them into two separate layers for some nice colour/flavour contrast. This would work for other drinks as well…Moscow mule anyone? With enough planning, our next party may have a gummy bar. Continue reading →

      Posted in Confections, recipes, Uncategorized | 0 Comments

    • Dragees 101 – Chocolate covered stuff

      Posted at 12:38 pm by smoothiesandsundaes, on November 26, 2017

       

      Shoko’s gluten free crispies covered in milk chocolate in spring colours.

      Dragees. Dragees or panned products have been made popular for the past couple of years. Pastry chefs around the world are trying to enrobe, tumble, anything and everything. No longer will your chocolate covered just almonds, peanuts, and raisins and come in small confectionery packages called Glosettes. Nowadays, pastry chefs and chocolatier will try to pan cereal, puffed grains, toffee, gummies with various flavour combinations and finishing them with different colours making them very attractive and appealing. In many instances, taking something that is done in the commercial world and trying to refine it usually have a few issues:

       

      1) Public perception. Why would I pay $12/ jar for chocolate covered raisins when I Glosettes

      2) Time. There are limitations to the batch size since we are using small tabletop panners

      3) Money. Nuts are expensive, and unless you’re buying hundreds of kilos

      4) Lack of knowledge. We are still missing some trade secrets to get the ultimate shine.

      5) Exposure to resources. Glazes and polish are sold by the 10s of gallons.

      6) Co-packing. But there lies an issues of – is it artisan any more? Continue reading →

      Posted in Chocolate | 0 Comments

    • To Shine or not to shine.

      Posted at 2:59 pm by smoothiesandsundaes, on November 25, 2017

      For some time now, I have been debating whether or not it’s worthwhile to polish panned products. The approach of making your chocolate panned items shine is becoming more and more popular recently. This process is sometimes finicky, the final shine is very much dependent on time, temperature, relative humidity, and even batch size – many variables as you can see. I guess it comes down to a preference, what do you prefer?


      Before polish and shellac

      After polish and shellac
      Posted in Chocolate, Confections, Uncategorized | 0 Comments

    • Cake Day 2017: 19 Cakes Later

      Posted at 10:24 pm by smoothiesandsundaes, on November 18, 2017

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      Continue reading →

      Posted in food, Uncategorized | 0 Comments

    • Rah-men!

      Posted at 11:48 pm by smoothiesandsundaes, on September 24, 2017

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      We love ramen. Sure, who doesn’t? But homemade ramen is not something that is part of our usual repertoire. In fact, it would likely not have come about were it not for a certain friend of mine. This particular food adventure was set in motion by a long overdue pig roast. Continue reading →

      Posted in recipes, Uncategorized | 1 Comment | Tagged food, ramen

    • Anticuchos: Dreaming of Peru

      Posted at 3:28 pm by smoothiesandsundaes, on September 17, 2017

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      It has been quite a few years since our trip to Peru, but it still ranks as one of my best and most-memorable. Peru was one of the first big trips that Royce and I took together — and in fact it wasn’t just the two of us, we made the journey with some of his family. About a month ago, most of the trip members were briefly reunited and it was the perfect opportunity for Royce and I to prepare a menu that I have been talking about for the last few years.  Continue reading →

      Posted in food, recipes, travel | 0 Comments | Tagged anticuchos, peru

    • Bocuse d’Or: Fundraising for Team Canada 2019

      Posted at 2:39 am by smoothiesandsundaes, on May 17, 2017

      Two Sundays ago, I was fortunate enough to attend (and have backstage access to) a fundraising dinner for Canada’s 2019 Bocuse d’Or representative: Trevor Ritchie. Continue reading →

      Posted in food, Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged bocuse, competition, culture, food
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    • Smoothies & Sundaes on Instagram

      Sourdough pizza recipe on our blog.
      Carrot cake sourdough crumb #24carrotgoals.
      Nine variations on how we like to get our vitamin C this winter. Citrus tart - frozen lemon curd, lemon whipped cream, freeze dried mandarin, lemon jelly, blood orange meringue, fresh orange segments and orange shortbread. ⛄🍋🍊 #f52citrus
      Halva brownie recipe, inspired by Helen Goh.
      Megan made dinner - Molly Yeh's #spätzle, gruyère and hot dogs. 😱😋🌭🧀

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