Almond Poppyseed Cake

Super easy recipe today. Just combine the dry ingredients, add the wet, mix, bake, glaze.
Make sure you coat your bundt pan. I coated in oil, then flour.
Let the cake cool for ~10 min, then remove from the mold. You want it to still be warm so that it absorbs all of the glaze. Poke it full of holes with a toothpick or skewer so that the glaze absorbs easier.

So the cake today was a moderate success. It was dark in the middle so I thought it was under baked. So I put it back in the oven, despite the cake tester coming out clean. But after the second bake it was still dark. So obviously it’s an issue of there being to much oil in the cake, not a baking issue. But because it was glazed then baked again, it stuck to the pan. So now it really doesn’t look good. Despite the oil thing it still tastes fantastic though! 6/10. Looses points for the oil issue, but tastes great.

Everything Bagels and Pasteis de Nata

Claire’s recipe calls to mix the everything bagel seasoning into the dough. But this made the dough very difficult to shape. They tasted great, but next time I’m definitely going to just put the seasoning on top.

As well, the bagels are boiled before they get baked. Some recipes call for barley malt syrup, some call for honey. I’ve used both and haven’t tasted any difference. So for these I just used honey.

  • Whisk together flour and water
  • Sugar, water, and cinnamon
  • Combine
  • Scald some milk
  • Mix in the milk, egg yolks, and vanilla
  • Press the pastry into small muffin tins
  • Batch 1. Overfilled and a bit under baked
  • Batch 2. Better filled and more baked

I’ll put a picture of my dough below. Ideally it should be a very crispy Puff. A mix between Philo and Puff. I tried making it from the recipe but it rolled out horribly. So I bought some store bought Puff 2 days later and used that instead. Using this though, you definitely need to cook them more.

Salty Nut Tart with Rosemary

  • The first tart I’ve made from the book!
  • Similar to a pecan pie
  • Toast the almond flour
  • Mix the almond flour, AP flour, salt, and powdered sugar
  • Add the butter, eggs, and vanilla. Blend until it forms a single mass
  • Chill the dough
  • Press the dough into a tart tin
  • Par bake the dough
  • Toast the pine nuts, walnuts and pumpkin seeds
  • Summer the honey, cream, sugar and corn syrup
  • Mix in the chopped rosemary and the toasted nuts/seeds
  • Prior to baking
  • Baked!
Overall, I’d say this was a 7/10. The taste was really good, but I wasn’t a big fan of the pine nuts’ texture in the tart.

While I wasn’t crazy about the filling, the dough was great! Quite simple to make, but very complex in flavour with the toasted almond flour.

Salted Halva Blondies

  • I love halva so I had to make these!
  • Foil and butter a 9×9 pan like the brownies. Makes for super easy cleanup
  • Mix the flour, salt, and baking powder.
  • In a separate bowl, melt the white chocolate and combine with the butter and tahini. All over a double boiler
  • Add the brown sugar
  • Egg yolks and a whole egg
  • Vanilla
  • Fold in the flour mixture until just combined.
  • Gently fold in the crumbled halva
  • Spread into the prepared pan
  • Top with Sesame seeds and Flaky salt
  • Bake at 350 for 20-25 min
These were definitely up there with the best things I’ve made yet. Dylan said they were easily a 9.5/10. And no pastry work, so super simple to make.

Tres Leches Cake

This one isn’t from the book, so I’ll be providing the full recipe. My friend and old colleague Dana made this for a lab meeting back in ~2015 and I’ve been hooked ever since! It’s basically horchata in cake form

Cream 1 cup sugar with 1/2 cup Unsalted butter until very well combined and fluffy
One by one, add 5 eggs and 1/2 Tsp vanilla extract
Whisk together 1 and 1/2 cups AP flour and 1 Tsp baking powder. You could easily use almond, rice, or chickpea flower to make it gluten free. It’s be very difficult to make this lactose free
Grease and flour a 9×13 pan
Combine the flour mixture into the egg mixture a few spoonfuls at a time.
Once combined, spread it into your pan and bake at 350 Celsius for 25-30 minutes
Let it cool completely and then poke it full of holes with a fork. Like, a lot
Mix 1 can condensed milk, 1 can evaporated milk, and 2 cups regular milk. Pour that over your docked cake and leave it for ~1 hour to soak in. Remove any excess.
Top the cake with whipped cream and cinnamon!
It turned out very good! Definitely satisfied my craving

Feta Stuffed Za’atar Flatbread with Roasted Eggplant Dip

  • Boil ’em, mash’ em, stick ’em in a stew
  • Add the mashed potato, flour, bloomed yeast and salt. Then proof, shape into balls, and proof again
  • Char the eggplants. You won’t be using the skin anyways
  • Eggplant, Greek yoghurt, lemon juice, Parsley, Cumin, garlic and hot paprika. Essentially baba ganouj
  • Purée
  • Roll out the dough ball and sprinkle with Feta. Then roll up
  • Place all the rolls on a sheet until ready to cook
  • Flatten each “snail”, then put it into a hot cast iron pan or griddle.
  • Easily one of the best recipes so far. Definitely a make again
  • Proof of how fluffy it was while still being crispy. My one critique, less lemon juice and more garlic in the sauce.

Brown Butter and Sage Sablés

  • Apparently Sablé is French for “sand”, so it should almost be like a short bread
  • Brown the butter while infusing it with sage
  • Pull the sage out when the butter is done, and once cool mix with the large grain sugar
  • The brown butter. The sediment is from infusing the sage. You definitely want to include that in the dough
  • Solidify the butter
  • Cream the butter and sugar
  • Add the egg yolks, whole eggs and vanilla. Then the flour and salt. I had to add an additional yolk and whole egg to get a texture that would come together.
  • Chill as logs overnight, roll in the sage sugar, then slice into 1/2 inch rounds and bake
  • 10/10! They’re amazing!

Miso Buttermilk Biscuits

A quick post that I made last night
Mix the miso paste with the Buttermilk
Flour, salt and baking powder
Mix in the cold butter
Add the wet ingredients and combine. Then roll out, stack, and roll out again. This helps creates layers making it flakier. Brush with butter and top with pepper.
Seeing as to how Claire works for Bon Appétit, I thought it was fitting to have it with their mushroom soup. Fantastic combo! 8/10. I still prefer a chive & Cheddar biscuit more, but these were very good!
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