No-Churn Double Raspberry Ice Cream Have some ice cream. It’ll make you feel better. If you’re hot, it will cool you down. If you’re hungry, it will fill you up. If you’re tired, it will fuel you. Ice cream is one of my favourite summer treats, and raspberry is one of my favourite flavours, so I’m launching my summer hiatus with a recipe that combines both. Bonus, it’s no-churn, so you don’t need any fancy equipment. The key to this recipe is a raspberry puree. I stirred 1 cup’s worth into the base and used the remainder for the ripple. If that’s too much work, stir in the whole shebang and c ..read more

No recipe today. Instead a Sunday Story in honour of Father’s Day, in which Dad’s car goes rogue. Rogue Vehicle Our old LaSabre had no power brakes or power steering. The gear shift was on the steering column, not the floor, allowing the front seat to stretch uninterrupted from the driver’s door clear across to the passenger’s. The expanse of smooth vinyl was icy cold in winter and searing hot in summer. Yet we coveted the middle seat. On family outings, one lucky child would sit in the front while the other two sat in the back straining against the seat belt for a peek at the road ahead. Wed ..read more

CRANBERRY-ORANGE OATMEAL WAFFLES Pancakes in the Patio is a long-standing summer tradition in our family. Father’s Day usually kicks off the outdoor pancake season. Canada Day, the August Civic Holiday, and birthdays keep the tradition going straight through to Labour Day. Any time the weather is clear and there’s a reason to gather, we haul out the electric frying pans and cook up fresh pancakes with a side of bacon amidst a tangle of extension cords.   This year, things are different. The pandemic limits the number of people who can gather and makes weather forecasts unreliable. S ..read more

brown butter icing I promised you a recipe for brown butter icing a while ago, back when I posted my recipe for No-Egg Browned-Butter Cake. It took a while, but here it is, in all its decadent, messy glory. The resulting icing tastes a bit like Penuche, but is less intense and far more accommodating. If you’ve ever made classic Penuche Icing, you’ll know you have a narrow window between spreadable frosting and rip-your-cake fudge. This icing remains pliable, has a subtle nuttiness, and a hint of the caramel tones Penuche-lovers crave. Because it’s less intense, it won’t overpower the cake, so ..read more

No recipe today. Instead, a Sunday Story about a clever mom and a gullible child. I was very young and very fussy. No. Not so much fussy as discerning. I ate a wide range of food with great pleasure. However, when I disliked something, I was inflexible. Take peas, for example. I hated them with an unreasonable passion. More than once, I sat alone at the dinner table with an uneaten mound of peas on my plate and the oven-timer ticking away on the stove. I would rather go to bed empty than with those green pills in my stomach. My petulant wish was often granted. One day, Mom served st ..read more

No-Churn pralines and Cream When I was a kid, store-bought ice cream was plain and simple. Chocolate, strawberry, or vanilla. You might get a carton of Neapolitan on a special occasion or some Spumoni at Christmas. But if you wanted fancy, you had to get creative with toppings — or go to the ice cream parlour. When faced with a wall of options, I went for something we couldn’t duplicate at home. Forget the Chocolate Chip or Strawberry Sundae. I opted for anything with butter or cream in the name. Although I wasn’t sure what Butter Brickle was, I ordered it for the sheer joy of saying its name ..read more

Classic Rhubarb Pie I grew up with a scrappy patch of rhubarb in the back garden that survived the coldest, snowiest winters — despite neglect bordering on abuse. I assumed rhubarb was a hardy Canadian crop, bred for our climate. Not so. Rhubarb originated in China, Mongolia and Siberia. The Chinese used it as a medicine long before anyone thought to put it in a pie. That sweet idea emerged once sugar became plentiful. Now we seem obsessed with baking it into pies and cakes, but rhubarb can also work magic in savoury dishes. Which Rhubarb is Best? Red or Green? Rhubarb doesn’t turn from ..read more

No-Churn Chocolate Crackle Ice Cream In a classic case of “Do as I say, not as I do” I decided to place the plastic wrap OVER the container of ice cream, not directly on the surface. I know better, but I did it anyway. I wanted some nice ice cream swirls for the photo. Instead, I got a layer of ice crystals. I carefully pried off the paper-thin ice sheet, but you can still see the odd fleck of ice left behind. I was tempted to tell you they are sprinkles of flaky salt, but you might as well learn from my mistake. As I said, I know better. For the Orange Dream No-Churn Ice Cream, I placed the ..read more

No recipe today. Instead, a story about berry picking in my youth. Ignore the calendar and temperature. Summer arrives with strawberries. At least it used to. Long before giant, white-on-the-inside California berries made themselves at home in Canadian grocery stores, strawberries were an annual, limited-time event. According to my mother, they always arrived between June 20 and 25th, like clockwork. You had two, maybe three berry-stained weeks to pick, preserve, and enjoy. Then they were gone, replaced by the next seasonal fruit. We rarely ate strawberries from the grocery store. Instead, we ..read more

Orange Crispy Rice Squares It snowed today. It’s the second week in May, and instead of planting pansies, I’m wondering where the snow shovel is hiding. So, as all good bakers do, I turned my back to the window, faced the stove, and created a more comforting reality. Today I invented Orange Crispy Rice Squares. Take that, Snow Flurries. Not only are these squares a citrusy antidote to the weather, they’re also a delicious way to use up some of the frozen orange juice concentrate leftover from the buttercream icing that topped last week’s No-Egg Spice Cake.  My Adaptation Process There’s ..read more