Regarding Mincemeat

A couple weeks back, I stumbled upon some half price jars of E.D. Smith’s mincemeat. I couldn’t make the stuff for that cheap, so I brought a jar home and proceeded to make a slew of delectable mince tarts using Nigella Lawson’s star-topped pastry recipe.

I used lozenges instead of stars. Whatevs.

They went over well even with the mincemeat-deniers in my family. I had to make two batches.

Which still left me with a goodly, though not exceptional, quantity of mincemeat. Desperate for a way to prevent this delicious mana from going to waste, I lit upon one of my best ideas ever: a warm mincemeat sundae.

Ice cream, mince warmed for 25 seconds, and whipped cream. HELLO.

This, too, was a big hit. Tell all your friends.

I told all mine--and discovered, to my utter surprise, that many Americans don’t know about mincemeat.

GASP.

Mincemeat (or mince, as we usually call it here in Canada¹) is chopped fruit preserved in brandy and/or fruit juices, with spices. Recipes vary, but most call for things like raisins, currents, apples, and citrus peel, candied or otherwise. Traditional mince also uses beef suet, though it’s easy to substitute another fat if you’re vegetarian. You can also exclude the brandy if necessary and switch the fruits around according to your preferences. It’s totally adaptable, this thing.

If you make your own mince (something I’ll do someday, I swear), you can eat it any time you please, but it’s traditionally a holiday thing in Canada and so is only readily available to purchase in November or December. I encourage you to throw off the yoke of holiday appropriateness, though, and enjoy some delicious mincemeat as soon as you possibly can.

It really is especially good on a sundae.

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1. This caused me no end of confusion when I first arrived in New Zealand and browsed the ample selection at a pie cafe. (Pie is huge in NZ. Huge.) They offered mince and cheese pies with ketchup--a shocking combination, until you see a picture of a cut open pie and realize mince is to kiwis what ground beef is to Canadians. Ground beef + cheese + ketchup = tasty goodness. Mincemeat + cheese + ketchup = travesty.

Recipe: Chocolate Trifle

Chocolate Trifle, with eggnog cake in the background.

It's past time I told y'all about my favourite dessert to bring to family gatherings.

Chocolate trifle is a fabulous dish for large groups because it stretches like nobody's business. I've fed 20+ people with this thing, and we're talking big eaters (albeit ones who'd just had a full supper).

It's also a great make-ahead dessert. The custard is the only thing you need to prepare within a day or two of assembly. Everything else freezes and defrosts beautifully.

Recipe: Sour Cream Chocolate Icing

Nigella Lawson's HOW TO BE A DOMESTIC GODDESS is my favourite cookbook¹. I've been baking from it for years upon years, but I still stumbled across the occasional recipe I've overlooked. Generally, these secretive recipes are tucked away between illustrated pages, devoid of tempting photographs and equipped with only the barest of descriptions.

Such was the case with Nigella's sour cream chocolate cake, a gem I overlooked until last December. Armed with a three-pound tub of Daisy sour cream² and a desire to try something new, I whipped up a two-layer cake and stuck it in my freezer for my Christmas dessert buffet.

I ended up with so much other baking that the cake languished in the freezer³ until February, at which point I pulled it out on a whim, whipped up the complementary icing, and dug in.

Wow. The cake itself is good--moist and delicately crumbed--but the icing elevates it to another level. It reminds me very much of soft, delectable cream cheese icing, if cream cheese icing were bursting with chocolate and just a shade tarter than it actually is.

I could eat this stuff straight from the bowl without a shred of shame. It's that good.

Alas, I generally bow to convention and slather the stuff on cake. It's infinitely spreadable, and it holds a loose shape if you want to pipe it out for extra effect.

The recipe below is enough to generously ice twelve cupcakes or one two-layer cake (the recipe for which also follows). It's great with a few crumbled pecans pressed into it, if you're a nut person.

Recipe: Pineapple Iced Cake

My grandmother turned 88 on September 2nd. Accustomed as I am to giving my grandparents food presents, I asked her what kind of cake she'd like me to whip up for her.

"Something with icing," she said. Grandma is good at specifics. "Oh, and not too big."

"What about a few cupcakes?" I asked.

"How many cupcakes?"

"I dunno. Maybe ten?"

She recoiled in horror. "Ten is far too many."

You see why I made her a full-size, two-layer monstrosity.

Okay, I don't see it either.

If you're after the truth, I mostly wanted an excuse to make this delectable-sounding cake from Joyce White's BROWN SUGAR, which is and shall remain my favourite baker's cookbook. Grandma and I used to eat pineapple together when I was tiny, so I was reasonably sure she'd enjoy the flavour. And I relished the thought of baking something entirely new.

Holy crap, was it ever good! Labour intensive, but beyond delicious. It wasn't entirely smooth sailing as my pineapple icing never became thick enough to spread, but I salvaged the situation by using it as a filling/topping and edging the cake in vanilla wafers--another of Grandma's favourites. (I'd have preferred ladyfingers, but I baked it over Labour Day and had to make do with what I could get at Shoppers Drug Mart as all the grocery stores were closed.) Now I have no choice but to share the recipe with y'all, warts and all.

If you like pineapple, you're gonna go crazy over this icing. Promise.

Recipe: Coconut Macaroon Ice Cream

My friend Kristina is a big ice cream eater. She's forever telling me about some great new flavour she tried, either from the grocery store or at a mall kiosk, and her descriptions never fail to make me salivate.

Unfortunately, Kristina is an American, so she's dining off of an entirely different ice cream spectrum than the one I have access to. My Canadian grocery store has tons of great stuff, yeah--shout out to President's Choice for their tasty and affordable Ice Cream Shoppe range--but it's not the same great stuff.

Thank goodness my ice cream maker frees me from the need to eat solely what I can find in the freezer aisle.

Last summer, Kristina told me about a delectable coconut macaroon ice cream. My grocery store failed to yield anything similar, but within a week I'd developed a recipe and made a batch my own self.

And y'all, it was delicious. You have to try it.

A word of warning: homemade ice cream gets quite a bit harder than the store bought variety as a general rule, and this particular ice cream freezes like nobody's business. (Coconut milk gets solid when you stick it in the freezer. Who knew?) It needs quite a bit of time on the counter before it's ready to scoop.

On the plus side, its solidity makes it the perfect choice for an ice cream cake or other moulded dessert. I'm gonna try that next time I produce a batch.

Recipe: Macaroons

Once upon a time, macaroons were my culinary nemesis. I fought to transform their fluffiness into something rich and toothsome, to contain their tendency to collapse, and to tame their general unwillingness to conform to my idea of what a macaroon should be.

As the battle raged on, I increased the amount of coconut to an absurd degree. I experimented with different egg-beating techniques. I beat my head against the wall and asked the culinary gods to tell me what I could do to fix a recipe (Nigella Lawson's coconut macaroons from HOW TO BE A DOMESTIC GODDESS) that refused to work as written.

Finally, I changed the kind of coconut I used--and all at once, the whole thing came clear.

I grew up with sweetened shredded coconut. It was our go-to staple when a recipe called for the stuff, so I assumed it would do for macaroons, too. It does not. Sweetened coconut weighs the meringue down, exacerbating its tendency to collapse. It refuses to properly bond with the meringue, ensuring you'll have flat, fluffy macaroons studded with coconut instead of chewy domes in which the coconut provides structure and texture. My family insists fluffy macaroons are still delicious, but they aren't proper macaroons. They aren't what I set out to make.

If you value your macaroon-eating experience, use unsweetened stuff. You can probably find it in the bulk section at your supermarket, or perhaps in the baking goods aisle. Get regular/medium cut, not fine, and bask in the glory that is the perfect coconut macaroon.

I should note, too, that macaroons and macarons are different things. Macaroons obviously use coconut as a base, while macarons rely on almonds. I was shocked to discover how few Americans knew about them when I began to tweet about my epic culinary battle with the things.

Now I give you the results of that battle: coconut macaroons, slightly adapted from Nigella Lawson's recipe.

Recipe: Kahlua-Brownie Ice Cream

Something odd happened the other week: I made The Brownies for a family gathering and ended up with leftovers.

I guess an entire pan of brownies is a bit much for six people who've just stuffed themselves on hamburgers and pie. Even after I sent a goodly number home with my aunt, I had over half a batch left to eat.

While it would've been fun to gorge, I knew there had to be a better solution. A healthier solution. Maybe I could make the brownies stretch if I incorporated them into another recipe. Maybe I could concoct an ice cream of some sort...

A healthier solution indeed.

Within the hour, I'd worked out a Kahlua ice cream recipe and settled on a brownie-to-base ratio that'd fill the finished product with delectable chunks whilst leaving a generous amount for regular consumption. From there, it was just a matter of waiting for my ice cream maker to freeze... and the custard to chill... and the mixture to churn... and the finished ice cream to firm up overnight...

The long wait was worth it. This stuff is delicious, y'all. If you like chocolate, coffee, and things that taste mildly alcoholic, you're bound to enjoy it.

Recipe: Coffee Brownies

A slightly different version of this recipe first appeared on my old blog, Stella Matutina.

When it comes to food, my family knows what they like. You can win most of them over with meat, with all-day breakfast, and with brownies.

Specifically with The Brownies, as pictured above.

The Brownies come from BROWN SUGAR, Joyce White's fabulous cookbook packed with soul food desserts courtesy of her family and friends. They're rich, splodgy, and liable to keep you up all night if you eat too many of them after supper.

They're also a near-universal hit. I have one lone friend who dislikes them; everyone else thinks they're the bees knees.

My one friend is wrong, wrong, wrong. These brownies are the best. I love 'em, my family loves 'em, and I know you'll love 'em too.

Recipe: Lemon Meringue Pie

My grandfather turned 91 last month; quite a feat, given the health problems he's struggled with for the last three years.

A week or so before the date, I asked him what he'd like for his birthday. He scowled. "I don't need anything," he said.

"What about another pie?" I asked.

He conceded he might need a pie.

We discussed the matter and decided to forgo apple this time (I made him an apple pie last year) in favour of a surprise. Grandpa loves lemon things--I made him a lemon layer cake for his 89th birthday, and he's always up for any of Costco's lemon-flavoured pastries--so I decided to attempt my very first lemon meringue pie. I turned to Joyce White, as I so often do when I need to bake something unfamiliar, and soon had a promising recipe in hand.

We ate the results after a McDonalds takeout breakfast (gotta love those McGriddles), and a good time was had by all. I enjoyed the pie so much that I'm tempted to make another for my own birthday next month--provided I don't succumb to the siren's song of Joyce White's cocoa cream pie with candied almonds. It's gonna be a toughie.

Recipe: Brown Sugar Shortbread Balls

Shortbread is one of my favourite foods, but I almost never think of it when I'm not actually eating it. I mean, shortbread is plain, right? It's just some sugar and butter and flour, all mushed together and cooked in little disks or drops or whatever.

Thing is, those little discs (or drops, or whatever) are the very definition of delicious. They crumble as soon as they meet your teeth, coat your tongue, and beg you to eat just one more of them.

Or two more. Or eight more. Really, who's counting?

I knew I had to include shortbread in my Christmas dessert buffet, so I turned to my two favourite bakers for their opinion on the subject. Nothing in Nigella Lawson's cookbooks really spoke to me, but I struck gold with the shortnin' bread cookies in Joyce White's BROWN SUGAR.

And y'all? I ate about half of them before they made it into the freezer, let alone onto the dinner table. They were that good.

Recipe: Banana Macaroon Loaf

My grandparents have reached an age where material gifts aren't much good to them. They get the most enjoyment out of food, so I try to oblige whenever a gift-giving event rolls along. Last Christmas, they got a beef & bacon pie and a trip to McDonalds for breakfast; for their birthdays, they received an apple pie and a plate of banana cupcakes stuffed with chocolate ganache and topped with cream cheese icing.

This Christmas, I'm repeating the breakfast gift--they enjoy trips to fast food restaurants--and baking a loaf cake for each of them. Grandma's all set to receive a chocolate loaf, since she's big on that sort of thing, while Grandpa's getting a little something I like to call banana macroon loaf.

Recipe: Coffee Meringues

Coffee meringues are the perfect holiday dessert.

Welcome, Virtual Advent Tourists and regular readers alike! A couple of days back, I told you about some super-awesome caramel sauce. Today, I'd like to share one of the many, many recipes with which you can eat the stuff.

My mother is hosting Christmas dinner this year, and I plan to contribute an EPIC DESSERT BUFFET (caps necessary). I quickly made (and froze) all the usual suspects: shortbread, spice cookies, gingerbread, and toffee; however, I found myself in need of more gluten free options. My aunt eats GF, and I want to make sure she can scarf down just as much dessert as everyone else.

To that end, I turned to my culinary nemesis: meringues.

Recipe: Super-Awesome Caramel Sauce

I ain't saying this is the best caramel sauce in the entire world. but it's certainly the best caramel sauce I've eaten in, oh, the last few years. As is so often the case with all things sweet, I discovered it through Nigella Lawson, who cites it as an excellent topping for coffee meringues with whipped cream. I made a batch to see if the meringues might suit for Christmas dinner (they might) and found myself with a ton of leftover sauce after I'd prepared my test meringue.

This proved no hardship. The sauce is excellent as a topping for, well, pretty well everything you'd normally top with caramel: ice cream, cake, the bowl of a large spoon, etc. Blended with milk or cream and topped with fresh brewed coffee, it also makes a painfully delicious caramel latte.

I have to share it with you. The sauce leaves me no choice.

The Sunday Salon: Crepes

When I was a little kid, my father often made crepes late in the evening, sometimes even after I'd gone to bed. This lent them an air of mystery. I grew up thinking crepes were a nocturnal food, reserved for sundown and beyond.

In reality, my father timed his crepe-making to accommodate the batter's need for a two-hour rest. He mixed the ingredients when he got home from work, then waited the appropriate stretch before he warmed up his crepe pan and got down to it.

While I was somewhat dismayed to lose my romantic view of crepes, knowing the secret did make them more accessible to me. I realized that hey, I didn't have to wait for my father to get the late-night crepe-making urge. I could whip up a batch for myself.

Crepes have since become one of my staples, albeit a less frequent one due to the planning involved. They're great with both savory and sweet fillings, and while they can be fiddly at first, they're a lot easier than one might suspect.