Clockwork Lemon

Strawberry Basil Angel Food Cake

One of the best things about spring finally being on it's way is the containers of fresh berries that start popping up in all the grocery stores at reasonable prices.

For those of you who don't live in the prairies, I'm sure that you've been enjoying spring for quite some time now... but for us it has *just* arrived.. just in time for summer! So maybe we've skipped spring this year and are going straight into the next season, but the berries have arrived regardless.

Fresh berries lend themselves to quick and easy desserts that still have that 'wow' factor. For Mother's Day this year I wanted to use a flavor combination that I've been obsessing over recently.

Strawberry, lemon, and basil. Both the lemon and basil somehow make the strawberry flavor taste even more like strawberry. Plus the sweet-tart combination tastes so fresh and summery that it makes it seem impossible that just two weeks ago there was snow falling from the skies.. still.

Strawberries always remind me of Mother's Day from when I was little and the kindergarden and grade one classes would put on a Strawberry Tea for the Moms. We would serve little slices of poundcake with strawberries and whipped cream and cups of hot tea. In my mind the dessert will forever be something that you make as a treat for your mom.

The strawberries for this recipe are chopped up, sprinkled with a bit of sugar and lemon juice and left until they create their own delicious juices.

The lemon and basil get made into a tangy glaze that is drizzled over the top layer of the angel food cake.


I created the glaze for a Mother's Day strawberry scone recipe for the Globe and Mail. Once that recipe was done I was already looking for more reasons to make the glaze again. It's so bright and lemony that I was tempted to drizzle it straight onto the strawberries and just eat them like that.

Once the strawberries have soaked and the glaze has been put together, all you have to do is whip up some cream and put the layers together. I sliced mini angel food cakes in half, then layered the center with strawberries and whipped cream. Then I put the top of the cake back on and drizzled it generously with the lemon basil glaze.

You could also just use one large angel food cake, but I never pass up an opportunity for miniature food. Plus it gets a little messy when slicing, so it's easier just to give everyone their own little cake.

 

                          Like Mother like Daughter: my mom photographing the little cake I made her.

If anyone deserves some strawberries and whipped cream sandwiched between cake and topped with glaze it's my mom. I have her to thank for my interest in baking and many many memories of strawberries are connected to her (not just the strawberry teas). Growing up in Kelowna and picking strawberries in the fields together, swimming in our pool in Kamloops and having my mom toss us fresh strawberries as a snack as she sat on the deck slicing them for breakfasts, buying cartons of *huge* strawberries from the farmer's market near their house in Okotoks. Thankful that summer/spring is on the way, thankful for strawberries appearing, but mostly thankful for my Mom.  

 

Strawberry Basil Angel Food Cake 

2 1/2 Cups chopped strawberries

1 1/2 TBSP sugar

2 tsp fresh lemon juice

8 miniature angel food cakes (or one large one)

Small carton of whipping cream

icing sugar to taste

Recipe for Lemon Basil Glaze

1. Stir together the chopped strawberries, sugar, and lemon juice. Set aside for at least 30 minutes and up to overnight

2. Make the glaze

3. Whip the cream and lightly sweeten it by adding icing sugar one TBSP at a time.

4. Cut the angel food cakes in half and layer the bottom with whipped cream and strawberries. Spoon some of the juices from the strawberries over it before placing the top back on.

5. Drizzle the lemon basil glaze over the top of the cakes. Allow to sit for 20 minutes so that the juices soak into the cake. Serve.

 

 

 

 

Herbed Goat Cheese and Mushroom Tarts

These appetizer tarts might look fancy, but they come together quickly and easily. Puff pastry is spread with a herbed goat's cheese, baked, and then topped with a pile of oyster mushrooms sauteed in butter. 

However, they did take my parents and I ten days to make them... because we grew the mushrooms at home from a kit. 

I received one of these grow your own mushroom kits from Mushrooms Canada while I was attending the Food Bloggers of Canada 2013 Conference (which was ahwe-some by the way) and the kit came with a little tag on it that said 'Blog Me'.

I have to be honest, when I saw the tag I thought to myself "probably not" for a couple of reasons. 

1. I am not a good gardener. Always hopeful and enthusiastic at first, then forgetful, then filled with regret as I toss yet another dead plant into the garbage.

2. I have a baking blog, so blogging about a mushroom kit didn't really seem like a good fit

3. We got a TON of swag at the conference so I wasn't even sure if a mushroom kit would make the cut of stuff I was willing to cram into my suitcase. 

But the kit DID make it home and I brought it over to my parent's house (aka where I bring most of my fancy food projects. See: Cheesepalzooa) to ask if they wanted to grow the mushrooms with me. We decided to give it a try seeing as all you had to do after soaking the mushroom bag was mist the box a couple times a day. 

Three Desserts I Couldn't Stop Eating

As a person who usually reaches for salty snacks instead of sweet ones, I can get tired of eating the same baking over and over while testing a recipe. Cupcakes, chocolaty cookies, and even some squares seem less appealing once I've on batch five or six.

It's actually a good thing because it allows me to taste a little from each batch without going overboard and eating too much. However, some recipes keep their appeal no matter how many times I've made them and I find myself rummaging around in the fridge for another helping despite the fact that I've already had two.

These three recipes had me tasting and tasting and tasting and I'd happily have another helping right now.

 

1. Mini Meyer Lemon Cheesecakes

First I'd like to blame the miniature size of these cakes for their snack-ability. Secondly I blame the combination of the tart and lemony curd against the creamy cheesecake. The bright lemony flavor really cut through the richness of the cheesecake and kept me going back for 'just one more' or sneaking spoonfuls of the curd out of the bowl from the fridge.

 

Homemade Asiago Part 2 {Cheesepalooza}

A few month back my mom and I heated, stirred, rested, and babied a mixture of milk and bacteria in the hopes that it would transform into a slab of delicious Asiago over time.

The cheese was placed in our cheese cave (aka a small wine refrigerator) and left to age.  I should have been checking the humidity, monitoring the temperature, and just generally keeping an eye on our Asiago-to-be. The key word here is 'should' .. should have, but did not. Sadly, work and life got busy and our little cheese was forgotten for weeks at a time punctuated by realizations of "oh my god! The cheese! I haven't checked the temperature!"


Luckily, when it came time to taste the young Asiago nothing too bad had happened. The tougher rind gave way to a creamy-but-firm interior speckled with a peppercorn or two. The flavor was mild and salty but still identifiably Asiago.

Could it be? Did our cheese thrive despite the neglect? Was it really as simple as placing young cheese in a improvised cheese cave and forgetting about it?

Um.. no. But I didn't learn that immediately.

British Flapjacks

Oats are often used in healthy breakfast and snack-time recipes full of wholesome ingredients that you can feel good about. People see a baked good made out of a oats and think "this is probably good for me".

That's precisely what I thought when I was in England and saw an pile of oat squares for sale at a train station. My first tip that these bars were not necessarily meant for breakfast should have been that they were being sold along side chocolate bars and candy, but I was momentarily confused by the name on the wrapper so I wasn't focusing on the obvious "these are not good for you" clues. The oat squares were called 'Flapjacks" which is what we Canadians call pancakes.

(it gets more confusing, the pancakes in England were what we Canadians would call crepes so there was no good way to describe the stack-o-flapjacks I was picturing in my mind).

Anyways, it only took one bite - one delicious delicious bite - to realize that these sweet, buttery, oaty bars were obviously a treat, not a health food item.

 

And why shouldn't oats be the star of a dessert bar? They have so much more flavor than flour, a soft chewy texture, and when baked with brown sugar and butter they show us that maybe they have been waiting all this time to be turned into a decadent treat. These tasty morsels deserve a place alongside our rice krispie squares and lemon bars.