Now that it is dark and cold, I feel like baking all the time. Bread, muffins, cookies, cakes…and cupcakes. Matcha is a fine grade of powdered green tea, and here Ryan and I incorporated a few tablespoons of precious matcha into rich cupcakes. To increase the matcha intensity, we also added a tablespoon of matcha to […]
baking
The Year in Books: December with I Love Macarons by Hisako Ogita
In December,I am more closely looking at I Love Macarons by Hisako Ogita. I first read about macarons when I was devouring food blogs back in university, around 2006/2007. They seemed to be a mysterious, legendary delicacy that I had no hopes of finding in the small university town of Guelph. Fast forward to today, you […]
Matcha Swiss Roll Birthday Cake
I have been baking my own birthday cakes since I was about 13 years old, and in the past several years I have insisted on making birthday cakes for my family too. This year I made Tomiko a White Chocolate Raspberry Layer Cake and I made our brother Karlos a Chocolate Turtle Layer Cake, and I […]
DIY: How To Make Vanilla Sugar
Once you have a vanilla bean, it is really simple to make your own vanilla sugar. When we lived in Saudi Arabia, it was impossible to buy vanilla extract since it was made with alcohol – and alcohol was illegal. Instead, I would bring Dr. Oetker vanilla sugar from Germany every summer to use in my […]
DIY: How to Make Lavender Sugar
This is a lovely way to lightly scent sugar with the floral essence of lavender. I like to use it in place of regular white sugar in some baking (excellent in shortbreads), sprinkled on some sugar cookies, or even as a sweetener in a cup of tea. It takes a few days to ‘steep,’ but […]