Vegan Victoria sponge is a dairy-free and eggless take on this classic British cake. Two layers of fluffy sponge topped with creamy frosting, strawberry jam and fresh strawberries. Can be gluten-free too.
Vegan pretzel buns are delicious - salty, chewy & soft and with crispy tops. They are not hard to make and this recipe will take you through each step with photos and detailed instructions.
Vegan white chocolate and raspberry cookies are easy to make and delicious. Tangy baked raspberries contrast beautifully with sweet pools of melted white chocolate - heavenly combination.
Vegan courgette cake is a beautiful summer cake that is moist and fragrant with lemon. It’s easy to make, can be gluten-free and refined sugar-free too, if liked.
Vegan Polish sweet cheese rolls with berries are a summer version of this famous bakery classic. They make a delicious on-the-go breakfast or an afternoon treat.
Vegan strawberry galette is one of the simplest desserts to put together at short notice. Its crispy pastry with juicy strawberry centre is perfect for impromptu summer gatherings.
Well 2017 is definitely rolling along and seemingly at a record pace! August is coming to a close and we’re already seeing tinges of colour change in the greenery outside. While some of us may lament the seasonal change or the fact that we’re running a little thin on what’s left of summer you can take solace in the fact that it’s one of the most delicious times of the year…Harvest time!
So many sweet, succulent and savoury things are coming of age and ready to be incorporated into some serious Tastitude made right in your kitchen. There are millions of recipe options and so much deliciousness that it can be mind boggling. One of the best ways to maximize taste bud time is to use recipes that allow you to use a basic recipe to create a wide variety of flavour profiles. Enter one of my favourite eats…the Hand Pie.
Some people reference the hand pie as a turnover, an empanada, pirrakka or pirukad, a calzone, a pasty, a pita, as patties and even samosas but no matter what you call them hand pies are extremely versatile and an easy way to satiate the crew.
They can be sweet made with fresh fruit and berries, they can be savoury made with root vegetables and cheeses, they can be spicy to satisfy those that like to wipe their brows while they indulge and they can host any mix of ingredients that will have carnivores drooling and vegetarians swooning.
Hand pies are simple to make and can be easily mastered and made to suit almost any taste. One of my favourite things about hand pies is how easily cooking techniques, the dough and fillings can be interchanged to create so many different flavour profiles. They can be made to be at eaten breakfast, lunch and dinner and are perfectly portable ideal for work, school, outings or any other time when you need something that’s grab and go.
So here are some ideas and a recipe to give you a little help to get your very own hand pie handbook off the ground so you can enjoy some of what harvest time has to offer in your hand held eats. As a chef I guarantee you’ll enjoy exploring what the world beyond hot pockets and pizza pops has to offer.
– Chef House
Hand Pie Ideas:
Shepherd’s Hand Pies
All the best parts of a shepherd’s pie stuffed into a hand held pastry these ones are amazing deep fried
Broccoli and Chicken Alfredo with Gorgonzola
Dough Pockets filled with fresh broccoli florets, diced and cooked chicken with a Gorgonzola spiked Alfredo Sauce
Bacon, Egg and Hash Brown Breakfast Hand Pies
Although you can use scrambled egg in this one I like chopping up hardboiled egg and adding just a hint of mayo along with crispy bacon and hash browns along with a healthy dose of aged cheddar
Margherita Hand Pies
The meat won’t be missed in this vegetarian marvel with all the bold and fresh flavours including olive oil, parmesan, garlic, tomato, fresh basil and buffalo mozzarella. Baked or fried this one’s a favourite.
Pulled Pork Hand Pies
Imagine a BBQ pulled pork sandwich in a flaky and buttery crust. Need I say more?
Curried Lamb with Potato and Peas Hand Pie
Savoury and succulent lamb with a little international flavour and garden fresh boiled potato and peas. Definitely decadent.
Chef House’s Northern Fruit Harvest Hand Pies
Crust:
2 cups all-purpose flour ½ cup bread or pastry flour 1 tbsp sugar 8 oz cold butter cubed ¾ cup cold water
Filling:
1 cup fresh blueberries 1 pound rhubarb, peeled and diced 1 cup strawberries, quartered ¼ cup corn starch 2 tbsp sugar ¼ tsp salt ¼ tsp cinnamon ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
Topping:
1 large egg beaten with a splash of water (for the egg wash) Crystal sugar
In a food processor, combine the dry ingredients: all-purpose flour, bread flour, and sugar, pulsing to combine. Add the butter cubes to the food processor and pulse until the butter is evenly distributed. Add ½ cup of water; pulse the dough together until it just begins to clump together. The dough should begin to look shaggy. Add the remaining water one tablespoon at a time stopping when it starts to come together.
Remove the dough from the bowl of the food processor and place it on a lightly floured counter. Knead the dough a few times until it comes together and shape it into a mound. Cut the dough ball into 2 equal parts and wrap them in plastic wrap; transfer them to the refrigerator to chill for at least an hour.
Preheat the oven to 400F
To prepare the filling add the fruit, corn starch, sugar, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg to a saucepan. Over medium heat cook the mixture for 5 minutes, until the fruit has softened. Depending on your fruit, there may be a bit of liquid and this is okay.
Remove the dough and liberally flour your work surface and rolling pin. Roll the dough to about a 1/8 inch thick. Using a 4 inch cookie cutter, cut circles out of all the dough.
Spoon a small amount of the fruit mixture into the center of the dough. Brush egg wash along the edges of each of the dough circles. Fold the dough over the filling, pressing the edges to seal. Using the tines of a fork, sealing the edges. Repeat the process until all of the hand pies are made. Transfer the pies to a parchment-lined baking sheet.
Brush the tops of the hand pies with egg wash and sprinkle with crystal sugar. Bake the pies for 15-17 minutes, until the tops and edges are golden brown. Remove from the oven and transfer to a cooling rack.
Well 2017 is definitely rolling along and seemingly at a record pace! August is coming to a close and we’re already seeing tinges of colour change in the greenery outside. While some of us may lament the seasonal change or the fact that we’re running a little thin on what’s left of summer you can take solace in the fact that it’s one of the most delicious times of the year…Harvest time!
So many sweet, succulent and savoury things are coming of age and ready to be incorporated into some serious Tastitude made right in your kitchen. There are millions of recipe options and so much deliciousness that it can be mind boggling. One of the best ways to maximize taste bud time is to use recipes that allow you to use a basic recipe to create a wide variety of flavour profiles. Enter one of my favourite eats…the Hand Pie.
Some people reference the hand pie as a turnover, an empanada, pirrakka or pirukad, a calzone, a pasty, a pita, as patties and even samosas but no matter what you call them hand pies are extremely versatile and an easy way to satiate the crew.
They can be sweet made with fresh fruit and berries, they can be savoury made with root vegetables and cheeses, they can be spicy to satisfy those that like to wipe their brows while they indulge and they can host any mix of ingredients that will have carnivores drooling and vegetarians swooning.
Hand pies are simple to make and can be easily mastered and made to suit almost any taste. One of my favourite things about hand pies is how easily cooking techniques, the dough and fillings can be interchanged to create so many different flavour profiles. They can be made to be at eaten breakfast, lunch and dinner and are perfectly portable ideal for work, school, outings or any other time when you need something that’s grab and go.
So here are some ideas and a recipe to give you a little help to get your very own hand pie handbook off the ground so you can enjoy some of what harvest time has to offer in your hand held eats. As a chef I guarantee you’ll enjoy exploring what the world beyond hot pockets and pizza pops has to offer.
– Chef House
Hand Pie Ideas:
Shepherd’s Hand Pies
All the best parts of a shepherd’s pie stuffed into a hand held pastry these ones are amazing deep fried
Broccoli and Chicken Alfredo with Gorgonzola
Dough Pockets filled with fresh broccoli florets, diced and cooked chicken with a Gorgonzola spiked Alfredo Sauce
Bacon, Egg and Hash Brown Breakfast Hand Pies
Although you can use scrambled egg in this one I like chopping up hardboiled egg and adding just a hint of mayo along with crispy bacon and hash browns along with a healthy dose of aged cheddar
Margherita Hand Pies
The meat won’t be missed in this vegetarian marvel with all the bold and fresh flavours including olive oil, parmesan, garlic, tomato, fresh basil and buffalo mozzarella. Baked or fried this one’s a favourite.
Pulled Pork Hand Pies
Imagine a BBQ pulled pork sandwich in a flaky and buttery crust. Need I say more?
Curried Lamb with Potato and Peas Hand Pie
Savoury and succulent lamb with a little international flavour and garden fresh boiled potato and peas. Definitely decadent.
Chef House’s Northern Fruit Harvest Hand Pies
Crust:
2 cups all-purpose flour ½ cup bread or pastry flour 1 tbsp sugar 8 oz cold butter cubed ¾ cup cold water
Filling:
1 cup fresh blueberries 1 pound rhubarb, peeled and diced 1 cup strawberries, quartered ¼ cup corn starch 2 tbsp sugar ¼ tsp salt ¼ tsp cinnamon ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
Topping:
1 large egg beaten with a splash of water (for the egg wash) Crystal sugar
In a food processor, combine the dry ingredients: all-purpose flour, bread flour, and sugar, pulsing to combine. Add the butter cubes to the food processor and pulse until the butter is evenly distributed. Add ½ cup of water; pulse the dough together until it just begins to clump together. The dough should begin to look shaggy. Add the remaining water one tablespoon at a time stopping when it starts to come together.
Remove the dough from the bowl of the food processor and place it on a lightly floured counter. Knead the dough a few times until it comes together and shape it into a mound. Cut the dough ball into 2 equal parts and wrap them in plastic wrap; transfer them to the refrigerator to chill for at least an hour.
Preheat the oven to 400F
To prepare the filling add the fruit, corn starch, sugar, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg to a saucepan. Over medium heat cook the mixture for 5 minutes, until the fruit has softened. Depending on your fruit, there may be a bit of liquid and this is okay.
Remove the dough and liberally flour your work surface and rolling pin. Roll the dough to about a 1/8 inch thick. Using a 4 inch cookie cutter, cut circles out of all the dough.
Spoon a small amount of the fruit mixture into the center of the dough. Brush egg wash along the edges of each of the dough circles. Fold the dough over the filling, pressing the edges to seal. Using the tines of a fork, sealing the edges. Repeat the process until all of the hand pies are made. Transfer the pies to a parchment-lined baking sheet.
Brush the tops of the hand pies with egg wash and sprinkle with crystal sugar. Bake the pies for 15-17 minutes, until the tops and edges are golden brown. Remove from the oven and transfer to a cooling rack.
As a chef you often make crazy discoveries but oddly enough they aren’t always about food. You might discover your dishwasher is broken, half your staff is ill on Friday night or that your order won’t arrive today. You might discover you have a new dinner function for fifty seven people two hours before they arrive or even that you have a dozen special meals in a room twenty minutes after service starts. There are always so many new things to discover in the kitchen some of which can obviously increase blood pressure and turn some hair grey (that is if you haven’t pulled it all out yet.)
Not all discoveries are blood pressure increasing events though. While the other day I did turn around and discover that the summer is half gone I also discovered that its peak fruit season yet again. I have to admit that with me having been a little preoccupied with work lately it was really amazing to come home and find that my wife and son had taken a morning in the summer sun to go do a little berry picking. The berries this year seem a little smaller than usual but are very sweet. This means a little more work when it’s time for the cleaning but that they make for perfect additions to recipes or even for straight out of the bowl eating.
Another sweet discovery I had this week was finding absolutely stunning cherries at half the regular price per pound, it was a good find for sure. You know the type of cherries I mean. Cherries so dark and shiny they almost look black and so sweet you would think each was wrapped in a blanket of sugar. The cherries were definitely hard to resist and with as good as they were I figured getting extra was a wise move if I wanted any hope of having any left to cook with.
When I bit into those cherries it took me back a couple decades to the last time I had tasted cherries so good. With a couple of pounds of perfect cherries now in the game I was having such a hard time figuring out which to eat and which to make something with first. Of course the obvious choice was to roll both the ruby red strawberries and midnight black cherries into something that would make everyone happy.
One of my favourite fresh fruit desserts has always been the Clafouti. This simple yet classic dessert was one of the very first desserts I was introduced to in baking class at culinary school all those years ago and to this day I still marvel at how every time I enjoy a piece warm with a little real vanilla ice cream my taste buds time warp my memory right back to class.
Clafouti is one of those dishes that delivers rich and velvety baked custard flavours and is the perfect vessel for delivering summer fruit to your mouth and while I love crisps, cobblers and other baked dishes there is something decidedly more elegant about this classic and it’s just as easy to make. So if you’ve discovered that its peak fruit season and you’re looking to make a baked recipe discovery of your own this week check out my Cherry Berry Clafouti this week and make your repertoire a little sweeter in the process.
– Chef House
Chef House’s Summer Cherry Berry Clafouti
1 tablespoon butter 8 ounces fresh pitted cherries 8 ounces fresh strawberries 1 cup whole milk ½ cup granulated sugar 3 large eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract ½ cup AP flour 1 teaspoon finely grated fresh orange zest Pinch of salt
Heat the oven to 400F
Coat a 10-inch heavy cast iron skillet with the butter and set aside.
Combine the milk, sugar, eggs, and vanilla in a food processor fitted with the blade attachment and process until smooth.
Pulse in the flour, zest, and salt until just incorporated.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Top evenly with the fruit and bake until set and light golden brown around the edges about 40 – 45 minutes.
One of the best parts of being a chef is the sharing of food. Recipes, ideas, fresh ingredients, cooking techniques and whole meals are all meant to be shared. Food should be passed from one person to the next satisfying hunger, satiating cravings and inspiring the next session of creativity as it goes.
I’ve been lucky when it comes to being part of a family that not only loves to share food but cooks and bakes really well if I do say so myself. My wife makes some of my favourite dishes and as a vegetarian she has no small task making food that keeps my son and I happy. Not only does she bake but her perogy lasagna and loaded potato soup are definitely irresistible. At 13 my son Declan is well on his way to being a little culinarian and uses the BBQ like a champ and I have in-laws that you never have to drag me to when it’s time to do family dinner.
My mom and my stepdad Jon do a lot of outdoorsy stuff like gardening, hunting and fishing so I definitely score well when it comes to preserves, fish and game. My sister? Well she does some pretty amazing eats too. Homemade canned goods like jams, pickles, relishes and even fish as well as some being pretty proficient on a cook top too.
My dad and stepmom Jane are definitely foodies in their own right too. They have always enjoyed volunteering at foodie fundraisers and have even helped yours truly out with big dinners. They love to share food so much that when my crew does dinners in that neck of the woods they always host team EVOT dinner parties the night before the big event.
Jane has always done some amazing eats and has a personal cookbook that any chef would love to get his or her hands on. Terrific soups and salads, amazing burgers, great pastas and both sweet and savoury cheesecakes that are beyond extraordinary. My dad is no slouch in the kitchen either and not only is a great cook but has been learning how to do some delicious baking too.
This week you get to share a little of my family’s flavours. My dad was making a from scratch rhubarb pie this week and because food was made for sharing he was only too happy to let me do a little sharing with you this week. So here’s a family pastry crust recipe and the delicious rhubarb custard that makes it a perfect pie. Check it out I promise you won’t be disappointed!
– Chef House
Chef House’s Dads Rhubarb Custard Pie
Pastry Crust
5 cups Flour 1 tsp Salt 1 tsp Baking powder 1 tbsp Brown sugar 1 lb. Lard 2/3 cups Cold water 1 Egg 2 tbsp Vinegar
(These last three items should total 1 cup so put the water in last)
Mix the dry ingredients (feel the little lumps of sugar and break each on up. Keep feeling till they are all gone)
With a pastry blender or pair of forks cut in the lard
Whisk together the water, egg and vinegar then stir it into the lard mixture
Bag it in a freezer bag and chill it to make it easier to handle.
This recipe will make enough pastry for approximately 6, 8 inch double pie crusts.
Rhubarb Custard Pie Filling
3 cups Rhubarb cut in ½ in. Pieces 1 10 in. Unbaked pie shell 1 cup Sugar 2 tbsp Flour ½ tsp Salt 2 Eggs 2 tbsp Melted butter
1 cup Milk (This is an old recipe that used whole milk. You may want to use a little cream to make up the cup)
Roll out the pastry for the shell. The pastry should be cut about 1 inch larger than the pie plate so the edge will over hang. Crimp the edge so that it hooks on the edge of the pie plate. This will keep the pastry from shrinking into the pie plate when it is baking.
Mix sugar, flour and salt.
Mix the eggs, melted butter and milk thoroughly
Put the cut rhubarb into the pie shell and carefully pour the liquid mixture over the rhubarb.
Put it into a preheated oven at 450 degrees for 10 minutes.
After 10 minutes, reduce the heat to 350 degrees and bake for 30 to 35 minutes. It’s done when the center doesn’t jiggle. Allow to cool before digging in or you will burn the roof of your mouth!
