Happy All Hallow’s Eve to all Goblins!

The autumn is such a wonderful time of year in this part of the world (Eastern Canada). The wonderful colours of the leaves in the forest and on the large tress lining our streets, ranging from yellow ocher, burnt orange, to fiery red, are so rich and cheerful! And the outdoor markets are filled with colourful seasonal produce, including all the different types of winter squash that are wonderful to use in cooking and decorating!

That's me, a few years ago, with a bunch of squash "geese" in Montreal's Jean-Talon Market!  Pumpkin anyone?!

While the evenings get a little cooler, there are still lots of warm sunny days ~ just perfect for preparing all sorts of comforting dishes, hearty bakes, harvest breads, cakes, cookies, and other baked goodies. Then of course, there is one of the world's oldest holidays, All Hallow's Eve or Halloween as it's more commonly called ~ a great reason to have fun!

Two lovely ladies adding to the cheerfulness of Montreal's  Jean-Talon Market.

The essential elements of Halloween, such as costuming, trick-or-treating, lighting bonfires, telling ghost stories, and attending community parties can be traced back 2000 years ago to the ancient Celtic festival called Samhain (SOW-in or SOW-an), which means “summer’s end.” As the second major seasonal festival of the year (the first was called Beltain, celebrated around May 1st), Samhain marked the death of summer and the beginning of the Celtic New Year (Rogers 2002). As a moment of change, Samhain was viewed as a night of magic and power. [source: Random History]

Naturally, one of the most fun elements of Halloween for any foodie like me is making all sorts of goodies for  the little and bigger goblins around us! This year, I took a cake decorating course at the Academie Culinaire in Old Montreal, and we created a Halloween themed cake. Our Chef, Eleni, was great fun and as sweet as the cakes we were decorating! She suggested a spider and cobweb design, so here is my decorated cake:

The cake is a light genoise which I split into 3 layers. I sandwiched the layers with vanilla pastry cream, then covered the cake in Swiss meringue buttercream, before decorating it with thin fondant. The body of the spider is almond paste that I molded by hand. Yummy and quite light!

I also made dozens of large and mini Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Buttercream (all home-made of course, including the caramel à la fleur de sel), which I distributed to friends, family and neighbors. And oh my! These were such a huge hit! The cupcakes were based on a Martha Stewart recipe, although I changed the preparation technique completely (I'll be posting the recipe in another post on my gourmet webzine, www.EpicureanPiranha.com); and the icing is a simple buttercream blended with lots of salted caramel (i.e. caramel à la fleur de sel). I found some fun decorations this year ~ little pumpkin food pics and the tiniest black candy bats for decorating cakes ~ so this is what my mini Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Buttercream looked like:

Last year, I had made these cute little mini dark chocolate cupcakes, and had lots of fun making tiny almond paste pumpkins to decorate them:

The recipe for these intensely fudgy, chocolate cupcakes was from Martha Stewart, and I decorated them with a very light vanilla buttercream; sure to tame even the most evil of witches and goblins!

So here's wishing you all a fun, sweet, and slightly spooky Halloween!

My Darling Mom ~ 80 & Still as Fab as Always ♥

My darling Mom ~ Still Young and Fabulous at 80! 

It was my mother's birthday August 3rd, 2012. Two weeks before her birthday, having pondered what I should do to help her celebrate, I finally decided to have a surprise party for her at our home.

The festive buffet table, filled with tempting verrines & cocktail bites, all made by myself or our dear friend Sue, who prepared four of the dishes.  Some of the goodies you see: Tiny Marinated and Bar-B-Que'd Chicken Tikka skewers which I served on a fresh Cucumber Mint Raita in small verrines (these are on the square serving platter front left); Smoked-Salmon and Fresh Dill Canapés on thin Rye Bread spread with Lemon Pepper Butter (center front); miniature Vol-au-Vents filled with Ratatouille that I prepared with fresh herbs from my garden and veggies cut in brunoise (seen in the small rectangular serving dish, center); Sue's Deviled Eggs; tiny Cheese, Jalapeno, and Olive Empanaditas in a Cheese-Butter Crust (seen on the small glass cake pedestal behind the Deviled Eggs) ...

It took quite a lot of planning, but with the help of friends and family, we managed to ensure it would be a totally unexpected surprise. Mom's birthday was on the Friday, but I wanted to have the party on Sunday so it would be easier for more people to be there. One of our relatives had already planned a small dinner party for her on the Thursday night. Dreaming up a little white lie, I told her I would have to be in the Eastern Townships until the Saturday night (to accompany my sweetheart at a fundraiser his sports club was organizing). Have to admit that I felt a pang of guilt about telling her I'd miss her birthday (even though I was planning a special treat for her) but she assured me it was OK, and I promised I'd have a small but special private dinner for her on the Sunday.

A close friend had already planned to invite her out for her birthday on the Friday for lunch, and when I explained my plan to yet other friends, they decided to invite her to dinner on the Friday night. In addition, she'd already been invited to a darling friend's 104th Birthday on the Saturday night (yes, that's correct - 104 years young!), so she had no time to feel lonely!

With all that celebrating during the week, she could not imagine what surprise awaited her at our place when she arrived with her friend Rita! All the friends who'd celebrated with her during the week and other family and friends were there, waiting to greet her. Mom was not only surprised ~ the gleam in her eyes and her contagious laughter said it all! It made all the effort so worthwhile ♥ Like a typical lady, her only worry was that she was dressed too casually, but we all assured her she looked great ♥

Mom and some of the guests shortly after Mom had arrived. We ended up being 23 in all ~ 

Below is a photo of the large 11 x 15 inch, two-layer lemon-scented butter cake I created for her.  Filled and frosted in Italian limoncello-flavoured buttercream, topped with a layer of almond paste, then covered in limoncello flavoured fondant to give the cake a mirror-like finish, I then wrapped three fresh white roses with pink ribbon and placed them on the cake. These added a special touch, not only because of their beauty but because my Mother's name is Rose-Blanche, which means white rose!

Unfortunately, I ran out of time to make more buttercream (which takes quite a while to make) and had to make due with what I had left to decorate the cake. Then a little hole appeared in my small piping bag and my writing ended up a little wonky, but with the fresh roses, everyone thought it was quite pretty nonetheless! I must say that the flavour, delicate and not too sweet except for thin layer of fondant and almond paste, was the perfect pairing for the sparkling Rosé we served with it ♥

The Limoncello-flavoured birthday cake with fondant icing which I created for Mom, decorated with 3 fresh white roses.

In addition to the Birthday Cake, I also made a dozen small Lemon Sour Cream Bundt Cakes in pretty shapes (which you can see below), some of which I decorated with fresh rosebuds and placed in tall glass petite cake pedestals with glass domes to decorate the table; I later gave some away to friends who had helped either making food or assembling the verrines and platters ♥

Small Lemon Sour Cream Bundt Cakes in pretty shapes sit under glass domes.

Mom, below, looking  positively radiant as she reads her small booklet of personal greetings written by all who were at the party.

One thing is for sure, I could never have organised this so successfully without the help of all our wonderful friends and family! Huge thanks go out from my heart to my sweetheart Claude, Solange (merci mille fois pour toute ton aide!), Sue Potter-Lee (thank you so much for all the help and the wonderful dishes you prepared), Marielle, Claude, & Rita (pour votre amour et votre complicité!), and to everyone else who lent a hand here and there ~ I love you all!

Danish Ebleskiver & Basil Raspberry Compote

Many years ago, I had seen these pans with seven little spherical indentations, and had wondered what they were for. Then one day, while visiting a Danish friend, I was flipping though some of his interesting recipe clippings and saw these cute, puffy little balls, stuffed with blueberries and served with a dollop of cream. He explained they were Æbleskiver, or ebelskiver as they are more commonly known in North America. 

My Raspberry~Basil Compote Ebelskiver ~ Delish!, a photo by ©EpicureanPiranha ~ on Flickr.

Ebelskiver are Danish pancakes that were traditionally stuffed, and served, with apples ~ in fact, æbleskiver means apple slices in Danish. But now, these small golden spheres, that look like perfect dumplings but are lighter than the usual pancake, are stuffed with all sorts of goodies from sweet to savory.

I'd fogotten all about these little pancakes until a shopping trip some time ago, when I found a traditional cast iron ebelskiver pan (see the image below) and just had to buy it. A few weeks ago, I finally decided it was about time to try making some of these!

You start by making the batter, which is very much like a pancake batter, except that the eggs are separated and the whites, beaten until stiff, are then added to the batter which makes it quite light. Then you melt a little butter in each cavity of the hot pan, and wait till it starts to sizzle ...

Traditional Æbleskiver Pan ~, a photo by ©EpicureanPiranha ~ on Flickr. 

Once the butter is very hot, you pour in a little batter - not too much because it will overflow as it cooks!
 
Attempting to make ebleskiver, a photo by ©EpicureanPiranha ~ on Flickr.

I used about 12 ml (about 3/4 Tbs) to fill the indentations two thirds full. Now cook this for about a minute and a half until the bottom starts to get golden, then add a small teaspoon of filling and top it up with a little more batter; continue cooking another 30 seconds or so (ie: about 2 minutes in all for the bottom side); then using two chopsticks (or two wooden tooth picks), catch the crispy edges on either side of a little sphere and flip around to cook the other half for another 2 minutes or so until golden (NB: Cooking time depends on size of indentations and amount of batter used, and assumes cooking on medium heat. Please see note below).

Sound tricky? Well, it's not really, because of the butter which prevents the batter from sticking, and the round cavity which makes the whole process really easy. You'll find they flip very easily once you get the knack (after doing two or three!).

Danish ebleskiver ~ almost ready, a photo by ©EpicureanPiranha ~ on Flickr.

Traditionally sprinkled with icing sugar, my favourite way of serving them that day was filled with my fresh raspberry-basil compote, which I also served alongside. I tried adding some black chocolate to this filling, but preferred them without. And I also made some with sour cherry preserves ~ deelish!

You can see the final result in the first image at the top of the page. It was my first try and I used a little too much batter for the bottom half I think, so they weren't as perfect as they could have been. Later batches looked much better but by then we were into devouring, as opposed to picuture-taking!

The recipe I used for the batter, below, is from Williams-Sonoma :

Ebelskiver Batter (35 to 40 ebelskiver):

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 Tbs. granulated sugar
4 eggs, separated
2 cups milk
4 Tbs. (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted, plus more for cooking

Method:

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and granulated sugar. In another bowl, lightly whisk the egg yolks, then whisk in the milk and the 4 Tbs. melted butter. Whisk the egg yolk mixture into the flour mixture until well combined; the batter will be lumpy. Using an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites on high speed until stiff but not dry peaks form, 2 to 3 minutes. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold the whites into the batter in two additions.
PS This recipe is light and delicious but makes a lot! In fact, the recipe and pan should come labelled with the warning that these little stuffed pancakes are addictive!

Notes:
Note that my ebelskiver pan has smaller indentations than some, so I found I had to use a little less batter - about 23 ml in all (ie: 1  1/2 Tbs). If you use 30 ml batter in all (ie: 2 Tbs) to fill the indentations (ie: 15 ml to fill it two thirds full, then another 15 ml batter on top of the filling), then you will need to increase baking time to about 3 minutes for each side.