Nanny's Cinnamon Streusel Rhubarb Muffins

June 05, 2022 in Dessert

Rhubarb season is definitely one of the most magical times of the year. I am a sucker for a sour sweet treat, and rhubarb is exactly that. Growing up my two favourite rhubarb recipes were my grandmother’s (I called her Nanny) - her rhubarb-strawberry jam and her rhubarb muffins. I’ve been hitting up the local farmer’s market the last few weekends and rhubarb is in full swing. I texted my mom for Nanny’s recipe a few weeks back and wanted to share it with you all so you can take advantage of this wonderful season. These muffins are on the smaller side and, in my opinion, best served in pairs - perfect with an afternoon tea!

Note on recipe origins: this was found in my late grandmother’s recipe box but it was pretty common to pass along recipes from word of mouth or copied out from magazines back in the day. I’m not sure where she got this recipe from and take no credit for the recipe development. My intention is to share some of my favourite memories of her cooking with you.

Makes 12 muffins

45 mins including bake time

Ingredients:

Topping:

¼ cup brown sugar

¼ cup pepitas or any chopped nut (pecan, walnut or almond would work!)

½ tsp ground cinnamon

2 tbsp unsalted butter, room temp

¼ tsp kosher salt

Batter:

½ cup sour cream (ideally full fat, 14% m.f)

¼ cup vegetable oil (or other neutral oil like grapeseed or avocado)

1 large egg

1 ⅓ cup all-purpose flour

⅔ cup brown sugar

½ tsp baking soda

¼ tsp kosher salt

1 cup diced rhubarb

Method:

Preheat oven to 400F.
Prep a muffin tin with muffin tin liners or grease with cooking spray or neutral oil.
In a small mixing bowl mix your topping ingredients and set aside. You may need to use your (clean!) fingers to work the butter into the dry ingredients - it should resemble wet sand.
In a large mixing bowl, mix your wet ingredients (sour cream, oil, and egg) into a homogenous mixture.
Combine your dry ingredients in a separate medium bowl and add in your diced rhubarb. Add to your wet ingredients and fold in until no dry spots exist.
Evenly divide the batter in the muffin tin. Note: these are smaller muffins so the batter will likely only come up ⅔ of the tin.
Sprinkle the topping mixture on top of the muffins - evenly dividing between them.
Bake for 20-25 mins - cake tester should come out clean. Cool before serving.

Mom's Orange Chocolate Cookies

October 25, 2021 in Dessert

Skip to recipe

These cookies activate a very nostalgic part of my brain. My mom had two signature cookies growing up - her oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (which I will publish on here one day but I have not figured out her magic touch!) which were a regular occurrence, and then these orange chocolate cookies, which were a bit more of a rare find. She isn’t sure the origin of these cookies, it’s likely a recipe passed on to her from a friend. The aroma of the orange with the slight touch of clove brings back so many great memories for me. I love these for fall and winter with their slight touch of clove. Perfect with a cup of tea on a cool day!

A few tips for these cookies:

Cream together the butter and sugar until super fluffy

You want the mixture to look almost white before adding in the egg!

Be patient once you add in the egg

You are forcing quite a bit of liquid into fat (the butter) so it takes time for it to whip together; patience at this stage will lead to wonderfully fluffy cookies. If you have a stand mixer this is pretty straightforward as it’s hands-off but you want to whip until all the liquid is incorporated into the butter and you have a homogenous, light, extremely fluffy mixture.

Don’t over mix once you add in the flour

To ensure you don’t end up with a “tough cookie”, mix until just combined for steps 5 and 6. You could always mix by hand at this stage if you feel like your mixer might lead to over mixing (I just use the lowest setting on my stand mixer).

Drop the cookies vs shaping them

These were originally called chocolate orange drops, because instead of shaping the dough you literally just scoop with a spoon and drop onto the sheet. This gives them an imperfect shape that leads to great texture - little scraggly bits get crispy while the inside of the cookie remains soft and fluffy.

15 minute prep time, 12 minute bake time

Yield ~2 dozen cookies

Ingredients:

½ cup butter, room temperature

¾ cup brown sugar, well packed

1 egg

2 cups all-purpose flour (or you can do half whole wheat!)

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

⅛ tsp ground cloves

Zest of 1 orange

¼ cup orange juice (juice of 1 orange)

1 cup chocolate chips

Method:

Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper (if you have 2 sheets you can prep two and bake at the same time!)
Cream together butter and brown sugar with either a stand mixer with the paddle attachment or hand mixer on medium-high for 2-3 minutes until it lightens in colour.
Beat in 1 egg for 3-4 minutes (or longer!) - you are looking for the egg to be fully incorporated and the mixture to be light in colour. Should look extra fluffy!
In a medium bowl combine flour, baking soda, salt and clove - whisk together until well combined.
Add flour mixture to butter/egg/sugar mixture, beating on low until just combined.
Add in orange zest, orange juice and chocolate chips, mix until just combined.
Drop spoonfuls onto cookie sheet 1 inch apart - should be about 1.5 tbsp in size (they are smaller cookies). You will likely need two cookie sheets, so you can either do this in rounds or bake two at the same time, swapping their position in the oven halfway through.
Bake at 375F for 10-12 minutes until starting to turn golden brown. Let cool on the cookie sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a rack.

Nanny's Lemon Loaf

March 25, 2021 in Dessert

Skip to recipe

This past week I returned to Toronto after four months of staying in Nova Scotia with my parents, waiting out winter. I am really grateful to have been able to spend that much time with my family, in a year when many people have been separated from their loved ones for so long. Although I didn’t ever envision myself living with my parents for almost 6 months of my first year “living on my own” (I moved to my first solo apartment in February 2020), I had a lot of fun sharing many meals with them, many walks, and many evening chats. In my time home I also spent a lot of time reflecting and reminiscing on the meals and foods that formed the basis of my love for cooking. My grandmother was a huge part of those early food memories. She was an amazing baker; I used to call her the “pie queen”. She passed away in 2016 but we still have her recipe cards which my mom and I spent one recent Saturday afternoon exploring.

Most of my go-to baked goods are her recipes, and I hope to share more of them here to continue on her legacy. This lemon loaf was written on a few recipe cards throughout our findings, including Mom’s notebooks, so it is definitely an Avery family favourite. The original calls for shortening, which I’ve subbed below for butter. Like many of her recipes, there were limited instructions. I feel like my Nanny had such great instincts in the kitchen, as does my Mom, so those notes weren’t needed. I’ve tried to interpret the method below. I hope you try out this recipe and feel the love and warmth I do every time I bake it.

Lemon loaf is a classic Nova Scotia treat, perfect with afternoon tea, morning coffee, or… sneaking as many slices as you can when no one is looking. It is fragrant, sweet, and the lemon glaze adds an extra tartness to the exterior that makes you want to come back for more.

Here are a few tips for the recipe:

Do not overmix the batter

Like all cakes, you want to ensure that once you combine wet and dry ingredients that you don’t overmix, otherwise you will have a dense, chewy cake. The batter should just come together.

Pour the lemon glaze on right when it comes out of the oven

To get a crispy, sugary crust on the loaf, ensure you pour your glaze on right when it comes out of the oven. The glaze will run down the sides of the pan and soak into the loaf while it’s hot, almost hardening the sugar. If you pour it on when it’s cold it won’t soak in and it will be sticky.

Be patient and let it cool completely

Ok one of the recipe cards from my Nanny said to wait 24 HOURS BEFORE EATING. That is actually wild, I do not recommend. But I DO recommend maybe leaving the house for a few hours while it cools so you aren’t tempted to cut into it while it’s still warm! This is best served completely cooled and it will take a few hours to lose its temperature.

15 min prep time, 60 min bake time, let cool for 4-6 hours

Ingredients

½ cup room temperature butter

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

Zest of 1 lemon

1 ½ cup all purpose flour

½ tsp kosher salt

1 tsp baking powder

½ cup milk

Glaze

Juice of 1 lemon

¼ cup white sugar

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350F. Prepare a loaf pan by greasing or lining with parchment paper.
Using a hand mixer or stand mixer, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. 2-3 minutes on high.
Add in the eggs and continue to beat until well mixed and fluffy. It will take some time for the liquid of the eggs to mix in fully to the butter mixture so be patient! It should look smooth and fluffy.
Add in lemon zest and combine well.
In a separate bowl whisk together flour, salt, baking powder.
Gently fold dry ingredients into egg mixture until craggly, it’s ok if there are some dry ingredient patches.
Pour in the milk and fold gently until well mixed but not overmixed. The batter should just come together, with no dry patches or milk patches.
Pour batter into loaf pan and place into 350F oven. Bake for 60 minutes until golden brown and cracked on top - a cake tester should come out clean!
While the loaf is baking, whisk together your lemon juice and sugar until sugar is dissolved.
Immediately after the loaf is removed from the oven, pour the glaze over top. It’s critical that you pour when it’s piping hot to get the beautiful crust outside that isn’t sticky.
Allow the loaf to cool completely, ideally 4-6 hours before slicing and serving.

Mom's Whipped Shortbreads

December 20, 2020 in Dessert

Skip to recipe

These are my favourite Christmas cookies. They are super simple and they just melt in your mouth. Perfect with afternoon or after-dinner tea. I like making them small because they are basically just sugar, butter and flour. They are best as a one or two-bite treat! The best thing about these cookies is they are only 4 ingredients, all of which you probably have on hand. They do take some time to firm up after they are baked so I recommend making them at least the day before you plan on serving them to ensure they aren’t too delicate to touch.

Here are a few common questions on these cookies:

Do I need a stand mixer to make them?

No, but you definitely need an electric hand mixer if you don’t! I think it would be pretty difficult to achieve the fluffy texture you need with just hand mixing. But maybe you are stronger than me!

Can I use unsalted butter for these?

You could but I recommend using salted butter as it is already perfectly seasoned throughout. Since this cookie has very few ingredients, this is one of the few times I recommend using salted butter instead of unsalted. Usually, I prefer unsalted because you can control the level of seasoning yourself. If you did use unsalted butter, I would add 1 tsp kosher salt.

Do I need to use cherries on top?

No, those are totally optional! I like the festive touch they add but you could do them plain, or go crazy with sprinkles. Just be gentle with toppings as you don’t want to press out any of the air you’ve built up in the dough.

Can I halve the recipe?

Absolutely. This makes about 6 dozen small cookies. All of the measurements are easily halved, so go right ahead. The cookies do freeze well if you want to make the full batch and save some for future you.

Can I pipe these cookies, or use a cookie press?

Maybe? I actually am not confident in this answer so do let me know if you experiment with them! I personally think they are cute and charming as little imperfect blobs.

My cookies are falling apart when I touch them!

Be patient with letting them cool. Honestly, even the first day they can be pretty delicate. Once they are fully cooled the cookies are much easier to handle. I prefer to store them in the fridge (or winter garage which is basically a fridge) because I like them cold, but that also helps keep them firm.

How should I store the cookies?

I prefer the shortbreads cold but they keep well on the counter as well. I like to line my container with wax paper and place a piece of wax paper between each layer of cookies. I find the wax paper protects the cookies if they get moved around at all, and it’s not rough on them so they stay intact better. These also keep well in the freezer.

Counter/room temperature: 4 weeks in an airtight container
Fridge: 4-6 weeks in an airtight container
Freezer: up to 3 months

This recipe makes about 6 dozen small cookies. You can halve it easily if you want less.

1 - 1.5 hour total prep and bake time

Ingredients:

1 lb or 454g of salted butter, room temperature

1/2 cup cornstarch

1 cup icing sugar

3 cups all-purpose flour

6-8 Maraschino cherries (if desired)

Method:

Cream together the butter, cornstarch and icing sugar for 1-2 mins until well combined using a stand mixer or hand mixer on medium speed.
Scrape down the sides and add in flour. Start on a low setting until the flour is incorporated and then turn up to medium-high speed for 15 mins. The mixture should almost double in size and look fluffy and cloud like.
Preheat the oven to 350F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper (TIP: I prefer to use two cookie sheets so I can put one tray in as soon as the other comes out)
Dice maraschino cherries into 6ths and pat dry with a paper towel.
Drop 1 heaping teaspoon worth of cookie dough onto the cookie sheet. Place cookies 1 inch apart. Try not to disturb the cookie dough too much as you don’t want it to lose air.
Place a piece of cherry on top of each cookie and gently push it into place.
Bake for 10 mins until the bottom is lightly golden. The top of the cookie should not colour much.
Allow to cool on the sheet for 1-2 mins before transferring to a cooling rack. The cookies are very fragile until fully cooled - it takes 30-45 mins for them to fully firm up.
Repeat until all of the cookies are baked.
Store cookies in a container lined with wax paper on the counter or in the fridge (I personally love them cold!)

Ginger Molasses Cake with Apple Cider Sauce

November 29, 2020 in Recipe, Dessert

Ginger molasses cake was a classic winter dessert growing up. We often had it around the holidays - warming, aromatic, and so cozy. Most recipes make a 9 x 13 pan which is simply too much dessert for someone living alone. This version keeps all of the comfort of the original recipes but adjusts it to make 1 circle cake pan, or 8 servings, instead of what sometimes feels like 400 servings. I’m being dramatic, but small batch baking is needed in 2020! The sauce uses pressed apple cider (the kind that comes in jugs at the farmers market), but if apple cider is out of season I’ve included a modification below for a brown sugar sauce. Served best warm with whipped cream or ice cream.

Ginger Molasses Cake w/ Apple Cider Sauce

8 servings, 35-45 mins total

Cake Ingredients:

1/3 cup butter, room temperature

1/3 cup white sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup molasses

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1/2 cup hot water

Method:

Preheat oven to 375F. Line the bottom of a 9 inch cake pan (circle) or 8x8 square pan with parchment paper and grease the sides.
Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add in egg and continue to mix until well incorporated.
Mix in molasses - if using an electric mixer beat for 2-3 mins until light and fluffy. Otherwise mix by hand for 5-6 mins until light and fluffy.
Add in dry ingredients, mixing until just combined. Texture should be like cookie dough.
Pour in hot water and mix until batter becomes looser. Do not overmix, you just want the batter to look uniform.
Pour into a greased and lined cake pan and bake at 375F oven for 20-25 mins, until the cake tester comes out clean.

Sauce Ingredients:

1 cup of apple cider

¼ cup of brown sugar

2 tbsp of flour

2 tbsp of butter

Method:

In a small pot combine apple cider, brown sugar and flour over medium heat. Whisk until clumps of flour are gone and bring to a boil.
Boil until sauce thickens (3-5 mins). Remove from heat. Add butter and whisk until combined. Serve warm over gingerbread.

** if you don’t have apple cider, you could do 1 cup of brown sugar, ½ cup water, and 1 tsp of lemon juice, plus the above flour and butter ratios for a tangy brown sugar sauce.