Panaderia Canadiense

Now I'm really intrigued. I also don't like things that are too sweet, but find that I can just reduce the sugar in most recipes. Hope PC doesn't mind sharing. Or you, Darienne? But in the meantime, I plan to do some crazy-mad googling. Ask and ye shall receive! In your neck of the woods, what you're looking for is Vanilla Pudding powder, probably Kraft brand. I use Royal Vanilla Flan powder, which is basically the exact same thing packaged for Latin American dessert eaters. This recipe makes an 8" x 8" pan and scales up really well (I've made Nanaimos for 500 by simple scaling with no ill effects to the recipe). It's easiest to work with if you either have disposable aluminum pans or if you line your glass/metal pan with tinfoil - that way you won't have to worry about damaging surfaces when it comes time to lift and cut the bars. They're normally served chilled, because they get a bit liquidy in the heat (not that this is a bad thing, really....) Nanaimo bars are traditionally cut into fingers of about 1" x 2" simply because they're so sweet and so rich that it's difficult to eat more than that in one go. The bars themselves take their name from the town of Nanaimo, British Colombia, which is where the dessert was invented (or at least, that's what I've always been told). THE BASE 0.5 C butter 2 oz semisweet chocolate (for me, the more bitter the better) 0.5 C sugar 1 egg 1 C rolled oats (quick oats) 1.5 C coconut 0.5 C chopped nuts of your choice (I use walnuts) 1 TSP vanilla extract --- In a double boiler, melt the butter, sugar, vanilla, and chocolate. Crack in the egg and whisk until the mixture is smooth and a little bubbly. Remove from the heat and add in the oats, coconut, and nuts; stir (or rather gunk about; it will be quite stiff) until completely coated, then press this dough into the pan. If it seems to be lacking in chocolatey-ness, you can add up to 2 TBSP of cocoa powder (at the melted butter stage) or up to 0.25 C of chocolate chips (at the oats stage). --- THE MIDDLE 0.5 C butter 2 TBSP + 2 TSP heavy cream 2 TBSP vanilla custard or flan powder (or vanilla pudding powder - what's important is a shocking yellow colour and a strong vanilla flavour, with some cornstarch thrown in for good measure) 2 C icing sugar --- Cream the butter with the flan powder and icing sugar until you get a mixture that resembles coarse sand. Add the cream a little at a time until the mixture becomes creamy and quite thick - this takes more than the reccomended amount of cream in my kitchen, and may take less in yours simply due to our relative altitudes. Spread this over the base layer and pop the pan in the fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes. There are a number of variations on this filling; this is the original one. My mother hates it, but I am very fond of mint buttercream (with a couple of drops of mint essence and green food colouring) in summertime Nanaimo bars, and others have used other flavours of pudding to great results (caramel, strawberry, cherry, chocolate, etc.) It's up to you. --- THE TOP 4 oz semisweet chocolate 2 TBSP butter. --- Melt together in the double boiler, then pour over the top of the chilled dessert. Return to the fridge. If you've got really good, high fat-content couberture chocolate, you can omit the butter from this step. ETA - Alternately, you can top these puppies with chocolate ganache. I've had very nice results using a bittersweet-brandy ganache and then striping it with white-chocolate coconut. Then again, I normally have tubs of these things in my fridge! That's it. Cut them when they're completely chilled (about 2 hours) and serve them quickly. If you're feeling really fancy, you can paint with other colours of chocolate onto the top of the bar, or use a stencil and cocoa powder to decorate them. I'm usually too lazy to do this unless I'm selling the bars....

Know what? I just peeked into my bakery fridge and found one of my favourite desparation desserts - Nanaimo Bars. They're sweet, chocolatey, oaty, and since they last more than 3 months, I generally have at least one little tray in stock... In terms of whipping up a batch if I'm really desperate, it takes about 20 minutes, and I always have the ingredients on hand.

You could send that to me and it would all be gone by the end of the month.... I can't believe you don't use molasses!

I have a bottle of ground achiote that is just occupying space at the back of the spice cupboard, from when I was still getting the hang of Ecuadorian cooking. I use whole-seed achiote now for almost everything, but I can't seem to bring myself to toss the powder, which by now will be completely flavourless and bleh. I've also got a mysterious shaker labeled only "red seasoning" that I don't use, but that I keep because it smells awesome.

Ancient down here starts at 50+ years. We have some real old beauts cruising the roads....

Not me. This is far too soon for me to be blogging again! ETA - And that Mercedes is not so ancient, at least not by South American standards. It's looking more and more like Hassouni to me. Oh, and Andean service vehicle plates are orange and normally NorAm shaped.

So, I've got really excellent recipes for Lemon, Lime, Mandalime, and other citrus pies (and I'm dying for blood orange season to come around), but I need some help with how to style the meringue. I generally use French-style meringue for my pies (with the exception of Key Lime, which takes Italian-style meringue and which sort of styles itself.) I'd love for my pies to come out resembling this (click), but more often than not they come out looking like this. (click) What am I missing? Do I need to beat my whites longer? Is there a point at which pie-topping French meringue becomes too stiff to be used on pie? Can I put this stuff in a piping bag and apply it that way? Thanks for all help.

Ummm, yeah? Food is (or at least should be) all about personal enjoyment, especially dishes you cook yourself! Who gives a fig if it's "authentic" - particularly if you're not trying to pass it off as such? The authentic thing was not really what I was driving at. I regularly change classic dishes and blend cuisines. I guess the point I'm getting at is occasionally I think I blend things to the point where the roots are indiscernable and that's when it starts to make me feel like the sum is not greater than its parts (or at least that I've lost something important within the dish). See, and that is actually what I was talking about in the first place - if it tastes good (as both you and your wife say it does) then does it really matter that the roots of the dish are no longer discernable? I'd say no, it doesn't, but it sounds like you hit a point where you feel uneasy about the blending.

Ummm, yeah? Food is (or at least should be) all about personal enjoyment, especially dishes you cook yourself! Who gives a fig if it's "authentic" - particularly if you're not trying to pass it off as such?

My guess with tea being brewed that way is either Wholemeal Crank or Hassouni. Either way, I'm psyched!

I finally got my camera back just in time for the end of Carnaval baking rush. I made 20 of these, which my take on what the locals call Tiramisu Napolés. It's two layers of coffee-amaretto "white" cake with strawberry mascarpone and sliced strawberries by way of filling, and iced with a mascarpone buttercream, then edged with Savoiardi. They weighed about 5 lbs each. Personally, I prefer Tiramisu de Venezia, which is the more "traditional" soaked savoiardi with zabalione (and which is a heck of a lot less hassle to make), but the customer is always right.... - Edited to fix a picture problem.

I've always assumed they're "blooming" some other fungus, but I continue to use them so long as they still have a good smell. I haven't had a problem yet - and the dried Suellius mushrooms I use are very prone to blooming even when they're quite fresh, and if I turfed them the minute I saw the white stuff I'd never have any in the pantry.

I'll third the bench grater. Also, if you've got even rudimentary machete skills, getting the coconut itself down to the meat (in order to use the bench grater to its fullest potential) is very quick and easy. Provided, of course, that your machete is sharp. Then again, you can also go for the Ecuadorian method, which is to do the two-holes thing to drain the coconut, whack the coconut in half with your very sharp machete, then hold it in one hand and use a handheld rasp (usually a flattened, serrated piece of rebar) in the other to shred it right in the shell.

Poulet farcie au beurre sous la peau. I'm not sure that there's an exact term for it, but Glissée du beurre might come close (slipped with butter, literally).

For me, it's the Llapingachos and Horneado (potato-cheese pancakes fried in lard and achiote with roast suckling pig) and a foam cup of orange Fanta. at the little gas station on the way into the Kiss the Sky Pass heading towards the hot springs at Papallacta. The bus will always stop there to tune its engine for the pass (which tops out around 13,000 feet), and that means that I get to get off, stretch, and stand in the (busses-full) lineup for some greasy piggy glory.

Any flavour in particular? I've got a couple of recipes that set hard, including an egg-free Royal icing, a mocha buttercream, and a pourable fondant (which dries hard and satin-y), and I'm also in a tropical climate.

Darienne - down here we get condensed milk in tins marked by weight, which is even more frustrating. When making key lime pies, however, I generally work on the assumption that they're 14 oz each (even though they're about 2 oz short). This means I've always got a perfectly tart pie with a hint of sweet - especially since I can't stand KLP of any type when it's too sweet. For a margarita pie, I'd be making up the lost condensed milk with tequila and curacao or GM anyhow, and I'd be very tempted to separate out a couple of ounces of the mixture before shelling it up, and mix in a bit of grenadine. That goes into the shell first, followed by the rest of the mixture. (This is because I was taught that a small shot of grenadine is placed in the nipple of the margarita glass before the drink is poured in, allowing the drinker to regulate the sweetness of their beverage. Also looks pretty neat.)

For me, it's the custard/pudding that goes in citrus meringue pies. I don't need the crust or the meringue, but hot dang when I need something tasty and sweet I want that filling!

Here's a question for y'all. In Ecuador, there's no such thing as Graham Crackers. However we've got a wealth of Arrowroot-type digestive biscuits which are similar in flavour and texture (but which don't include Graham flour). Has anybody out there experimented with cracker crusts that don't use Grahams? For example, will it end in tears if I try a crust made with, say, vanilla Arrowroot biscuits? Any hints? (I'm perfectly comfy with standard Graham crusts - I can get perfect slightly crunchy and not at all crumbly results every time and at all altitudes.) Alternately, has anybody made their own Graham Crackers? Care to share a recipe? Thanks!

Ding ding ding winner. I'll definitely be trying that one, Andie!

No such thing as an asian market here, baconburner. Which is both surprising and unfortunate given the country's large asian population....

Personally, I'd be lost without an oven (a full-size one, the kind that fits under a 6-burner gas range), but I think it all comes down to the style of cooking you're used to. If in your old home you used the oven to store pans, you probably don't need one in your new space, particularly if you've got a good toaster-oven combo.

I've got mail gloves for filleting shark; I was figuring that those would work fine.

With quinua and amaranth, the natural explosion of the grains as they cook should provide you the exact texture you're after; with barley it's why I suggested looking for grains that are cracked to begin with. You could also experiment with parboiling the cracked barley/oats and drying the result - then you'll have the barley/oat equivalent of bulgur which you can then treat the same way.

I'd be leery of trying whole barley, but if you can get cracked barley you should be able to treat it exactly as you would the bulgur, right down to the soak in boiling water. I'd also be aware that barley used in this context is a bit bitter, and you might want to adjust/add sugar to the recipe accordingly. I'd try it with small batches; I've found that cracked barley will rehydrate, but your results may vary. Quinua should definitely be cooked first - I like my rice cooker for this, since it never overcooks my grains. Simply soaking it won't soften the seed coatings sufficiently (I found this out the hard way when experimenting with the grain for my multigrain breads. It won't even soften with more than 3 hours in slack dough.) Rice is likely the same thing. One thing that might be interesting to try are cracked sorghum or buckwheat groats.... Oooh, now I have to go experiment!