by on April 3, 2019   •   5 Comments Bakeshop

Glazed Mini Lemon Poppyseed Tea Cakes

These simple and elegant tea cakes are bursting with citrus flavour; serve them at your next spring gathering.

We Canadians have to wait for spring just a little longer than seems fair.

Each April we wait impatiently for the first rhubarb of the season and then we bake it into everything from hearty muffins to delicate galettes. We still have weeks – maybe months – to go until strawberries arrive at the markets, and until then, we’re juicing lemons and squeezing clementines for our kitchen baking projects.

Citrus is definitely the inspiration for these cakes. I wanted to create a delicate tea-time treat that evoked the feeling of spring while still using the winter ingredients we have on hand.

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by on January 29, 2019   •   30 Comments Bakeshop

How to Make the Best Muffins Ever – Revisited

Nine long years ago I posted a customizable basic oatmeal muffin recipe here on Simple Bites and declared it the ‘best muffin ever’.

It was a bold claim, but one that I was prepared to stand behind. You, my readers, preheated your ovens, gathered ingredients and started baking. Now, nearly a decade later, the post has over 300 positive comments, millions of views, and hundreds of believers.

Today’s post answers the question: is my simple one-bowl muffin recipe still the best? I’ll also share a few small tweaks I’ve made to the recipe over the years, plus my favourite flavour combinations.

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by on December 29, 2018   •   1 Comment Bakeshop

Espresso Chocolate Cheesecake

Happy holidays to all of you lovely readers.

This week has included a heap of festivities with friends and family as well as plenty of downtime to relax. Our new home is proving to be very cozy and every day we’re feeling more settled.

We’re currently snowed in, and since the fridge is still full of leftovers, there’s really no need to do anything else but hibernate – until  New Year’s Eve that is. We’ve been invited to friends for a party on the 31st, so I’m brainstorming what I could contribute.

Since we’re in the middle of the dark days of winter, my mind turned to chocolate…and coffee….and then I remembered this cheesecake.

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by on November 9, 2018   •   4 Comments Bakeshop

Eton Mess-Topped Cranberry Curd Tart with Candied Kumquats

A colourful little tart I created last month for our Thanksgiving feast turned out to be quite the showstopper.

Even though we’re up to our ears in boxes and the movers come next week, I had to share this recipe with you. I’m usually all about the classic desserts for the fall and winter holidays, but this time it was really fun to change things up with this unique Eton Mess-Topped Cranberry Curd Tart with Candied Kumquats. Yes, that’s a mouthful, and I promise you, it tastes even better than it sounds.

Here’s a dessert that’s absolutely perfect for the holiday season, featuring sweet clementines, fresh cranberries and tiny little kumquats, not to mention mounds of cream and crispy, crumbled meringues. Read on for a handful of photos and the recipe for this decadent tart.

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by on September 27, 2018   •   5 Comments Bakeshop

For the Love of Pie: A recipe round-up

I‘ve been on the pie train all summer long, picking up steam as we head into autumn towards the ultimate pie weekend: Thanksgiving.

Fruit pies are my favourite and over the years I’ve realized that if I am not intentional about making them in season, it’s altogether too easy to miss out. And so I baked strawberry-rhuharb in June, blueberry-ginger in July, blackberry-meringue in August and peach-streusel in September.

Now Canadian Thanksgiving is just around the corner and I come to you with pie inspiration for your own gatherings. From stone fruit to sticky pecan, classic apple to pumpkin spice, you’re sure to bookmark a future baking project from this list.

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