Back to Baking – The Kingston Whig

Essentials

Food Network Canada TV personality and Queen’s University grad Anna Olson has written a new cookbook called Back to Baking. It sells for $40 at Chapters, Indigo Books and The Novel Idea.

Anna Olson’s first cooking love was baking. Now she’s returning to it and wants others to join her. That’s why the latest book for the Food Network Canada host is Back to Baking.

“When I was a girl I spent a lot of time at my grandmother’s house after school and she made a dessert every day,” says Anna, who it turns out has a Kingston connection since she is a Queen’s University 1991 grad. “I don’t remember there being any leftovers.

“The title of the book is a reference to all of us because I think we’ve gotten away from home baking. Even restaurants have, as it’s very seldom they make their own desserts anymore.”

Back to Baking is a pretty hefty book, as it contains 200 recipes for cookies, squares, pies and cakes. It also has gluten-free recipes for those who can’t have flour in their diets, as well as recipes that are dairy-free, egg-free, low sugar and low fat. Given the subject matter, however, there’s a pretty fair chance that there will be some dishes you choose that aren’t low in calories.

This is an all-purpose baking book equally accessible for both beginning and expert bakers. For example, if you’re new to the kitchen and want to start baking, which would be your best first project?

“Cookies,” says Anna. “It requires the least time and equipment. You use some of the basic techniques of baking and there’s immediate gratification because it only takes 11 minutes in the oven.

“The way the recipes are set out in the book is in order of difficulty. Muffins and squares come before pies and cakes.”

The recipes are all new.

“I spent two years testing and reformatting them,” says Anna. “I’m always thinking about how I can make a recipe better. It’s always an evolution. I also try to put things in there about how to avoid a baking disaster and what you can do to fix things.”

What about her own personal baking preferences?

“My husband Michael has a weakness for chocolate so he’d probably prefer a good old-fashioned chocolate cake,” says Anna. “But I do like a fruit pie or things like yeasted bread doughnuts, sticky buns or an apricot coffee cake.

“When it comes to cookies I like the classic chocolate chip or the salted orange toffee slices. For pies I like the caramel apple one. As for cakes, I like baking the raspberry cheesecake with white chocolate chunks.”

There are even recipes for baking small wedding cakes here.

“They are definitely achievable at home,” says Anna.

This cookbook could be said to be a precursor of Anna’s next TV series. She’s already had success with shows called Sugar and Fresh, and the new one will be called Bake.

“It will be based on an apprentice program of the type that professional chefs take,” she says.

Over the Christmas season, Anna was also a constant TV presence as a spokesperson for Home Hardware stores.

“It was a cold call by them out of the blue,” she says. “They wanted me to help them grow their kitchen division. All of their stores are family owned. I’m not a hip urban chick but a family person, so it was a good fit.”

She’s come a long way from that political science and sociology Queen’s student who worked at the local Kelsey’s one summer.

“One of our good friends is Clark Day,” says Anna, referring to the local restaurateur and entrepreneur.

I had a lot of fun dipping into Anna’s book and trying out a handful of her recipes. I probably enjoy making desserts more than anything else, because I figure everyone has a sweet tooth and we all need treats to make the bumps of life a little smoother.

I started out the week before by baking a milk chocolate silk tart for my wife, because milk chocolate is her favourite kind. I went against my usual grain of pie making by using the recipe for Anna’s crust, which was butter rather than lard-based. We had a chat about crusts and she was quite generous about it. Although she prefers butter crusts, she says the lard ones just can’t be beat when it comes to butter tart shells.

I’ve always found butter crusts hard to roll out but this one was a snap. It was mixed in a food processor and easily gathered into a ball. I followed the instructions and let it sit in the fridge for an hour, and once is was rolled into the pie plate, chilled it for another half hour so it wouldn’t shrink when baked. The filling was very decadent and why wouldn’t it be with 12 ounces of milk chocolate and a cup of whipping cream in it. This is a pie so rich that a sliver is plenty, and then it can be properly savoured.

The next week I whipped up some Delectable Fudge Brownies because I had all the ingredients in the house. There are three kinds of chocolate in it — unsweetened, chips and cocoa — but the key ingredient is mayonnaise, which keeps things very moist. If you can keep the brownies in the house they will last for several days and once again these are rich so it doesn’t take much to satisfy you.

We were celebrating my wife’s birthday so I asked her to pick a recipe for her birthday treat. She selected the aforementioned White Chocolate Raspberry Lime Cheesecake. It called for a crust made from half a recipe of Snickerdoodle cookies, which was great because then I could try two recipes at the same time.

The Snickerdoodles were a revelation. They were made from the same basic white sugar cookie dough that could also be used to make Toffee Softies or Double Ginger Wonders. They’re not much more than sugar, flour, eggs and butter but my they were marvellous and were the biggest hit of my testing, which is why their recipe is included on this page. When the recipe calls for unsalted butter I usually ignore it and use salted, but in this case I did spend the extra on the unsalted and wonder if that made a difference.

The cheesecake was a marvellous mixture of white chocolate, cream cheese, sour cream, lime zest and fresh raspberries, which I think made for a lighter and tastier cheesecake. Earlier in the day my wife made some muffins with cranberries, which were hearty and I quite liked.

I can see I’ve got lots of desserts to try in the future because these were all winners.

Recipe of the week

Snickerdoodles

250 mL (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened but still cool

250 mL (1 cup) sugar

2 eggs, taken directly from fridge

5 mL (1 tsp) vanilla

625 mL (2 and a half cups) all-purpose flour

5 mL (1 tsp) cream of tartar

2 mL (one-half tsp) salt

Topping:

125 mL (one half cup) sugar

5 mL (1 tsp) cinnamon

Preheat oven to 175 C (350 F) Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, blending well. Stir in the vanilla. In a separate bowl combine the flour, cream of tartar and salt. Add to the butter mixture, blending well. Meanwhile, stir sugar and cinnamon topping mixture in a small bowl. Drop dough by the tablespoon into cinnamon mixture and roll to coat. Shape into a ball and then flatten with your palm. Place on cookie sheet covered with parchment paper and bake for 12 to 14 minutes.

baking with Bill & Sheila
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