Dessert | The Suburban Peasant

Mango Coconut Lime Sqaures

Sweet, tart, buttery and chewy all it once. Mango coconut lime squares, a gentle reminder of warm weather and good things to come.

I love finding new places to hangout in. I’m a true believer in loving the city you live in and learning about all it has to offer. That’s why I’m always on the lookout for new coffee shops, a hip and funky boutique or a fantastic new restaurant in my adopted home of Hamilton, Ontario. It was during one of these jaunts across the Hammer, where I came across Mulberry Street Coffee House and tried the dessert that inspired the post I’m sharing with you today. This great spot and their in-house baked cranberry coconut lemon squares sent my mind a spinning and my culinary wheels a turning. It also reaffirmed my belief that Hamilton’s embarrassing “armpit” of Ontario moniker really needs to be retired.

Many have a sordid reputation of Hamilton, especially those from the other side of the Lake Ontario. Torontonians and other habitants of the GTA, who shall remain nameless, see Hamilton as the Golden Horseshoe’s cesspool, a place of heavy industry, low class citizens, sketchy neighborhoods and confusing one-way streets. While some of these characterizations are true, the wheel that turns Hamilton’s economy is steel production (hence the nickname, “The Hammer”) and one-way streets do plague the downtown area, the city is so much more than what people make it out to be. Hamilton is a diamond in the rough, a city in the middle of a cultural renaissance and on the cusp of urban renewal. It’s those unfairly tagged, “sketchy” neighbourhoods that are being transformed into the pride of the city, and the very thing that is beckoning young professionals to live, work and play in the burgeoning arts and culture sector of the Hammer.

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Light and Lemony Ricotta Cheesecake

A light and lovely cheesecake that marries two cultures and food traditions beautifully.

I am very excited about this recipe. I’m excited for a few reasons; first and foremost it’s good. I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but it’s really good. It’s the kind of cheesecake that will make you change the way you think about this classic dessert. If you’re the type of person that feels cheesecake needs to be rich and dense, followed by a serving of guilt and self-loathing, think again. Cheesecake can be so many things, but it doesn’t need to be that. In fact, it doesn’t have to be cream cheese, sour cream and graham cracker crusts either. Light, airy, silky and smooth can be adjectives used to describe cheesecakes, without the preconceived cheesecake judgements that often accompany such characteristics, such as, “no-bake” or “Jello”. These, people, are not cheesecakes but gelatinous imposters. If you’re looking for a great flavour, texture and ultra smoothness, but still need that feeling you can only get when you eat a proper cheesecake, look no further.

Enter my Light and Lemony Ricotta Cheesecake and the second reason why I’m so eager to share this recipe with you - it’s my own spin on a time-honoured Croatian recipe. An East meets West cheesecake - Eastern Europe that is. I’m kind of proud of this one. It’s not exactly my own recipe, but a conglomeration of a few recipes and techniques that marries a timeless Croatian staple with the style and flavours that North Americans expect from a cheesecake. So what makes this cheesecake unique? Egg whites, whipped cream and a pastry crust, to begin with. But to get an understanding of why these components are special, I have to give you a bit of a background on the Croatian component of this recipe, and the recipe where it’s all derived from - pita od sira (cheese pie).

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Butter Tarts

Butter tarts- the quintisential Canadian desert. It’s sweet, humble and tender, kind of like us Canadians!

Do you know what today is? Go on, take a guess. It’s not my birthday. It’s not my husband’s birthday. It’s my blog’s birthday! Yay! Happy Birthday to The Suburban Peasant! It has been one year since I started writing this blog and boy am I ever glad I did. It has been so much fun cooking and sharing some of my favourite recipes with you, capturing the process along the way and reminiscing about memories attached to these much-loved foods.

Your reception to these recipes has been monumental and I can’t tell you how much that means to me. A lot, and I mean a lot of time goes into each and every post. I have to admit there have been times when I asked myself if the countless hours I spend testing and cooking, shooting and editing, writing and editing, researching and networking are worth it – and you know what? Your feedback and readership makes it all worth it. I am so grateful to be doing what I am doing and extremely fortunate to know that you like me, you really like me!

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Meet Silvia – The Domesticated Feminist

Paprenjaci and Medenjaci

Meet Silvia from The Domesticated Feminist. Like myself, Silvia has a deep affinity with the wholesomeness and heart warming comfort, simple peasant cooking has to offer. Her unique background brings the food of her Mexican and Croatian heritage to the forefront in an equally unique environment – Dubrovnik, Croatia. Yes, this lucky girl spends most of the year hitting the books in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Here, her love of food from our common ancestry really shines and her blog showcases many of the dishes Croatians hold close to their hearts.

Throughout the past few months I’ve dedicated a lot of my posts to traditional Croatian cuisine. Not necessarily the type you’d find at an upscale restaurant on Ilica (Zagreb’s main, very posh street), but the type that you’d recall your grandmother making when you were a child spending your summer vacations in a humble little village in the Croatian countryside. The type that so effectively brought together the relatives you’d otherwise only get to see once a year, as they raved about how “this dish can only be made this well when it’s made in this house”. What can I say, they were right. With this in mind, I am very pleased to conclude the year with such a post: a blog swap with Ana from The Suburban Peasant. It’s only appropriate, as her blog is the epitome of that very feeling; the feeling of overwhelming nostalgia when you see a dish from your childhood that you haven’t seen in years. And what’s more—she always seems to make it just the way baka did. Voilà my post, and her delicious dish can be found on my blog, The Domesticated Feminist.

It took a few days of intense contemplation to decide what I was going to bake as a parting gift for Dubrovnik. A 5-week hiatus in the school year has allowed me to go back to Vancouver to spend the holidays with my family. In fact, I landed this morning, and by the time you’ll be reading this I’ll be very, very happy to be finished with finals, and to have a little break from one-handed showers and bura until February.

I wanted something traditional; simple yet authentic. Something that was versatile enough to leave out for Santa, all his reindeer, and to send home with him for Mrs. Clause as well. After all, if he doesn’t leave the house with a bag of goodies, he won’t be able to distinguish the Croatian households from the others.

Then I remembered something. Just about one year ago when I was on my way to Dubrovnik, I was given a cookie on the airplane. A paprenjak, to be specific; oddly something I’d never heard of before. On the back of its wrapper was a story about how this traditional Christmas cookie, which had been a part of Croatian history since the mid-16^th century, was almost forgotten. A bit confused and very intrigued, I did a little more research.

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Fritule

I love the idea of cooking for the season; food made specifically for that time of year and no other. Nothing rings more true than the cooking and baking we do at Christmas. What aromas and flavours come to mind when you think of Christmas? Cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, citrus and sage are classics. Perhaps your family has specific meals and desserts that take front and centre at your Christmas table and these have been ingrained in your Christmas memories. I’ve already told you about one of our family traditions, cabbage rolls. For me, other classic Christmas flavours are chestnuts that are roasted until soft and creamy. My grandmother’s freshly grated horseradish that accompanies our turkey and roast pork (I know, it’s not the traditional roast beef normally paired with horseradish, but trust me, it’s just as good). Another is my grandfather’s hot loza with sugar. Loza is a brandy made from grapes – like grappa. The loza is heated and boiled with sugar and served as an aperitif in little espresso cups and sipped like tea. It’s the Croatian version of hot toddy’s, but much, much stronger. Just a quick whiff of the vapours can get your head spinning, but once you get past that, the sweet warmth of the liquor is really something special. Later this week I will share with you another must have at our table, but today I’ll tell you about one that is not a particular tradition to my family, but I know is a favourite among many others, fritule (frree-too-le).

This was a bottle of homemade plum brandy brought to us from Croatia in an old Absolut vodka bottle. My husband unknowingly served a friend of mine a scewdriver made not of vodka but šljivo! My poor friend, too nice to say anything, sipped this very verrry slowly for hours until we realized that she hardly touched her drink. I asked her if there was something wrong and she just replied that it was a little strong. I smelled it and realized somethign was wrong. Then I went to take a look at the bottle and just as I suspected, Nick served her a šljivodriver! Poor girl! We now have clearly labelled the bottle to prevent future accidents!

I chose to share this recipe with you because it was one of those foods that encompasses everything we associate with Christmas. It has the zest of citrus that is abundant and at the height of their season right now. Plump raisins speckle the sweet and airy dough, a common ingredient of Christmases past when fruit was unavailable in winter and dried fruits were used instead. The addition of rum or brandy represent the indulgences of the season; a time of celebration and good cheer. A bonus, if you’re looking for another reason to add booze to your desserts, specifically fried desserts, apparently the addition of alcohol prevents the dough from absorbing extra oil during the frying process! And finally, the preparation of frying has always been considered a special treat, so what better time to consume these lovely balls of fried dough, than at Christmas!

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Simple cooking in a complicated world

Posts from the ‘Dessert’ category

Mango Coconut Lime Sqaures

Light and Lemony Ricotta Cheesecake

Butter Tarts

Meet Silvia – The Domesticated Feminist

Fritule

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Posts from the ‘Dessert’ category

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