Speciality Food Holiday Gifts 2016 & Giveaway!

WAY TO GO

Monday, 21 December 2015

Speciality Food Holiday Gifts 2016 & Giveaway!

Speciality Food Holiday Gifts 2016 & Giveaway!

Over the past year I've gotten to try a lot of speciality foods. Here are some of my absolute favorite sweet and savory treats. 

This year I fell in love with the products fromTonewood Maple. They make maple products in many different forms, but also highlight different styles and flavors of maple. If you think as I did, “maple is maple” there’s a reason for that. In many places, such as a certain well-known province of Canada, all the maple products are processed together. So you don’t get different flavors from different estates, just different grades. 

Tonewood offers single estate maple syrups in their grade collection in golden delicate, amber rich and dark robust flavor profiles, and each are completely different. These are maple products that reflect place, just like wine! Some are earthy, some are spicy, but they all have a depth of flavor missing from other maple syrups. Honestly this is the best maple syrup I’ve ever tasted. 

In addition to syrup, they offer maple cream, which has the most divine, melt-in-your-mouth buttery consistency. You’d swear there is butter in the product but it’s just pure maple. 

The other very cool product they offer is their award winning maple cube. It’s solid and you grate it to get chips or flakes that are lovely on a cheese plate but also can be a great topping for ice cream, salads, cereal or more. 

Another award-winning product that knocked my socks off this year at the Fancy Food Show was Pistacchiosa, a Sicilian pistachio spread with extra virgin olive oil. This unbelievably creamy smooth and lucious spread is intensely flavored with the best pistachios in the world. While you could just smear it on toast, because it’s not very sweet, you can use it in recipes as well. Try it in ice cream or gelato, add it to whipped cream or pastry cream to make a cake or eclair filling or slather it on fresh ricotta or goat cheese. 

I have to admit to being more in the savory than sweet camp. And I love Dijon style mustard! In Paris just past the famous Ladurée tea shop, famous for French macarons, you will find at the Place de la Madeleine  the wonderful food shop Fauchon and the Maille mustard boutique. Step into the shop and there are so many different flavors of fresh, pungent and scrumptious mustard on tap! 

Maille makes outstanding mustard, so much brighter and more intense than what you can get from most other brands. Fortunately their products are available online, especially the more fantastic flavored mustards like the ones in the Exotique collection. It features mango and Thai spices, fig and coriander, apricot and curry and saffron and Isigny creme fraiche. This gift will make any mustard lover swoon! 

Last but not least I recently attended a party thrown by Touch of Modern, which is a rather masculine site that has flash sales. They have a gourmet category that often has some pretty amazing deals on really great stuff. You never know what they will have, but I recently saw the best price I’d ever seen on jamon Iberico de bellota as well as Three Jerks beef jerky made from filet mignon. 

They also offer some other quirky things like Himalayan salt shot glasses and Stu's Mixology Set for making bloody mary's, which includes powdered key lime and sweet corn to rim your glasses. 

And now the 

GIVEAWAY

Thanks to Tonewood Maple and Maille mustard I am giving away a maple cube and a set of the Exotique mustards. 

Please let me know if you prefer savory or sweet treats, which ONE item you are interested in winning. You must have a US mailing address to win. You MUST leave your email address in the field where it is requested, it will not be visible to the public only to me. DO NOT leave your email address in the body of your comment, if you do, I will delete it. Only one entry per person! I will choose the winners at random on December 18th, 2015.

Disclaimer: Review samples and giveaway prizes provided by the companies indicated. I was not provided with monetary compensation for this or any other post. 

Friday, December 11, 2015

New Dessert Cookbooks Winter 2015

This holiday season there are several new dessert cookbooks, here are some of my top picks.

Home Baked isn't strictly a dessert book, it also contains savory baked goods, but the vast majority of the recipes are for sweets with just one section dedicated to breads (and a few recipes for dog biscuits). This book is mammoth! It has over 150 recipes for everything from Viennoiserie to cakes, cookies, pies and patisserie. 

What sets the book apart is that the instructions are incredibly clear and well written and for the most part feel very easy to accomplish. The photographs are appealing as are the creative flavor combinations like Zaatar, Carrot Banana Cake, Chocolate Olive Oil Cake with Grapefruit, Peach and Berry Tarts with Buttermilk Custard and Fig, Apricot, Stilton and Goat Cheese Tart.
Who's it for? Any baking enthusiast or as the author says, "domestic adventurer." 

Marie Asselin the author of Sweet Spot: Modern Better-for-You Dessert Recipes, with Clever Tips to Bake (mostly) Dairy-Free) is the talented writer and baker who has created some winning recipes for sweets that don't rely on butter and cream. There are cakes, cookies. creamy treats and some nifty master recipes for things like coconut whipped cream, an easy butterscotch recipe, nut praline and more. 

The photography is clean and modern, and the recipes for things like Carrot and Pineapple Cupcakes with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting, Fresh Strawberry Squares with Pistachio Crust and Dark Chocolate and Whiskey Pots de Creme with Almond Langues de Chat are very appealing. Who's it for? Anyone who's looking for dairy free recipes, or just looking to lighten their desserts. 

Note this is an e-book, available as a pdf or for an iPad. 

Incredibly Decadent Desserts is the latest title from Cooking Light. So that means each recipe offers portions that are 300 calories or less. The recipes rely on more "low-fat" rather than "no-fat" dairy; this book is much more in the moderation camp. There is a recognition that dessert is, well, dessert. It’s an indulgence and frankly it should feel that way. The knowledgable author Deb Wise includes lots of tips and incorporates very of-the-moment ingredients like yogurt, bacon, amaranth, teff and Kamut flour in her recipes. 

If you are concerned about calories and have all but given up on dessert, this book will open up a world of possibilities including cakes, cookies, puddings and pies. Recipes I’ve bookmarked include Lemon Sour Cream Pound Cake, Mexican Chocolate Cream Pie and Apricot Pistachio Tart. Who’s it for? Anyone who wants to enjoy dessert with a little less guilt 

Francois Payard the author of Payard Cookies is a third generation French pastry chef. He was named pastry chef of the year by both the James Beard Foundation and Bon Appetit magazine. He is also a cookie monster. Ok, not a monster but a self-proclaimed lover of cookies. As you might imagine, his cookies are not rustic or homey, they are elegant, sophisticated and well, fancy. 

This is not a book for beginners but for someone with a stand mixer, a scale (everyone should really have one). rolls of parchment paper, a pastry bag and tips as well as silicone baking mats and in some cases, a candy thermometer. The cookies are stunning and involved. For example the Walnut Cookie Bars are composed of a crust, walnut filling, almond cream and a topping.
Who’s it for? Anyone looking to impress or learn some professional pastry techniques. 

I thought I’d seen it all, until Cookies & Beer came around. Yes, it is what it sounds like, a book of cookie recipes with beer pairings. Like a romantic comedy with a car chase thrown in, I suppose it might bridge a divide between two possibly divergent groups, in this case beer lovers and cookie lovers. 

The recipes come from brewers as well as acclaimed pastry chefs from around the country—such as William Werner and Christopher Elbow. The book has both traditional and modern recipes—there are manly cookies with bacon, savory cookies as well as some classics like Russian Tea Cakes and several versions of chocolate chip cookies. There are even cookies with spent grain (from making beer) or beer in the batter.

The recipes are mostly really easy and you can skip the beer if it’s not your thing, or put a whole new spin on the traditional cookie party.
Who’s it for? Obviously cookie and beer lovers!

Guittard Chocolate Cookbook was written by Amy Guittard, the great, great granddaughter of the founder of the Guittard chocolate company. It was published earlier this year but it has lots of holiday appropriate recipes, such as Chocolate Trifle, Chocolate Almond Ginger Bark and Jim's Special Fudge so I'm including it.


I love the use of light rye flour in recipes like Chocolate Pistachio Sables, Salted Chocolate Shortbread and Morning Muffins made with applesauce and oats. The recipes are geared for the home baker and generally don't require any fancy techniques. The book has recipes for cookies and bars, breakfast pastries, cakes, puddings and confections.The recipes use Guittard chocolate, and the chips at very least are widely available in supermarkets.
Who's it for? Chocolate lovers!