A local guide to everyday baking
Fall is new cookbook" season and there are Canadian cookbooks galore including a local offering.
Bettina Schormann and Erin Schiestel co-authored Earth to Table Bakes: Everyday Recipes for Baking with Good Ingredients." For readers who don't recognize the names of these Bread Bar icons here's a primer.
A co-owner of Earth to Table: Bread Bar's three restaurants, Schormann says there was nothing in her early years to hint at her career path. With a liberal arts degree in her pocket she cut her professional teeth as a baker at tree planting camps across Canada. It was life changing, a turning point that sent her off to pastry chef training, resolved to say yes to opportunities.
Her life recipe" worked since she won Pastry Chef of the Year from the Ontario Hostelry Institute, a prize that paved the way to studying in France and experiences at some of the best restaurants in New York City.
Meanwhile, Schiestel, knowing that she wanted hands-on work, took her high school guidance counsellor's advice to do a co-op at Ancaster Mill where she eventually became garde manager, running the salad station. But, all the while, she was pining for the pastry, not the pantry, kitchen.
By 2004, when they began to work together in the pastry kitchen, Schormann was the executive pastry chef at Ancaster Mill. Their relationship grew from mentorship to creative collaboration. Schiestel has also won numerous awards, has studied pastry arts in Toronto, Paris, and New York City, and is now Bread Bar's executive baker/pastry chef.
Says Schormann in the cookbook's introduction, Erin and I are passionate bakers. We both started out as line cooks, but once we got a taste of baking, we were hooked. We both love the rules, science, and structure of the baking world."
In our chat, they stressed that the recipes represent a range of baking levels and while some may seem more difficult, they are approachable, not daunting. They ask readers to challenge themselves and offer easy ways to complete complex tasks. When watching baking show competitions, I groan when bakers are forced to make puff pastry from scratch. Who does that when you can buy ready-made frozen?
Schormann and Schiestel claim you can't beat homemade. Their recipe uses four ingredients and reminds bakers that the only challenge is carving out the time to turn" the pastry in between rests in the fridge.
The kind of people who like Bread Bar scoops up a large audience - including the kiddies. Schormann says she often bakes with her daughter who likes to make zucchini bread and banana loaf. They do point out that many of the recipes for Bread Bar classics are in the earlier books - Earth to Table (ETT) Seasonal and ETT Every Day.
Instead, they have compiled their favourite recipes, many sweet, but some savoury baking projects such as quiche, tourtiere, roasted mushroom tart. They aimed to offer recipes with a manageable list of classic ingredients that readers likely have at home, such as full fat butter and dairy - things your grandmother would recognize.
Speaking of grandmothers, Schormann and Schiestel's collection does not have family roots - there are no recipes from a nana or auntie. If anything, there is some reflection of their classic French training which they say gave them both a good understanding of ingredients.
More than 100 recipes are organized into cookies, bars/squares, loaves/cakes, doughnuts, puffs and yeasted dough, pies and tarts, seasonal treats and staples. Each recipe has a brief preamble aimed at motivating the baker and offering tips.
Speaking of tips, don't make the mistake of skipping the cookbook's introductory sections. If you're like me, you'll enjoy learning more about the authors. The chapters on baking like a pro" - techniques, ingredients, tools and equipment - warn about pitfalls and offer tips useful to even experienced bakers.
For example, they warn about substituting other milks for dairy or regular flour for gluten-free.
In their own words, we do not use - and do not recommend that you use - gluten-free flours. Leaving gluten-free flours out of our recipes is a decision we made at Bread Bar after much taste-testing and experimentation, and one that is not always popular." They do, however, include recipes that are gluten-free by design, most notably Nemesis Cake, a decadent flourless chocolate cake that's a favourite of Schiestel's.
I'm looking forward to making their Puppy Cookies for my grand puppy. For decades, I have made Chocolate Heaven at every family birthday celebration - a dessert that requires an angel food cake, which I purchase. Schiestel encouraged me to try making theirs made from 12 egg whites - they offer tips for using leftover yolks. For starters, though, I may try their recipe for gougeres, my favourite Bread Bar treat.
These two upbeat bakers talked about baking to music but didn't provide me with a list. I've encouraged them to compile a Spotify playlist - if Ina Garten can do it, so can they, right? Earth to Table Bakes, published by Penguin Canada, is now available at all Bread Bar locations, Crown Point Market, in bookstores and online.
Diane Galambos is a food writer who shares stories and recipes at her blog kitchenbliss.ca. Follow her on Instagram https://instagram.com/kitchenblissca
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258 Locke St. S., Hamilton
905-522-2999
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