Maple Walnut Scones

People often ask me if I miss living in Canada. I’ve been living in Ireland now for almost five years. I have three great kids, a house we’re fixing up, a big garden (and more gardens planned), a small business and lots of friends and family milling around.

So yeah, it’s safe to say I’m usually too busy to be feeling homesick for Canada. That said, I recently got my kids their Canadian citizenship and, this year being Canada’s 150th birthday (if you’re First Nations, though, I should add that Canada is thousands of years older), I started feeling a bit nostalgic with all the celebrations and activities posted all over my social media streams.

Canada Day is July 1st, so it’s already happened. I didn’t do anything on the day to celebrate. Sometimes I host barbecues, bake a cake and have my friends over for Canada Day, but this year – having just had a baby – I wasn’t really feeling it. Too much, too soon.

But I can’t say Canada hasn’t been on my mind lately. So while I don’t miss living in Canada, there are a few things about Canada (or just Cape Breton, really) I miss in general:

1. Lobster season: May to July in Cape Breton. Lobsters everywhere you look. Lobster boil dinners at every small community hall. Lobsters being sold right from the boat. I love lobster, and I really miss eating it when it’s at its best. That also goes for mussels, scallops, haddock, salmon, chowder… and the list goes on. I know Ireland is surrounded by ocean, but there isn’t great seafood in landlocked Tipperary!
2. The beach: Cape Breton has so many gorgeous beaches. By July the water is warm enough to swim, the sand is golden and fine-textured and the beaches are relatively isolated. I love Irish beaches, but find the water is usually a bit too cold and most beaches a bit too crowded.
   

   

   
3. The restaurants: I love lobster and seafood. I love the places that prepare these foods as well. The Rusty Anchor in Pleasant Bay (where I once had some decadent lobster poutine with a cold beer; one of my most favourite meals), The Dancing Goat in Margaree, The Herring Choker in Nyanza, Charlene’s Bayside in Whycocomagh, The Bite House in Big Baddeck – all of these places make amazing Cape Breton food and deserve all of the accolades. I miss these places.
4. My friends and family: Obvs. I love and miss my *very large* extended family. Aunties, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephew, brothers – I miss them all.
5. The weather: in summer, it’s warm enough to swim in the river and in the ocean almost every day. On the East Coast, though, it’s not as hot as it would be elsewhere in Canada. We have the ocean to keep the temperature moderate (like, 35°C and under). A great deal warmer and sunnier than an Irish summer, but still comfortable (I don’t miss black flies and mosquitos, though).
6. Wild Blueberries and good Maple Syrup: I miss these things very much. The fruit in Ireland is lovely, but the blueberries here don’t compare to the blueberries in Cape Breton.
7. Canadian beer and wine: in Nova Scotia there is a wine appellation called Tidal Bay. It’s located close to where I went to university. The wine is gorgeous. Once, a sparkling wine called (Benjamin Bridge) Nova 7 beat out actual, expensive champagne at a tasting I attented in Toronto. It’s that good. The beer in Ireland is great, so I don’t miss Canadian beer that much; just certain kinds.
8. Homestyle baking: I know I do a lot of Cape Breton-style baking here in Ireland, but I miss other people’s baking. Namely from the cafes I mentioned previously, my aunties and older people from around my community.

Speaking of homestyle baking, I especially love East Coast scones. Large, triangular, sweet with a crunchy sugar or glazed topping, scones in Cape Breton are indulgent – often made for sharing – and perfect with a cup of strong tea.

I whipped up these maple walnut scones with another nostalgic food in mind – ice cream! I love the ice cream at home. It’s not soft serve like a 99 here in Ireland, it’s hard and comes in a million and a half flavours; one of my favourites being maple walnut.

No need for butter and jam on these scones. The glaze is thick enough to ensure the right amount of sweetness in each bite, and the walnuts are toasted in the oven and then soaked in maple syrup. Perhaps most importantly, the flavour is nostalgic enough to get me through to my next visit home.

Maple Walnut Scones

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups/375g Plain Flour

1 Tbsp baking powder

1 tsp sea salt

1/4 cup/60g light brown sugar

1/2 cup/125g cold butter, cubed

1 large egg

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup/250ml cold buttermilk

For the glaze:

2 cups/500g Icing Sugar

1 tsp vanilla or maple extract

3 Tbsp good quality maple syrup

Splash of heavy cream

Toasted walnuts, soaked in maple syrup

Directions:

• Preheat your oven to 200°C (400°F). Line one or two baking sheets with parchment and set aside.
• In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, brown sugar and cold, cubed butter.
• Using a pastry cutter or your fingers, cut/rub the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Make a well in the centre of the butter/dry ingredient mixture.
• In a large measuring cup, measure out the buttermilk, then add the egg and vanilla. Mix to combine.
• Add the wet ingredients to the well in the middle of the dry ingredients. Using a wooden spoon or just using your hands (your best pastry tool!) mix the wet into the dry until just combined (mixture should be on the wet side – if it’s dry and crumbly add more buttermilk!).
• On a lightly floured surface, turn the dough out and knead lightly for one minute. Form into a ball and allow to rest for 10 minutes.
• Using more flour for dusting and a rolling pin, roll the dough out into a thick rectangle (you want to get 8-10 scones out of this dough at most). At least 1.5 inches thick.
• Cut the rectangle into 8-10 smaller rectangles or triangles. Transfer to the prepared baking sheets. Using a pastry brush, lightly brush the tops with milk and sprinkle a bit of sugar over each scone.
• Bake the scones for 20-ish minutes. Let cool slightly on a rack.
• Make the glaze: in a mixing bowl, combine the icing sugar, maple syrup, maple extract (or vanilla) and about a tablespoon of heavy cream. You want the glaze to be thick, but still be able to drizzle it over the scones. If the glaze is too thick for your liking, loosen it up with a bit more cream.
• Dunk the tops of each scone in the glaze, or spoon the glaze over each scone allowing the excess to drip down the sides. Top with toasted maple walnuts. Allow glaze to set slightly before eating (if you can wait that long).
• The scones will keep no longer than two days, so make sure you eat them right away!

 

Upside-Down Strawberry Rhubarb Cake

I’m back home. In Ireland, I mean. It’s funny, I call Cape Breton “home” and Ireland “home”, but when I talk about Cape Breton being home it’s meant to be past tense. As in, it used to be home and will always and forever more be referred to as home. But, as wonderful as Cape Breton was, and Vancouver, and Victoria, it is so, so good to be back in Tipperary.

In my own house.

With my little family.

Babies at pasture here in Tipperary

And it’s summer. My garden is growing. There are baby animals everywhere (and thanks to my cat, baby animal corpses everywhere, but we won’t go there right now) and, even though it’s often grey and rainy, it’s sometimes warm and sunny. Already much better than last summer, which was mostly cold, windy and rainy.

I’ve been home a little less than a month and I’m already super busy. Making plans, going to playdates, taking little day trips here and there, visiting, baking. The bit I’m most excited about is the plan-making, but I’m not ready to say anything more about it at the moment – just stay tuned!

Home in Cape Breton

Also, once again, this little blog has been long-listed for two Littlewood’s Ireland Blog Awards, which is really, really lovely! I’m also up for a Huawei Snapy Instagram Award! If you feel so inclined, you can check out my entry (and possibly give it a vote) here.

So yes; I’m super busy. But don’t worry, I always have my two darling children to keep my ego in check. Whether it’s by peeing on the floor (daily) or simply staying up all night long, my kids continually remind me who’s truly in charge of my life (or I guess you could say: what’s truly important in life). I wouldn’t have it any other way, really.

When I came home, my garden was so overgrown with weeds it looked more like a jungle. It took four solid evenings of weed-pulling and seed planting, but my hard work is paying off. Napa Cabbage (for autumn kimchi making!), sprouting broccoli, cauliflower, squash, pumpkin, courgette – you name it, it’s been planted and is currently sprouting. I was late getting a few things planted, but the growing season is longer here than it is in Canada so I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a good harvest.

Two things that were ready when I got home were our strawberries and rhubarb. I’ve never grown strawberries before, but this year Maeve asked if she could plant them. Our old farmhouse is surrounded by very old, black cauldrons (I think they were used for laundry or something back in the day) so we found the biggest one and planted the strawberries there. We left tiny seedlings and came home to a huge, vine-laden bunch of plants just dripping with beautiful berries.

This is a great summer cake to make with whatever fresh fruit or berries you have on hand. I made it with our gorgeous strawberries (of course) and fresh rhubarb, but it would be great with blueberries (with some maple syrup and lemon), peaches, plums or cherries. The cake base is a super-moist hot milk cake recipe that I use all the time – it never, ever fails me.

Strawberry Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake

Ingredients:

For the cake:

1 cup/250g granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup/250g AP/plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup/125ml scalded milk

3 Tbsp butter (melted into the hot milk)

For the topping:

1 punnet strawberries – hulled and cut in half

3-4 stalks rhubarb, chopped

1/2 cup/125g brown sugar

1/4 cup/60g butter

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 350∘F (190∘C, no fan). Grease a round springform pan and place the pan on a lined cookie sheet (in case it leaks) set aside.
• In a small saucepan, combine the butter and brown sugar for the topping. Bring to a boil and remove from heat.Pour the mixture into the bottom of the pan and arrange the strawberries and rhubarb over the top. Set the pan aside again and make the cake batter.
• To make the cake: whisk the eggs, vanilla and sugar until pale yellow in colour and nearly doubled in volume (this is known as the ribbon stage – the mixture should drip off the whisk in ribbons).
• Add the flour, baking powder and salt to the mixture and stir until just combined. Add the hot milk all at once and, again, stir until just combined and there aren’t any lumps in the batter.
• Gently pour the cake batter over the strawberries and rhubarb in the springform pan.
• Bake in the preheated oven for 30-35 minutes (if you have an extra-hot oven start checking your cake at 25 minutes). A skewer inserted in the centre of the cake should come out clean.
• When the cake is ready, allow to set in the pan for 15-20 minutes, then run a knife around the edges and gently remove from the pan. Flip the cake onto a plate and gently lift the bottom of the springform pan. Voila! You should have a perfect upside-down cake.

Grammie’s Baked Chocolate Pudding

I’ve been in Canada for a little over a week now. The jetlag is gone, the sun is shining (though the temperature is nothing like the balmy weather the Irish are enjoying) and I’m busy catching up with family and friends I haven’t seen since 2014. If my husband were here with me, things would be perfect. He’s not, though, so things are just very good.

We’ve been spending a lot of time outdoors since the sun’s been shining. There’s a large pond behind my parents’ house and Maeve likes going down there to see if there are any frogs (though she doesn’t like to get too close to the water for fear of falling in). We’ve been looking under big rocks and logs for bugs, wiggly worms and the many cute little salamanders who call the backyard their home.

Last weekend was Canadian Mother’s Day (we celebrate in March in Ireland) and as we spent the day spoiling all the moms and mom-types in our lives, I couldn’t help think about my sweet Grandma, who lived with me and my family until she passed away over 15 years ago.

Aside from my mother, who taught me that you can work full time, be a great mom, have a social life and be involved in your community, my Grandma was the most important woman in my life. She suffered from MS and was confined to a wheelchair, but that didn’t hold her back. She was a sweet, strong, soft-spoken woman.

She was also a great baker.

This Baked Chocolate Pudding is one of my favourite “Grammie” desserts. Served hot with fresh cream or ice cream, it’s pure bliss. Velvety chocolate sauce with soft, rich cakey bits – what’s not to like? If you’re having people over for dinner, you can put it in the oven just before you’re ready to sit down to eat. It will be molten hot – the perfect vessel for something cold and creamy dolloped over top.

*My plan was to lose as much baby weight as possible while home for the next 1.5 months. I realize now this probably isn’t going to happen. Stay tuned for more delicious Cape Breton adventures!

Grammie’s Baked Chocolate Pudding

Ingredients:

For the cake:

1 cup/250g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup/60g good quality cocoa

1/2 cup/125g granulated sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup/125ml buttermilk

1/4 cup/60ml strong coffee

2 Tbsp/30g melted butter

For the sauce:

3/4 cup/200g light brown sugar

1/4 cup/60g good quality cocoa

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp sea salt

1 cup/250ml boiling water

1 cup hot strong coffee

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 350∘F (180∘C).
• Sift all of the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl. Stir the hot coffee and melted butter together. Add the buttermilk/vanilla to the dry ingredients, then the coffee/butter mixture. Mix the batter until everything is *just* combined (don’t overmix). Pour the batter into an ungreased pie dish or small casserole dish and spread evenly on the pan.
• Mix the hot coffee, boiling water and vanilla and set aside. Mix the cocoa and brown sugar and sprinkle evenly over the top of the batter. Pour the hot water/coffee mixture evenly over top.
• Place the pie/casserole dish on a sheet pan (in case it overflows) and bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes.
• Allow to cool 10-15 minutes, then serve hot with ice cream or whipped cream.

Ha Jin the Korean-Canadian-Irish Cat

Another beautiful day and another breakfast out on the patio – I don’t know how I’m going to adjust when the baby arrives; for the past few months I’ve mainly been home alone with just the cat for company! It doesn’t help that I don’t have a driver’s license, but it’s on the list right after I cross off “have my life changed forever by giving birth”.

I’m not sure how the cat will react to a newborn, either. She’s been our fur baby (well, mine and then, gradually, Pat’s) for the last five years. I adopted her while living in Korea and named her Ha Jin after my favourite student, who didn’t like speaking English but did enjoy meowing like a cat.

She was so cold when we first moved to Ireland; didn’t take long for her to discover my heated blanket.

A few months after adopting Ha Jin, I met Patrick. He grumbled as I insisted on moving her to Canada with us. He didn’t like cats. He was, and mostly remains, a dog person. I’m a dog person, too, but cats are much less work. When we move to a real house (that we own) with a big backyard, then I’ll be ready for a dog.

So Patrick and Ha Jin were wary of each other for a few years. She came to Canada with us, along with my other adopted cat from Korea, a Japanese Bobtail I called Somi. Somi was mean. She wasn’t friendly. She was loud and demanding and had a constant pained look on her little furry face. She was the dominant cat in the relationship, and Ha Jin, as far as we knew, had no personality whatsoever. She was just the “quiet one”.

Ill-fated Somi

After moving to Toronto, we decided to bring the cats with us on our trip home to Cape Breton for Christmas. We were taking the train, which would take about 28 hours from start to finish. The cats were coming with us, but had to stay in the baggage car with all the other pets making the trip.

I didn’t like the idea, but we bought a new carrier, put a padlock on it and put the two cats in together so they wouldn’t be too scared.

When we were about to arrive in Montreal, a voice came on over the loudspeaker.

“Will the owner of the two cats please come to the baggage car.”

Assuming they meant me, I made my way down the train, wondering what Somi had done. I was picturing her broken out of her cage surrounded by clawed luggage; Ha Jin quietly looking on.

When I arrived at the baggage car, the woman in charge (very quickly) said “I’mverysorrybutwelostoneofyourcats!” and then handed me a cellular phone with her supervisor on the other end.

He explained to me that, although he was in Montreal and the incident occurred in Toronto, one of my cats had escaped and they were doing all they could to locate her.

I started crying. I demanded to see the carrier so I could see which cat they had lost (even though I knew all along). Sure enough, reaching the carrier, I saw the door, previously padlocked, swinging on it’s hinges wide open. I looked inside to see my poor girl, Ha Jin, pressed against the back of the carrier absolutely terrified. Somi was gone.

They never found her. I don’t think they really looked. Feeling utterly helpless throughout my entire Christmas holiday, I called and called, leaving message after message. Finally I sent my best friend, who happens to be a lawyer, to the station in Toronto to demand some answers. Seeing her in her lawyer gear finally compelled them to call me back, but every conversation I had as a result began with “Well, I wasn’t working that day so I can’t really tell you what happened”.

Watchin’ the news; their daily ritual.

Needless to say, we will never take pets on a train again. I can only hope some nice person took Somi in, because after all my searching (I even got her on the local TV station) and the help of the humane society, we never even found a trace of her.

If there’s any hint of a happy ending to this story, it’s that we discovered that Ha Jin actually has a personality! She really came into her own after Somi was lost, which makes me wonder if they were lying in Korea when they told me they had to be adopted together. We realized she likes to be the only cat in the household.

Soon after, she started becoming weirdly affectionate toward Patrick. He was surprised. Since then they’ve become friends. She’s adopted him. When he comes home from work, she’s right there next to him on the couch, watching the news. At night, she sleeps at his feet. She has completely changed his mind and attitude towards cats and he had no problem forking over the dough to move her to Ireland.

She likes to sit on the wall to make sure there aren’t other cats around.

The other night as we were having dinner on the patio, she was lying down at his feet and he said, “I never knew cats could be loyal.”

I just think, on some level, she understands that we saved her life.

*Update: A few weeks after our baby was born, Ha Jin passed away from complications with feline breast cancer. She lasted a year with the illness, which is pretty good. We cherish the time we had with her; she really was a spectacular, brave cat.

Road trippin’