Sumac Ginger Honey Hearts

February 06, 2019 by Kelsey Fast in Eat, Find

Hello! There used to be a whole section here with me describing the amazing Flourist sifted red spring flour I use in my baking. I was trying to add something to this and some other old articles, and I’m not sure how but it all got deleted! Continue reading for the recipe, and some more details about how to find and use sumac.

{Jump to the Recipe}

I have to admit, that making these cookies is a bit of an involved process. This is especially true if you are foraging the sumac, and processing it yourself as I did. Here are some instructions that are very helpful if you want to go that route. If not, you can usually find dried and ground sumac at specialty spice stores, and I even saw it at my local Bulk Barn (bonus shopping here because at some locations you can bring your own container and your purchase will be zero-waste). I’m sure there are online options as well.

Sumac is a shrub that grows native in many areas of North America. You can identify it by it’s compound leaves, and large, compact berry clusters that stick straight up from the branches. The berries aren’t juicy, and they are covered by tiny hairs, and malic acid which gives it the distinct sour, almost citrus-like flavour. In most areas you’ll want to harvest the berries in July, and before any large rainfall hits as this will wash away much of the malic acid. That said, it’s not unheard of that sumac berries are still harvestable later on in the year - just rub them with your finger, and then lick it to see if your finger tastes sour (that will be the malic acid that transferred to your finger). If they still taste sour they are still good to use! The easiest way of processing them is just to bring the berry clusters home and let them dry thoroughly. Store them somewhere they won’t get dusty (I have mine from last summer crammed in a 1/2 gallon vintage mason jar) and they are ready to use whenever you need them.

Some of you may have been told that Sumac is poisonous. In the plant world there are many different common names, and sometimes poisonous and non-poisonous plants even share the same one. This is the case with sumac. Poison sumac (Toxicodendron vernix) only grows in swampy areas, whereas the sumac we are looking for (Rhus glabra, Rhus typhina, or Rhus copallina, depending on the species that is local to you) prefers dry landscapes. It also has red berries, whereas poison sumac has white. There really is no chance that you will mistake the two. One thing you will want to be cautious about, is that sumac is related to mangoes, cashews, and poison ivy. If you are especially sensitive to some of these other plants please take caution if you are trying sumac. This post on identifying sumac varieties from Eat the Weeds is an excellent resource, but please make sure you consult more than one resource before eating anything you have foraged.

As always please take care when foraging, and make sure you are 100% certain of what you are gathering and eating. The best option is learning from someone who is an expert on the local plants for your area. Use more than one resource when identifying plants that are new to you like field guides, and reputable online resources - the more specific to your location the better. Spend a lot of time examining the different features of the plant you are looking for. Never be content to identify a plant by one feature alone.

Now to explain more about making the cookies themselves! They do take some time to make, but I promise you the end result is worth it! I originally made these at Christmas time (being inspired by traditional Danish Christmas cookies like Honninghjerter, and Pebernødder) and they were the first to disappear from the cookie platters! The holidays were very busy, and even though I had originally planned to post the recipe back then, but I ran out of time. I think that turned out to be a good thing in the end though, because they are also so perfect for Valentine’s Day!

You’re going to need to start the sumac infusion ideally two days before you want to have the cookies (although you could get away with the day before, but they are better if you have a bit longer for letting the dough chill). All of the colour in these cookies is completely natural - there is no food colouring at all! The lovely pink in the glaze comes from the colour of the sumac infusion itself, and that is also where the sour flavour from the sumac shines the brightest. Since lemon or other citrus is often paired with ginger in holiday baking, I thought sumac would be a delicious pairing with the ginger and I set out working on making a ginger-forward, spice cookie that blended well with the natural sour, fruity flavour of the sumac.

The day after your sumac has infused, start making your dough. This is essentially a sugar cookie with a lot of spices that gets rolled out a little thicker than normal. You’ll also want to make sure you have time to chill the dough for a day if possible. The flavours need time to mingle together in the dough before baking. if you have to speed things up at least chill the dough for a couple hours. This will also make rolling them out easier.

Make sure you leave a fair amount of room between the cookies on the sheet because they tend to puff up a bit, and spread ever so slightly. I also put in the instructions to roll them out a bit thicker than many of these are in the photos. This is because we found out after eating them all that the thicker ones were better!

When your cookies are baked, decorating them is very fun! Prepare your sumac glaze to be a little runnier than your ginger one. You’ll be dipping the cookies into this glaze. Try to let as much excess run off back into the bowl as you can. I found that I had a lot of glaze pooling under the cookies as I let them dry on parchment paper. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing because it tasted really good to have extra glaze, but it was a little less professional looking, and the glaze didn’t go as far. If this happens to you too and you run out of glaze just make a little more and keep going. No big deal!

When the cookies are all dipped let them dry before drizzling the ginger glaze over top. This will make sure that when you sprinkle the candied ginger over top it will only stick to the white icing. I did some with candied ginger, and some without, but everyone ended up liking the ones with ginger better. If you’re a little more sensitive to the heat of ginger feel free to leave that step out - they look and taste great without it too!

Sumac Ginger Honey Hearts

Ingredients

For the Cookies

3 cups flour
1 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup light honey
1 large egg
2 tbsp sumac infusion (prepared ahead of time)
2 tbsp dried sumac powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp fresh ginger (grated, or very finely minced)
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp white pepper

For the Glaze and Decoration

3 cups icing sugar (approximate)
2 tbsp sumac infusion
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp milk/water
2 tbsp corn syrup (divided)
1 cup candied ginger (to be finely minced)

Takes two days, serves several dozen cookies depending on the size of the cookie cutter used.

Instructions

Two days before you want the finished cookies, prepare you sumac infusion. If you are using fresh/dried sumac berries, add a couple drupes worth of berries to a pint jar, and combine with 1 cup cold water. Leave in the fridge overnight. If using sumac powder you either purchased or prepared yourself, add 3 tbsp powder to one cup of cold water and leave in the fridge overnight.
The day before you want to bake the cookies prepare the dough. This dough really needs to be chilled overnight to let the flavours come into their own more fully before baking. If you don’t have time for this, at least chill the dough for a couple hours, but overnight will be better.
Cream butter, sugar, and honey together until well emulsified. You shouldn’t be able to see any sugar crystals, and the resulting mixture should be light and fluffy.
Add the egg, vanilla, sumac powder, 2 tbsp sumac infusion, and continue to cream the mixture until well emulsified. It should all look like one cohesive mixture with no visible clumps.
Add the salt, baking soda, and spices. Mix well.
Last of all, add the flour slowly, mixing on low. Depending on the humidity levels of the flour and your kitchen you might need to add a little more or less, so keep an eye on the dough as you add the flour and stop early, or add a little extra depending on how it looks and feels. Don’t let the dough get too dry, though. It will firm up and be easier to work with after it spends some time in the fridge, and you don’t want your finished cookies to be too floury. Aim for your dough to be fairly sticky at this point, but not overly runny.
Transfer to an airtight container and leave in the fridge overnight, or at a bare minimum a couple hours.
At this point preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Roll out the cookies to a 1 cm (or just under 1/2 inch) thickness, using a little more flour on your work surface and rolling pin to keep the dough from sticking. Cut into hearts, and continue this process until all your dough is used up. I don’t find too big of a difference after re-rolling the excess dough a few times. I also feel that ingredients - especially foraged ones - are precious, so I like to make sure I use as much of my dough as possible. The yield here will depend on the size of cookie cutter you use, but you should end up with a couple dozen cookies either way.
Leave some space between the cookies on the baking trays, because they do tend to puff up and spread just a little bit, but they will definitely still maintain their heart shape after all of this.
Bake the cookies until they are just barely beginning to brown on the edges. This will be about 15 minutes per tray, depending on how your oven runs. Mine seems to run a bit cooler than most, so I often end up needing to leave things in a little longer. You can also usually tell when the cookies are almost done because you’ll start to smell them as they bake.
Remove the cookies from the oven and allow them to completely cool before you start decorating them.
While waiting for the cookies to cool this is a good time to start preparing your glazes. You’ll do one in a larger amount with the sumac infusion, and one with ginger powder and vanilla.
Combine 2 cups icing sugar, 1 tbsp corn syrup, and sumac infusion to make your first glaze. Add the infusion slowly so that you get the right consistency. You want it to be thick enough to coat whatever is dipped in it, but runny enough that the excess will still drip off when you dip the cookies. If you overdo it, you can always add more icing sugar to thicken.
For your second glaze, add the remaining cup of icing sugar and corn syrup, as well as the ginger powder, vanilla extract, and milk/water (go slowly as you add this - you may not need it all). You want this glaze to be slightly thicker than the other since it will be used as a drizzle over the finished cookies.
Dip all the cookies in the sumac glaze first, allowing the excess to drip back into the bowl as much as possible rather than just leaving them to drip on the parchment paper or whatever you’re going to let them dry on (this just makes a tidier looking end result - if you don’t get it all don’t worry you’ll just have some of the glaze pooling underneath the cookie). I started having problems with pooling, so I started leaving the freshly dipped cookies on a cooling rack for a few minutes before transferring to parchment to continue drying.
Drizzle cookies with the ginger glaze, and while this is still wet sprinkle with the very finely chopped candied ginger. Allow this to dry completely before you handle the cookies.

While the prize for the giveaway on my Instagram feed was sponsored by GRAIN, this post is not. I have been their customer for the past few months and wholeheartedly endorse their product based on my own experience. All thoughts and opinions expressed are completely my own.

Apple Muffins with Sourdough Starter

November 26, 2018 by Kelsey Fast in Eat

If you’ve been following my Instagram page, you’ll have noticed some posts and stories about trying to revive my very dormant sourdough starter. Basically this entails feeding it like crazy, until the microbes start to revive and everything gets all bubbly and happy again. During that process if you don’t use or discard a portion of your starter you’ll just be overrun with the stuff, and since I’m a big fan of zero-waste, I’ve been trying to use it in various ways.

One thing that I’ve found really interesting is that you can use sourdough in a quick bread recipe, and it reacts with the baking soda in the same way as adding another acid. This recipe uses some starter, but if you don’t have it try omitting it, and substituting the juice partially or in full for yogurt, or buttermilk. Alternatively if you still want them to be dairy free try substituting the starter for applesauce, and a bit more flour. There should be enough acid in the juice and the applesauce to activate the baking soda, but it won’t be quite the same in the end. And if you don’t have a sourdough starter making one is really easy! There are a lot of awesome tutorials available if you give it a quick google.

You’ll also notice this recipe calls for ‘pumpkin pie spice’. I don’t normally use ready made spice blends, but the one from Silk Road Spice Merchants in Calgary is amazing and I highly recommend it. I also used the Western Family brand Wassail as the juice in my muffins since it is what I had in my fridge at the time, and so these muffins were very heavily spiced. I felt like this was perfect for fall/winter food, but you can use whatever mix of spices you like. Pumpkin pie spice usually contains cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, allspice, and ginger. Use these spices in whatever ratio you like them best and your muffins will be delicious.

There isn’t too much in this recipe that needs a lot of explaining, but do make sure you combine the wet ingredients (sourdough starter, oil, juice, eggs, vanilla) and sugar in one bowl, and the rest of the dry ingredients in another bowl until you are ready to mix your final muffin dough. The starter reacts with the baking soda really quickly, and this reaction is your primary leavening agent so you want to make sure that is almost the very last thing that happens. I like the apple grated into the muffins, but it does tend to disappear into the overall texture that way, so if you want them to be more obvious try chopping them into small pieces and mixing that in. I save myself a step and don’t bother peeling my apples since you don’t really notice the skins when they are all baked into the overall texture.

Let me know if you have any further questions in the comments! I’d love to hear how these turn out for you if you give them a try!

Apple Muffins with Sourdough Starter

Ingredients

1 cup sourdough starter (any type)
1 cup apple juice
2 large eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup oil
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
2 cups all purpose flour
1 apple (grated)

Takes 35 min, serves one dozen muffins.

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 350˚F.
Combine sourdough starter, juice, sugar, eggs, oil, and vanilla until smoothly blended and homogenous. If your starter is a bit stiff this might take a little bit of time, but make sure there are no lumps remaining when you are done.
Whisk the dry ingredients together, and then combine with the wet ingredient mixture. You will notice the baking soda reacting to the acid in the sourdough starter almost immediately, so it is important that you work quickly and don’t allow the mixture to sit for long. Stir gently until the mixture is just combined. You don’t want to over mix this.
Gently stir in grated apple.
Evenly distribute your batter into one standard size muffin tin.
Bake for approximately 25 minutes or an inserted toothpick or cake tester comes out clean.

Wild Spinach Dip

June 07, 2018 by Kelsey Fast in Find, Eat

I have always been in love with spinach dip. It was one of my mom's go-to party or potluck recipes, and often served in a huge sourdough bread bowl. Delicious. I was a little bit disappointed when I went to look for a recipe to make my own and they all called for prepackaged ingredients. Frozen spinach. Packet of onion soup. It didn't change how tasty the dip was, but I figured there had to be a way to make it with fresh ingredients, and that it might be even better that way.

I sort of forgot about my spinach dip ambitions for a while, and just kept eating the prepackaged version from the store. In that time I learned about atriplex hortensis, (also known as wild orach, or mountain spinach), and how it has naturalized in the wilderness nearby. Much to my surprise there were massive patches of it growing in my own backyard (see the next photo for just part of one of the patches)! We ate some of the leaves last year in soup, but didn't do much else with them. This year I remembered my dream of figuring out a fresher spinach dip, and I wondered if the wild orach might work.

Wild orach is in a group of plants often generally known as simply "goosefoot" due to the shape of its leaves. This doesn't give you much to go on in terms of plant identification, because there are may other "goosefoots" out there, and some of them - such as Lamb's Quarters - are in a completely different plant family. Don't use this blog post as your main source for plant identification - find a good field guide (here are a couple: Food Plants of the Interior First Peoples, Edible and Medicinal Plants of Canada) and use some other online foraging resources to supplement the very limited information I am giving you here.

I was reading around for various recipes, and I came across one that suggested you could use fresh spinach in your dip, but to steam it first because that will give you the right texture. I thought this sounded great, so I went out and gathered a bunch of wild orach to steam and try in my dip. I wanted a bit of crunch, but had no water chestnuts, so I finely chopped some Jerusalem artichoke to add in there since it has a similar texture. I think next time I would add slightly more, but because I didn't know if we would like it I started small.

Wild Spinach Dip

Ingredients

100 g Wild Orach (can substitute normal spinach, but use a lot more because the orach breaks down less during the steaming process
2 - 4 Jerusalem artichoke tubers
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp soup base paste or builion (if using soup paste omit salt)
2 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp salt

Takes 30 min, serves 4.

Instructions

Steam the orach using your preferred method for a few minutes until just softened. Remove from steamer promptly and place on a plate in the freezer to chill, but not for so long that it starts to freeze.
While the orach steams, blend sour cream, mayonnaise, onion powder, soup paste/bullion, garlic, paprika, and salt in a high powered blender or food processor until there are no large garlic chunks. Taste and adjust spices as you like them. Transfer to a bowl.
Finely chop the Jerusalem artichoke tubers, and stir them in with the blended mixture.
Remove the spinach from the freezer before it starts to freeze, and roughly chop it into smaller pieces. Stir the orach into the rest of the mixture until all the leaves have been coated in the dip and there are no large chunks of leaves.
Serve with a really delicious loaf of bread and enjoy

Scale this recipe up or down to suit your needs. I just made a small amount here to try it out, and because there are only a couple people in our house eating it. If you have the patience or are good at planning ahead this dip is even better after spending a night in the fridge. The flavours mellow and blend that way, but it is delicious eaten immediately as well!

To support my blogging endeavours, this post contains affiliate links from which I receive a small commission if you make a purchase. Every product linked here is one I have used personally and would recommend based on my experience.

Meals from the Pantry: Roasted Vegetable Soup

January 19, 2018 by Kelsey Fast in Eat

The recipe I am posting about today came about because I had quite a few odds and ends in my crisper drawer that needed to be used as soon as possible. I love soup a lot, but I don't always have broth on hand. I do often make my own, but there is often a gap between when I run out and when I remember to make some more. For me this is a barrier, because I don't usually like buying stock from the store. Since I know I can make a much better product, I don't usually buy it, but then I still don't end up making it right away either.

Maybe this is only me, but sometimes I just want my soup now. Like instant noodles now. I am so very happy to say that thanks to Marisa over at Food in Jars, I have found a happy medium between homemade quality, and cup of noodles fast. Her recipe is basically a salt preserved veggie paste that lives in your fridge and gives you soup whenever you want it. It's one teaspoon per cup of boiling water, and there you go! This is something I always have in my fridge now. It's one of my favourite pantry staples, and something that gets even more interesting in flavour the older it gets. Her recipe uses dried tomatoes, but what I had on hand was dried wild mushrooms "foraged" (read purchased) from a shopping trip to Costco, of all places, so I substituted them and it was a really delicious choice. Find her recipe here if you would like to make some (I highly recommend it)!

Due to a lack of stock in the freezer, I turned to this soup concentrate paste to transform my wilting veggies into a beautiful, deeply flavoured soup! Use anything you have around. I had a bunch of root veggies, and some other things, but really the sky is the limit here. Roasted tomato soup with this method would be amazing, or maybe you have some lettuce, or kale that you didn't quite make it through - throw that in there (although add it in right after the roasting step). The only thing I would consider is making sure the final colour of your soup will be appetizing. The sky is technically the limit, but you might want to think twice about using your kale and tomatoes - for example - together since red and green when combined make grey. It will still be perfectly edible, and probably tasty, but it won't be winning any beauty pageants! Chop everything up into large chunks, and roast in a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven for about an hour, or until it is all fork tender, and getting caramelized around the edges. Your next step is to bend, add liquid, season it, and simmer the whole thing until you are happy with it! Feel free to also use regular broth or stock in this recipe if that is what you have and it will taste just as delicious!

Your yield for this recipe will vary a lot, since it is just using up whatever you have around. Don't worry about specific amounts. What I used in the above photo (baking tray is the largest size, for reference) made enough soup for about 5 servings.

Roasted Vegetable Soup

Yield will vary

Miscellaneous vegetables (I used parsnips, carrots, onion, garlic, leeks, celeriac, and sunchokes)
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Juice from One Lemon
6 cups of water (or substitute stock/broth and omit the soup base)
6 teaspoons soup base

Chop vegetables into large pieces (peeling is not necessary, but if your veggies are a little bit past their prime it might be a good idea), and arrange in a single layer on a baking tray. Drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and roast in a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven for about an hour. Veggies should be fork tender, and lots of caramelization is a good thing (ie: they might look quite dark, or even a bit burnt around the edges, but that will add flavour).
Transfer vegetables and a cup or two of water into a blender or food processor, and purée until smooth. (This is when you add your leafy greens if you are going to be using them).
Pour the whole mix into a pot on medium heat (or a slow cooker if you want to do it ahead of time) and add the rest of the water a cup at a time until you like the consistency. Whisk in the soup base, taste, and season with additional salt and pepper as desired. The soup base is very salty so definitely taste before adding any more salt.
When you are happy with the consistency and overall flavour, stir in the lemon juice. Soup is ready to eat as soon as it is warmed through.