Tag: pastry

Breakfast of Champions

A couple of weeks ago I went with a carload of friends down to the States to go shopping for cosplay elements that we just can’t get here in Canada. While we were there we stopped at a Walmart, which did mostly carry the same kinds of things as the Canadian version, but there were definitely some differences. I think that the biggest contrast was in the grocery section, and within that the cereals. There were a lot of extremely sugary cereals that we just don’t get here. And it’s not like we don’t have our own junk cereal, or that all of the cereal at this American Walmart was this sweet. But honestly, given how high the sugar content was on some of them, I’m quite sure that many aren’t allowed to be sold north of the border.

Of course that meant I had to try them.

The one that immediately caught my attention on the shelf was the Sour Patch Kids Breakfast Cereal. I liked the candies as much as any kid way back when, but I couldn’t see how it could possibly be any good as a cereal. As you can see from the photos, I couldn’t even wait to get home to try them out and instead shared them in the car. They were… Weird. I mean yes, they did taste like the candy, but then they had the consistency of a Froot Loop. We ate them dry, and even once I got them home I couldn’t see putting them in milk (almond milk in my case). The kids, who were slightly more enthusiastic about them than I was, also refused to put them in milk. Their sourness make it seem like the milk would curdle, and nobody wanted to take a chance on it.

Serving size: 32g (1 cup)
Grams of sugar per serving: 13g

The next cereal I tried was Reese’s Puffs Peanut Butter Bunnies Cereal. Now, you actually can get the non-seasonal version of this cereal in Canada upon occasion, but I had never tried it. It’s another candy they’ve tried to turn into a cereal, with mixed results. I mean, it wasn’t as odd as the Sour Patch Kids and the flavour does go well with milk — just because chocolate and peanut butter go well with milk anyway. But it’s extremely sweet; it tastes much sweeter than the actual chocolate, and apparently one serving of this breakfast treat has more sugar than an actual Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. And once again, it has the approximate consistency of a Froot Loop, which is not what I’m looking for with this flavour combination. Overall, it was better than the first cereal, but only marginally.

Serving Size: 29g (3/4 cup)
Grams of sugar per serving: 9g

(For comparison, one Reese’s Cup has 7g of sugar.)

The last cereal I tried was Cinnamon Toast Crunch Churros. I have to say that I actually liked this one quite a bit, but that’s probably because Apple Cinnamon Cheerios were a big treat for me growing up. The powdery cinnamon sugar coating on the cereal actually worked well because churros are often rolled in cinnamon sugar and end up with a similarly textured coating. In milk, the powder turns quickly to sludge, which to me is not ideal, so it’s much better dry. Overall, it’s nothing in comparison to fresh churros eaten while they’re still hot from the fryer, but the cereal is actually pretty tasty.

Serving Size: 31g (3/4 cup)
Grams of sugar per serving: 8g

As a bonus, I picked up some Limited Edition Frosted Sparkle-Licious Cherry Pop-Tarts for the girls. I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like them myself; I used to eat Pop-Tarts when on a sleepover once in a blue moon as a teen, and even then I found them both too sweet and too bland. These “limited edition” ones confirmed that opinion for me. The kids seem to like them, though — but for us they’re dessert, not breakfast. Actually, all of the “breakfast” food I brought home is being eaten as dessert, because none of us want to start the day with such a high dose of sugar. Even the kids! Me, I think I’ll stick with eggs and toast for the most part, and maybe some fruit if I want something sweet.

Serving Size: 52g (1 pastry)
Grams of sugar per serving: 16g

A Piece of Pie

Recently, my husband and I were playing Borderlands 2 online with another couple who are good friends of ours. At one point I had to take a brief AFK break to take a pie out of the oven, causing our friends to jokingly lament that they didn’t have pie too. At that time, their birthdays were swiftly approaching, so I promised them that I’d make them pies for their birthday. Well, their joint birthday celebration (their birthdays are only a couple of days apart) was this past Friday, so on Thursday night I had to make their pies.

I decided to make two totally different kinds of pies, and I started with a lemon meringue. I used the crust recipe from page 73 of The All-New Purity Cook Book (Elizabeth Driver, 2001), the filling from page 687 of the Joy of Cooking (Rombauer & Becker, 2006 edition), and Soft Meringue Topping #1 on page 798 of the Joy of Cooking. I’ll confess right now that I had never made lemon meringue pie before, even though I quite like it. I’d only tried a meringue once before and that failed spectacularly. I don’t know what I did, but no matter how hard I whipped it, the meringue never formed peaks at all, it just stayed runny. I was really worried that it wouldn’t turn out right.


Photo by Karen Turnbull.

In the end, I’m quite proud of my first lemon meringue pie, even though I singed the topping a bit. I have got to remember that my oven heats unevenly and that I need to check on my baked goods more often. I mean, I set a timer for the minimum time recommended and then checked it with five minutes to go, and it was still a rather dark brown (I was aiming for a toasted gold). If I’d left it in five minutes longer, it would have been burnt. Luckily, the colour was only on the surface, and my friends said it tasted just fine. They served it up to their gaming group when playing D&D on Sunday night, and everyone liked it, even one person who generally doesn’t like lemon meringue. I’m wondering if that’s because I used fresh lemons and lemon zest when I made the filling from scratch, instead of using canned filling.

For the second pie I went with a fruit-filled pie, which something I’ve done successfully a million times before, just in case. I mean, given the disaster with the bitter pumpkin pie at Christmas, experience doesn’t always mean mistake-free. But I’m fairly confident that it will taste fine (especially since you can honestly completely omit sugar in most fruit pies and it’ll still be palatable). For kicks, I rolled the top crust using a laser-engraved rolling pin that I received as a gift a while back. It features the hazard symbols for poison, ionizing radiation, high voltage, and biological hazards. Something tickles me about using this on food.

What with a fruit pie crust never baking flat, it’s hard to see the design, but it is there. I also vented the crust using a 8-Piece Pie Divider for the first time, which was a gift from another friend. It is honestly the weirdest-looking gadget in my kitchen, but it works quite well. The recipe for apple-strawberry pie that I used can actually be found on the back of its packaging box — although I did use the same Purity Pastry crust for both pies, since it’s just easier to whip up one big batch instead of multiple small ones. I used leftovers of that crust, along with some extra fruit from the fridge, to make the fruit tarts that night as well.

Honestly, I’m kind of hoping that this baking-as-a-birthday-gift idea becomes a regular thing. As my friends and I get older, I find it harder to shop for presents, since I know the things that they really want is way out of my budget, and we all have more clutter than we really need. But food is a necessity of life. And just maybe on our birthdays we deserve to be able to elevate a basic need to something a little more special.