Peach Cinny Buns

Good afternoon friends! I hope you're enjoying the Civic holiday long weekend, I always feel extra lucky when I can sleep in on a Monday and make breakfast.

We've been spoiling ourselves with the lovely peaches that have come in. Last night, we grilled some with pound cake and served it with ice cream. A simple but flavourful dessert, not to mention, easy to assemble. This morning, we chopped some up to lay over a spread of cinnamon paste and then wrapped it in a soft and chewy dough.

Peach Cinny Buns
Makes 24 cinny buns

1 1/3 cups of unsalted butter at room temperature
1 1/4 cups of milk
1/3 cup of granulated sugar
3/4 teaspoon of salt
6 cups of all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon of active dry yeast
3 large eggs at room temperature
1 1/2 cups of dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons of cinnamon
Chopped peaches from 3 peaches

1. In a saucepan, add 1/3 cup of unsalted butter, milk, granulated sugar, and salt over medium heat. Stir until the butter has completely melted. The mixture shouldn't reach a boil or bubbling.
2. Using a stand mixer with a dough hook, add in 5 1/2 cups of flour and the yeast. Give it a quick and short mix so that it's all incorporated. Then add the warm mixture from the saucepan in. Mix on low until the dough starts to form. 
3. Add the eggs and mix on low until the dough is smooth.
4. Place the dough in a bowl and cover it with plastic wrap. Set the bowl aside in a warm spot in your kitchen. Allow the dough to rise - about an hour.

While you wait, dice up the three peaches. Clean a few bowls and utensils because it's time to make the filling!

If like me, you only have one stand mixer, you're going to need that bowl clean. Fit the mixer with the paddle attachment and cream the remaining 1 cup of unsalted butter and dark brown sugar on medium until it's light and fluffy. Add the cinnamon and the remaining 1/2 cup of flour and mix on low until it becomes a soft paste.

Once the dough has risen, remove the plastic wrap and give the dough a few punches. Go ahead. Don't be afraid to show to the dough who's boss. Take it out onto your work area and knead it down. If you have limited table-top space like yours truly, divide the dough in half. Use a rolling pin to flatten it into a large rectangle about 1-1.5 cm thick.

Using a knife or spatula, spread the cinnamon paste on top of the dough. Go right up to the edges and even out the layer. Top it up with some diced peaches.

Then, take a deep breathe, put on a brave face, and roll the dough. I found it easier to roll away from myself. Pinch the openings so that you seal everything inside. Try to flatten it too so that it doesn't taper out into a point.

Take a sharp knife and cut the dough into equal rounds about 4 cm thick.

Place them in a deep baking pan as shown above. Preheat your oven to 175°C (350°F). Then bake the cinny buns for 20-25 minutes.

Remove from the oven and allow the cinny buns to cool. Take them out of the pan after 10-15 minutes and serve warm.

Now that's a glorious morning. But you can make it even better!

Taking some icing sugar and mix it with milk (or water or heavy cream) until you get a nice runny glaze.

Proceed to pour it over your peach cinny bun. Only share the icing if you have to. Enjoy!

Summerlicious: Daishō

Daishō

190 University Avenue, 3rd Floor

Toronto, ON M5H 0A3

Summerlicious in Toronto is one of those wonderful times of the year where we make an effort to go out and try restaurants with our friends. It's nice for those of us who are wallet conscious because the prix fixe menus are set at affordable lunch and dinner prices.

This year, when the restaurant list and menus were released, I was surprised (might have even gasped) to see Daishō on the list. Still relatively new, the opening of the three floors of momofuku eateries in Toronto had caused quite a buzz. But, it was nice to see that they were participating in this annual event!

We made dinner reservations (they had a 6:30 pm and 8:30 pm seating) for the later one to accommodate everyone's arrival after work. Upon arrival, we informed the host that our party was present, but were told that no tables were available yet. So we went down to nikai to wait the suggested fifteen minutes. We went back up to check (since no one was going to come down and inform us that our table was ready) and waited approximately another five to ten minutes until we were finally seated at the bar. How does one get a regular table at Daishō? This was our second time there and we were seated in the same spot, while it's fun to sit high up, I'd still prefer the chairs where my feet and rest on the floor!

To start, we were given an amuse bouche, a shot of chilled pea soup. It was tasty and woke up our taste buds for sure! I'm not even a fan of peas, but that soup left me wanting more. Going clockwise starting from the top left corner: Two burger buns, hot sauce, falafel bun, and shrimp bun. I had the burger bun, which was reminiscent of a McDonald's hamburger, included onion, cheddar, and special sauce. A bite of Howard's shrimp bun which had good clean flavours, the shrimp was accompanied with spicy mayo, pickled onion, and bibb lettuce. The gigantic one we were all eyeing was the falafel bun with yogurt, chickpea, and cucumber. Our friend gave us the nod and thumbs up as she gobbled it up. The falafel bun was the one that came with the little dish of hot sauce, but that didn't stop us from dipping our respective appetizers into it.

Howard tried the pork chop with corn, chanterelles, and nori. Unlike any pork chop we've had before, it was tender and was almost like a slice of ham cooked very well.

I rather enjoyed the trout with shrimp, pepperoncini, and herbs. There was definitely a good kick to it and the trout and shrimp didn't overpower each other.

We were served a palate cleanser of cucumber granita before dessert was served.

Howard's crack pie dessert with whipped cream and powdered sugar. If you haven't had their famous crack pie before, we would recommend that you share it. It's incredibly sweet and if you have too much, your teeth will start to cringe from all the sugar. But a bite or two? Lovely!

I tried the fried strawberry pie with vanilla, spiced sugar, and cookie crumb. A bit disappointed that the ice cream had melted so much by the time it arrived. And there wasn't anything special about the strawberry pie. As one of our friends put it, it's a strawberry spring roll!

An assortment of cake truffles.

Aside from waiting for a table, service was attentive and friendly. The buns at momofuku are always a standout and the main dishes were well prepared and cooked. Sadly, the portions were a bit on the smaller side for dinner entrées and the desserts weren't that inspiring (as you can purchase them from milk bar). Still hungry, we left and debated eating at noodle bar, but the dinner was already one of the higher prix fixe prices, so we decided against it.

Burger Buns

Hello readers! We hope you're having a wonderful long weekend. Here in Toronto, we are finally getting some lovely sunshine and the temperature is slowly increasing. We can't wait to stow away our bulky winter coats!

A lot of our friends went away this weekend to visit New York City and Chicago, but for those of us still at home, we decided on an impromptu dinner. We had arugula, spinach, red and yellow peppers, sausages, and burger patties. Let's have our first BBQ of the year!

Except . . . we didn't have buns for the burgers. The grocery stores were closed for Good Friday. What do we do? We search the world wide web of course and the answer was there!

We came across a recipe for beautiful burger buns and had all the ingredients on hand. This review had gotten a five star rating from so many people, we were pretty sure it would be fail proof.

Of course, it was only when we reached the flattening stage that we realized there was a step-by-step photo blog about the recipe too. We would highly encourage you to read that before starting!

Since it was an impromptu dinner, we had to cut some of the dough's rising time. The first time we let it poof was shortened to an hour and the second time was shortened to 45 minutes. We did want to eat before 7 pm.

Oh and we would recommend doing the egg white wash instead of the butter. Just follow the blog post.

See, not much colour with the butter wash. The burger buns turned out to have more of a biscuit quality to it. We will point out again that we didn't have enough time for the dough to rise and didn't use egg white.

Regardless, it would have been difficult to eat the burgers without the buns. So in the end, it did save dinner!