Butter Avenue

Butter Avenue

Pâtisserie and Café

3467 Yonge Street

Toronto, ON M4N 2N3

(647) 341- 8686

They're on Facebook and Twitter too!

Oh I am so excited to share this with you! Although, it's most likely that you've already paid Butter Avenue a visit and you're rolling your eyes at my ridiculously late arrival. Friends have raved about this place, but it wasn't until I saw that they serve Afternoon Tea that I asked Howard to take me there for a date.

The Afternoon Tea menu includes an amuse-bouche, macarons, mini tarts, cakes, and specialty teas. Take a look at Kitchen Frolic's blog here.

So you would think this post would be about our Afternoon Tea experience... but no, I screwed up. I didn't realize we had to make reservations first. But, this means we're making a return trip, because we made the reservation right then and there!

I wasn't going to leave without trying something, I mean, you try looking at the display cases and walking out. Howard and I shared the St. Honoré aux Macarons, consisting of crème chantilly pistachio, fresh raspberries, and raspberry macarons.

Macarons on a tart? Fresh fruit? Light crème? Yes, please!

I ... uh ... also got six macarons to snack on. Howard did scold me and said I should have gotten these to go and that I wouldn't be able to finish them.

Well, I showed him! And he had to eat his words because he ate the halves of five of those macarons!

I picked out the white chocolate strawberry, cream cheese passion fruit, matcha chestnut, earl grey, oolong, and the sea salt caramel macarons to try.

Our top favourite favourites? It's hard to choose, but we really enjoyed the sea salt caramel, oolong, passion fruit, matcha chestnut, white chocolate strawberry, and the earl grey. Yeah, I just listed them all again. Like I said, it's hard to choose!

They were very kind to let me snap some more photos of the lovely treats we'll be coming back to try! The above is the St. Honoré aux Fraises: strawberry chantilly, pâte sucrée, candy cane macarons, and fresh strawberries. Now that I think about it, I should have ordered this one, because it looks like a seasonal one. Fingers crossed that it'll still be there in January.

St. Honoré Cassis: crème chantilly cassis, fresh blueberries, and Secret Garden macarons. What are Secret Garden macarons?!?

I didn't get a photo of the lovely treat behind, but it's the Château De Framboise: chocolate, almond, and raspberry.

Terre Et Neige: matcha and dark chocolate.

Nutty Dark Chocolate.

Mini macarons! In a bubble tea cup? Cute!

The next few photos are just rows and rows of beautiful macarons. Enjoy!

Dreamy isn't it? Do you think they'd let me work there part-time? ;)

Crème Brûlée Tartlets

We had a lot of egg yolks leftover after making so many macarons. We managed to use most of them for the lemon curd, but we still had another batch of yolks! So we tried to make crème brûlée, we've never made it before despite all the ramekins we have. But then we saw a recipe for Crème Brûlée Tartlets and thought we would give it a try!

To make the tart shells, we're tried a pâte sucrée recipe.

Pâte Sucrée
Recipe from The Seasonal Baker

2 cups of all-purpose flour
2 sticks of unsalted butter
1/4 cup of sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
1 egg
1 egg yolk

1. Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, sugar, and salt on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
2. Add the egg and egg yolk, mix until combined with the flour.
3. Shape the dough into a flattened disk and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate overnight.

Preheat your oven to 190°C (375°F). Take the dough out and sprinkle your work non-stick surface with flour. Not too much flour, you don't want to change the texture of the dough. Roll the dough out and fill your tart pans. Trim off any excess dough and roll it flat for the next pan. Prick the bottom of the tarts with a fork. Bake the shells for 15 minutes or until the crust is golden brown and crisp. Set aside.

Crème Brûlée

Recipe from Macarons

1 vanilla bean

1 cup of milk

1 cup of heavy cream

5 egg yolks

2/3 cup of granulated sugar

1. Preheat your oven to 125°C (255°F).
2. Split the vanilla bean in half lengthwise and scrape out the seeds.
3. In a saucepan, pour in the milk and vanilla seeds. Heat over medium temperature.
4. In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks and sugar until smooth.
5. When the milk begins to boil (watch it carefully, it can boil over), remove it from the heat and stir in the heavy cream. Pour in the yolks and whisk quickly to prevent the heat from cooking scrambled eggs!
6. Pour the mixture through a sieve. 

To our surprise, the pâte sucrée tart shells shrunk in the oven! They no longer had the height of the tart pans, which created a really shallow area for the crème brûlée. Some of the tarts could only hold a spoonful of filling. Well, we bake and we learn. Take out some ramekins for your extra custard!

Carefully ladle the custard into the tart shells and pop them back in the oven. Bake for another 15 minutes or until the custard sets. It will jiggle a little bit, but be careful not to over bake it, the custard will curdle! Remove the tarts from the oven and let cool. Refrigerate for an hour or overnight.

To create the signature crust over the crème brûlée, take some granulated sugar and sprinkle the surface. Make sure to do this when you take the tarts out from the fridge. You'll want them still cool, otherwise your kitchen torch will melt the crust.

Ignite your kitchen torch and move the flame evenly over the top of the tarts. Avoid the crust and stop when the sugar is caramelized. Serve immediately.

Oops, you can see that we burnt a bit of the crust and how shallow the tarts were! Next time, we're going to roll them thinner and let some of the dough hang over the tart pans.

Summerlicious: Bymark

Bymark

66 Wellington Street West

Toronto, ON M5K 1J3

(416) 777-1144

Mark McEwan. Pretty much the reason why we picked Bymark to try during Summerlicious. He's the head judge for Top Chef Canada, so his grocery store and restaurants are pretty much featured for restaurant wars and shopping. Having tried Fabbrica, we thought we would take advantage of the prix fixe deal at one of his fancier restaurants.

Having walked by it in the underground PATH before, it was nice to finally go inside! Our party of four were greeted in the front and led to our table near the middle of the restaurant. I didn't realize how small the place was! The restaurant is dim and quiet before the dining room filled up - we felt like we had to whisper at first. =)

I felt really shy about taking my camera out during the appetizers. The room's ambiance was still hushed and I knew that the shutter sound would be unnerving to me. But regrets now, because the dishes were beautifully plated and delicious. I tried the Albacore Sashimi with shaved and pickled radish, snow peas, plums, and honey mustard yuzu (a citrus fruit). Howard tried the Beef Carpaccio with endive, Saint Agur (a type of blue cheese), herb croutons, and ranch dressing.

As the dining room filled up, our friends pointed out that lots of people had their cameras out. Sure enough, I look behind me and a group will serious camera gear were snapping away. At least my camera is still relatively small and I wasn't going to be out of my seat. . . .

I don't know, what's your take on this? I love taking photos of restaurants, dishes, and food products - but feel that some places, it doesn't seem proper to do so.

Above, Howard's main course was the BBQ Duck Confit and Seared Scallop with sweet peas, cauliflower, northwood mushrooms, passion fruit, and duck sauce. Howard was kind enough to give me a bite of the duck - it was very tasty! Sorry that the scallops are blocking the view in the photo!

I tried the Pan Seared White Fish with green curry lentils, prawns, and coriander scallion chutney. Comparing it to the duck confit, it just wasn't as good. We found the halibut a bit dry (more chutney would have helped) and bland. I should have ordered the duck!

For dessert, Howard's Tart Lemon Slice with honey lavender ice cream. I think he liked the ice cream more than the lemon tart!

I ended the night with a Double Chocolate Cake with minted white chocolate mousse. It looks like a fancy cupcake, doesn't it?

Apple Galette and Tarts

It was my mom's birthday weekend, so I asked her what kind of birthday cake she would like. She said "apple pie." Despite my attempts to persuade her towards a cake, I decided to make her pie. I guess we can be just as celebratory with pie...

Originally, I was thinking of using puff pastry, but I couldn't find any at my closest grocery store. Back home, I went online and realized that I needed to go to a grocery store with President's Choice products! Which I found amusing as I was making these birthday treats with my friend who works at said grocery store. Yes Laura, if you're reading this. I've learnt my lesson, I should always go to Loblaws.

I ended up getting Pillsbury's refrigerated pie crusts. I know, I wasn't making the crust from scratch and I'm thankful for that choice. I don't think it would have turned out well on this extremely hot day.

The store-brought pie crusts were extremely easy to use. We defrosted them for 15 minutes and rolled them out. The pie crusts come in two sheets, for the first one, we made tarts. Using a circle cookie-cutter, we placed the dough into six mini tart pans (they look like this). You can combine all the scraps and roll them out again. For the second sheet, we used it to make the galette. Place the dough on a sheet of parchment paper.

Apple Galette and Tart Filling
Recipe from Essential Pepin 
(Jacques Pépin had his own dough recipe that was omitted here.)

4 Red Delicious apples
2 tablespoons of honey
2 tablespoons of sugar
1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon of unsalted butter

1. Preheat your oven to 200°C (400°F).
2. Peel, halve, and core the apples. Carefully slice the apples to 1/4-inch-thick.
3. Arranged the sliced apples on the dough. For the galette, keeping them within 1-inch of the edges and slightly overlapping. For the tarts, arrange them with the peeled side out.
4. Drizzle the honey over the sliced apples.
5. Mix the sugar and cinnamon together and sprinkle on top of the honeyed apples.
6. Cut the butter into tiny cubes and dot them over the apples.
7. For the galette, gently fold the edges inwards. You'll noticed that I did this before step four - oops!
8. Bake for an hour or until the crust is brown and crisp. The apples should be tender.
9. Serve the galette and tarts at room temperature. Preferably with ice cream.

Step 3 - arrange the sliced apples.

Step four - drizzling honey over the apples.

Step 5 - sprinkling the cinnamon sugar.

Looking delicious out of the oven!

Instead of vanilla, try pairing your apple tarts with maple and walnut ice cream.

Crispy Chocolate Tarts

Yesterday, I was laying in bed and thinking about tarts. When will I start making tart shells? Are tart shells hard to make? What if I used something else for the shell? Something like... rice krispies!

Using the same recipe from the peanut butter crispy bars, I woke up, had a bowl of cereal, and got to work. 

Make the base of the tart in your pans first. When that is all even on the bottom, start building the sides. Press and mold the rice krispies with your hands and then put them in the fridge to firm up - about an hour.

You could fill the rice krispies tarts with any filling of your choice, I went for a peanut butter and chocolate layer. Just the one! Pour it in the shell and let it set in the fridge for another hour.

Without any doubt, this was one very sweet tart, we might try a citrus filling next time. =P

Birthday Weekend Lunch

I just wanted to share my birthday weekend treats with you. Howard and I started off being really good! Bright and early, we both went to the gym - step class for me and the elliptical for him. It was such an uncharacteristic January day, sunny and warm, so we went downtown to have lunch at Nadege Patisserie. We've been before to pick up pastries, but we hadn't tried their sandwiches yet!

My favourite of the two was the smoked salmon, cucumber, dill, and cream cheese! A delicious buttery and flaky croissant with the crunch of the cucumber. Smoked salmon and cream cheese, always a winning combination.

We tried their breakfast sandwich which consists of bacon, scrambled eggs, cheddar, and tomato. They heat it up for you so that you're not eating room temperature eggs and bacon.

The first dessert we tried was this green fuzzy-looking cube with the raspberry garnish and cute Japanese decal. Inside, the matcha green tea cake is composed of two layers, the top being raspberry mouse and the bottom being brown rice pudding.

Unable to resist, we tried two more desserts. The salted caramel mousse, which looks like a mouse, was very rich. Breaking it open, we were surprised to see that there are layers in this dessert!

Finally, our favourite of the picks that day, the raspberry tart. Seeds removed and filled with a syrup or jam, the raspberries themselves were a dessert on their own. But, on top of that scrumptious pastry cream, just wonderful!

If you are going to only pick one dessert, I think Nadege's tarts are worth a try. On previous visits, we've had the grapefruit and earl grey tart, a personal favourite of mine, and the mango coconut tart. They all have a great balance of sweet and sour.

PS: Took the photos on my iPhone. I need to remember to bring my camera out more often!