Marie Cookpad

  When I was a child, it was a real treat when my mother made us jam tarts!  It didn't happen very often, to say the least.  I don't know why. They are not really very hard to make.  She tended to only make them if she had leftover pastry . . .   And usually any leftover pastry went to make Petes de Soeur (um . . . Nun's Farts) or weiner rolls.  Weiner rolls were much more popular with my dad so they got made the most often. My mother would roll the scraps out thinly, spread them with mustard and wrap them around hotdogs before baking.   To be honest, we all loved them.  So nobody was complaining.  Not at all.  They were like the ultimate hotdog.  I have tried them with fancy mustards through the years, but really . . . old fashioned French's American mustard is the best.   I found myself having quite a few small pots of Bonne Maman jam that needed using up. I had gotten them for Christmas,  and so today I decided to use t...

  I have a real fondness for the traditional recipes of this country I have come to love and adopt as my homeland. As a child in Canada I often repeated the rhyme taught to me from my nursery rhyme book about riding a horse to Banbury Cross and seeing a lady on a white horse, with bells on her fingers and rings on her toes.   Banbury is a real place here in the UK, and the home of these delicious cakes I am sharing with you today.  The recipe is one I have adapted from one of my favourite little baking books, Meg Rivers Home Baking. Published in 2012 it is filled with lovely recipes.  Every one I have ever baked has turned out wonderfully perfect and she does give measurements in both linear and metric.  I trust it and recommend this book highly.    Banbury cakes are like a round flakey puff pastry turnover, filled with dried fruits, butter spices and sugar.  Very similar I think to Eccles Cakes.  So they are not cakes in the "Cake" sense of...

  When I was living in Canada prior to moving over here I worked at a Canadian Institution called Tim Hortons.  I quite liked my job.  I have always loved working with people and with food.    During Strawberry season they used to carry a line of Strawberry Cream Cheese Danish that I totally loved.  There is something really wonderful that happens when you combine strawberry filling and puff pastry.   Add a cream cheese filling and you are in taste heaven.  End of story!   I was sitting here looking out at the sunshine today and thinking about my time at Timmies this morning and decided to re-create the flavours of their Strawberry Danish for Todd to enjoy.    I think I did a pretty good job  . . .  ahem . . .  maybe these are even better.  *blush*   And they only require a few ingredients.  One package of all butter puff pastry.  I use the all butter one because I don't like to use or eat things l...