Four decadent desserts from Cheese Garden!

12 Friday Oct 2018

Posted by notanotherfoodblogca in asian, cakes, comfort food, dessert, japanese, review, reviews, toronto, Uncategorized

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dessert, japanese, toronto

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There’s a Japanese café near me called Cheese Garden that’s known for their super delicious Japanese pastries like cheesecake and tiramisu. I was given a few to sample and WOW!!! I was so blown away by how delicious they were! You can tell the pastries were made from really high quality ingredients, each all so unique. I really don’t know any other place that offers desserts like these, so I highly recommend checking them out.

First up is their Yuzu Pistachio Double Fromage Cheesecake, a new limited time pastry that they created to celebrate their 2nd anniversary. Absolutely LOVED this – when you bite into it, you immediately taste the yuzu citrus and slight pistachio flavour, which go so deliciously with the rich and luxurious cheese notes. There are a ton of layers in this pastry, each complimenting each other very well:

The cheesecake base is made of pistachio sponge cake – super soft and delicate
On top of that is a rich, smooth, baked pistachio cheesecake, with some sugar roasted diced pistachios added into it
Above that is a rich and creamy yuzu mascarpone cheesecake
The cake is finished with a layer of pistachio sponge cake crumbs, sprinkled with gold flakes and decorated with a cute yuzu shaped chocolate button

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Make sure you grab this because it will be on sale only from October 13 to November 4, with 50 available per day, limited to one cake per person! If you drop by any of their locations from October 13 to 14, you can get 50% off one pastry item (this promo does not include the Yuzu cheesecake).

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The next pastry I tried is the Baked Cheese Tart. It’s freshly baked, filled with decadent molten cream cheese. I heated it up in the oven for a bit, and really loved the crispy outer shell of the puff pastry. The crust was a nice contrast to the delicious centre: gooey, salty, and sweet.

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I also really liked their Double Fromage Cheesecake, with layers of mascarpone, baked cream cheese, sponge cake, and coated with sponge cake crumbs. The cheese flavour tasted so delicate and delicious. Make sure you take a bite with all the layers – it’s a great combination of creamy vanilla and Japanese cheesecake flavours. Just slightly sweet and perfect. When you get this make sure you eat it at room temperature because it is usually stored in the freezer.

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Finally, one of my favourites from the desserts, their Uji Matcha Tiramisu. I am a huge sucker for anything matcha, and I enjoyed this so much! Soft, creamy, and bursting with matcha! It’s made with premium Uji matcha powder, matcha cream, double layers of fluffy cream cheese and specially made ladyfingers. This is a must buy!!

Make sure you try the Yuzu Pistachio Cheesecake, or any of the desserts really, especially because of the promo that they’ve got going on this weekend!

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Cheese Garden
5291 Yonge St, North York, ON M2N 5R3
www.cheesegarden.ca

The Dessert Kitchen Toronto

26 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by notanotherfoodblogca in asian, chinese, dessert, review, reviews, toronto, Toronto restaurant, Uncategorized

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dessert, review, toronto

I’m a huuuuge sucker for Asian desserts, especially icy goodness topped with fresh fruit and milk. YUM! Okay, it’s probably because I grew up in the Philippines, where it was really hot most days, so I ate halo-halo pretty regularly. If you haven’t tried, its a really delish shaved ice dessert with fruit, beans condensed milk. Most of the time though, these icy desserts are made with sooo much sugar, which is why when I was told that The Dessert Kitchen makes their desserts with low sugar in mind, I was super intrigued!!

I was invited to try a few desserts during the soft opening of the The Dessert Kitchen, located in Harbord Village (not to be confused with the one in Markham), so I brought along my best friend Stephanie who also looooves these types of desserts. Here are a few things that I learned:

1. Apart from their desserts being made with low sugar in mind, they make a lot of their treats in house, like the really delicious Uji matcha ice cream on this eggette. This Green Tea Eggette was one of my faves, it was super crunchy, and was a lovely contrast to the bitter green tea ice cream. I ate this soooo quickly!!

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2. They have an award winning signature dessert called Purple in Love, which is made up of crushed ice, topped with grape syrup, milk, mochi ice cream, rice balls, fresh grapes and Kyoho seaweed balls (which are also made in house). This one was pretty refreshing and I would really recommend this to grape lovers.

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3. Their menu is HUGE so you’ll find everything from sundaes, shaved ice and they even have a Japadog!! I also tried this ice cream sundae called The Dancing Queen, which has their homemade green tea ice cream red bean, green tea kanten, mini rice balls, milk pudding and soft serve vanilla ice cream (made in house as well).

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Needless to say, it’s my new fav dessert place! I wish they’d open up one near me at Yonge and Sheppard!! Yes, it’s true – pretty much all the desserts that I tried were made with lower amounts of sugar compared to most dessert places (with the sweetest of the bunch the Purple in Love). My best friend and I tried four different kinds of dessert, plus their yummy and super authentic Hong Kong style milk tea, and we weren’t feeling sick at all, which usually happens when you have one really sweet dessert. I can’t wait to go back!!

The Dessert Kitchen
73 Harbord Street Toronto, ON M5S 1G4

Christmas in a Cookie + Baking with Canola

29 Wednesday Nov 2017

Posted by notanotherfoodblogca in baking, chocolate, comfort food, cookie, cookies, dessert, food, recipe, recipes, Uncategorized

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canadian, canola oil, christmas, cookies, holidays, recipe

I’ve been bad. Sadly, I’ve been cooking with vegetable oil and shortening, which I recently discovered was not the best option for your heart!!

Last week, I attended a really awesome culinary workshop at the Loft on Geary, hosted by Canola Eat Well. They’re a joint partnership between Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba Canola Growers, that aims to inspire us to use canola oil in the kitchen by connecting us to the stories of Canadian farmers. I even got to speak first hand to one of them, a very lovely lady from Alberta, Jeannette (to my right in the picture below). Let me tell you I am CONVERTED! Who knew that Canola is Canadian and grown for us by over 43,000 family farmers on the Canadian Prairies?! I use vegetable oil really frequently to deep fry breaded pork chop, pork belly and chicken, but never again!!

#CanolaConnect ladies! Photo credit: Josh Tenn-Yuk

Aaaaand here I am with my favourite thing about Christmas (it’s really the other way around…kidding)!! Also, I’m pretty sure I look 17 years old in this photo, WOW!

Photo credit: Josh Tenn-Yuk

Sooooooo here’s the deal: Canola oil, which should be your local Canadian choice, is heart friendly because it’s a good source of Vitamin E and K, super low in saturated fats (half of olive oil) and is packed with Omega 3 fats (helps protect against heart attacks and strokes). It’s also has a pretty neutral taste, so it allows the flavours in baking and cooking to shine, AND also makes your baked goods moist. Trust me, we baked a bunch of goodies with canola oil at the workshop, and they were outstanding!!

Kettle Corn, Coconut-Lime Blondies, and MORE!! Photo credit: Josh Tenn-Yuk

Here’s a handy canola oil baking conversion chart! I didn’t know this either but it’s awesome for deep frying (McDonald’s even uses it), because it can fry up until 468F.

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Are you a fan yet?!

Well, you’re going to LOOOOVE these Chocolate Ginger Jewels I just baked. Chef Claire Tansey is the mastermind behind this perfect cookie, which you need to bake this holiday season. This is literally Christmas in a cookie, with the cinnamon and ginger spice giving me all the holiday feels. UGH! To-die-for!!

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At first bite it’s slightly crispy, but inside it’s super soft and chewy (thanks to the canola oil), bursting with ginger spice, warm cinnamon flavours, and extra sweetness from the chocolate (I used chopped up Valrhona chocolate feves). My eyes literally rolled to the back of my head when I first tried it because it so epic. Especially when you eat them freshly baked from the oven… it’s so dangerous! I’m going to have to work out extra hard today after the 10 cookies I just ate!!!

Don’t sleep on this recipe. It’s so easy and quick to whip up too!

Get the Recipe!

Tested and Perfected Rice Krispie Squares

18 Monday Sep 2017

Posted by notanotherfoodblogca in baking, comfort food, dessert, easy, recipe, recipes, snack, Uncategorized

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recipe, rice krispies, snack

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Rice Krispie Squares: so easy to make, but so easy to mess up. I sadly was only introduced to them in the past year, when my coworker brought them in to the office… LIFE CHANGING! Yeah, really. Because before then I’ve only tried the packaged versions, which if you’ve tried the freshly made ones, can’t really hold a candle. So in my first few attempts to make them, I made sure that it was gooey and not dry, with some melty marshmallows in each square.

Now the real key to this recipe, and my coworker Liz would highly recommend, is to add a bit of vanilla. I did experiment with more expensive vanilla extract and regular vanilla and couldn’t taste the difference at all!

The recipe after the jump is my tried and true recipe, having made over 4 batches of them for our bake sale at the office. It’s pretty much perfection! The aluminum foil lining is a MUST to easily remove your squares from the pan.

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Chocolate Chip Skillet Cookie (aka Pizookie)

15 Sunday May 2016

Posted by notanotherfoodblogca in american, baking, chocolate, comfort food, cookie, cookies, dessert, easy, ice cream, Uncategorized

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chocolate chip, cookie, ice cream

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Oh man, diet starts tomorrow.

I made this absolutely delish skillet chocolate chip cookie, which my mom and I ate wayyy too much of (and slightly regret). What I totally dig about this is that it comes out super hot from the oven, and you eat it straight from the skillet… WITH ICE CREAM! Yep, my diet went downhill after that first gooey bite, melted chocolate and caramel goodness (I used a lot of brown sugar).

This pizookie copycat recipe was pretty good and so simple to make! All that’s missing is a bit of chocolate drizzle on top… Man! I gotta stop now.

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