And Now We Bake
When temperatures start with a minus and snow – snow! – falls on our streets, many of us prefer to admire the wonderland from the warmth of our houses. If all of this nesting triggers an urge to bake, Vancouver is home to a number of chefs who offer great recipes through their blogs or books.
Headlining our feature is the work of talented baker, Lyndsay Sung, who runs the popular Coco Cake Land site. In 2008, Sung launched her cake business and started the Coco Cake Land blog to showcase the work she was doing for clients. “I started it out on Blogspot with a crappy little point and shoot camera. As I started to create more work, a few of my cakes went viral and the number of visitors to my blog blew up. If only I had ads on my blog back then. Ha!”
Sung, who shoots her own photos, has tens of thousands of engaged followers on Instagram who anxiously await her next photos and recipes. The Fancy Candy Drippy Cake, aka the blue teal birthday cake for a 7 year old Momo, was coveted by sweet teeth in all age groups.
If you are more in the mood for pie, Sung has a delicious recipe for Blueberry Streusel Pie.
And here is the Birthday nosh that Sung made for herself: Peanut Butter and Jam Cake.
You can incorporate edible flowers and berries into her Easy Chocolate Ganache Pie.
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John Bishop is a renowned chef whose intimate restaurant on West 4th Avenue has continued to earn kudo after kudo over decades in the city. Luckily, he has captured some of his recipes in readily available cookbooks.
In the original, Bishop’s the Cookbook, you can find the recipe for a dessert that you won’t soon forget: Warm gingerbread cake with toffee sauce. Bishop suggests we eat it with his Vanilla Bean Ice Cream, recipe also provided.
Also available in that book is Death by Chocolate. ‘This is our restaurant’s signature dessert,’ Bishop writes. ‘Lesley Stowe, from whom we bought all our desserts at first, came up with the original recipe and the name. John Bishop turned it into a piece of art by splashing the raspberry coulis over the plate to achieve the colourful ‘death’ effect.’
Here is an older video of Stowe, a Vancouver native, preparing her version of Death by Chocolate.
In his Simply Bishop’s cookbook, you’ll find some delicious recipes like Meyer Lemon Brûlée Tart with Lavender Pastry and Warm Blueberry Cake.
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Megan Lee Voigt is a talented young pastry chef who works at the award-winning Hawksworth restaurant and runs a lovely blog called Hint of Vanilla.
Voigt offers beautiful photography, seen below, and an extensive list of recipes. It is remarkable how well she tends and grows her site whilst holding down a serious job at a restaurant that consistently wins Top in the City plaudits.
Some of Voigt’s deliciousness includes:
Hot Chocolate Cream Puffs
Lemon Raspberry Macarons
Brown Butter Pumpkin Pie with a Pecan Crust and Brown Butter Chantilly
S’mores Custard Cake. I mean look at that! Yum.
Coffee Doughnuts
Happy Baking and many thanks to the local chefs, like Lyndsay Sung, John Bishop and Megan Lee Voigt, who inspire us.
Written by Elizabeth Newton
www.creatorsvancouver.com
* Coco Cake Land Photos by Lyndsay Sung
* A Hint of Vanilla Photos by Megan Lee Voigt
