Maple sugar shack

Last weekend, my great-aunt took me to a cabane au sucre, a maple sugar shack, where maple syrup is made. It was a pretty amazing (and sweet) experience, something truly Canadian.

The maple sap is collected in those buckets. 40 litres of this liquid is required to make one litre of maple syrup.

Drop by drop, the sap comes out of the tree.

Every tree has its own distinct flavour. And believe me, we tried them all.

In the cabana, they offered an amazing buffet of different foods, most of them contained maple syrup (amazing: baked beans with maple syrup). And for desert: pancakes :)

Cuties!

After the ride in the sled, we needed some warming-up in front of the fire place.

This is maple taffy. Thick maple syrup is poured onto snow, then you take a stick and turn it until you have a nice big amount of frozen maple syrup. Very very sticky, very very sweet.

The cabana, as seen from the horse sled.

Black forest gateau (Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte)

I made this lovely gateau today. This cake is so much better than anything that is sold under the same name here in Canada.

Here's the recipe:

List of ingredients for dough:

• 140g of bittersweet and dark chocolate 
• 75g butter or margarine 
• 6 eggs 
• 180g sugar 
• 100g flour
• 50g corn starch
• 2 tsp baking powder 

Instructions:

Melt chocolate and butter together by placing them into a bowl, over a pot of boiling water, stirring regularly.

Separate the eggs. Beat egg whites until a fluffy solid like texture is made. (test with knife)

In a separate bowl, beat egg yolks while adding sugar gradually to make fluffy mixture.

Mix and beat chocolate mixture to the egg yolk and sugar mixture.

In a third bowl, mix flour, starch and baking powder. 

Put half the amount of flour mixture in with the chocolate mix and beat on lowest setting. 

Carefully, with a spoon,  add  1/3 off the egg white snow to the flour /chocolate mix.

Carefully, with a spoon, mix and fold the remaining flour, then add the remaining egg white snow mix, gently fold as well.

Fill into a cake pan and place into pre heated oven at 350°F (175°C).

Bake for 40-45 mins.

Let cool completely. 

After complete cool down, cut cake in 3 separate layers, using string.

List of ingredients for filling and topping:

• 800 g cherries. Example: red sour cherries, pitted, in light syrup.  (fresh or frozen is good, but NOT in syrup) 
• 500 ml cherry juice (the same liquid from the jar of cherries, if not enough, use water to top it up)
• 4 tbsp of corn starch
• 2 tbsp of sugar
• 100 ml rum or calvados (for non alcohol, use cherry juice or jam)
• 800 ml whipping cream  (3-4 packs of Whip It cream stabilizer)
• 30g sugar
•  a few drops of vanilla extract 
• 100g dark chocolate (or any other chocolate)
• Make sure to save some cherries for decoration! 

    

Instructions:

Mix the corn starch with the sugar in a small bowl, add 3 tbl of the cherry juice. 

Heat remainder of cherry juice in pot until boiling 

Pour starch and sugar mix into pot and whisk until all power is dissolved 

The mixture shoulder a thick texture, remove from heat, add cherries. 

Let cool.

Add 50ml of the 100ml of rum. Use remaining rum to sprinkle over the two bottom cake layers.

Using tin foil, make a ring around thebottom layer of cake. Make sure it's higher than the cake pan. Place the cake ring back on.

On the bottom layer of cake, add 1/2 of cherry mixture 

In a big bowl, whip up thecream with the stabilizer, the sugar and the vanilla extract. 

Take 1/4 of the cream and place evenly on the cherry layer.

Now, add middle layer of cake on top of cream layer.

Now add rest of cherry mixture on top of that middle layer.  

Let cool.

Place another 1/4 of the cream on top of cherries. 

Sprinkles rest of rum.

Place top layer of cake.

Add 1/4 of cream.

Sprinkle any kind of shaved chocolate on top of cream.

Now, decorate with rest of cream, little blobs around around three cake and in the middle. Also decorate with remaining cherries. Also, if there is any cream left over. Spread around the sides of the cake.

Take pictures.

EAT :)

A walk in the (pine) woods

The pine grove trail

Just came back from walking in Ottawa's green belt, and had to shake the last remaining ladybugs out of my hair. They are absolutely everywhere, and they seem to have taken a special liking to me - at one point there were a rough dozen clinging to my clothes.

It's a lovely day today, all warm and sunny (and it feels even warmer when thinking of all the cold weeks before), and it felt really great to wear a T-shirt, and not shirt-hoodie-coat-combination outside.

So when I saw the sun, I just had to go out and do something - and decided to try out the "pine grove forest trail. As soon as I had entered the forest, I could see why it was called such. Anyway, let's stop babbling and have a look at some pictures instead...

Love this picture - I think it looks like a painting

Pine wood

Spiders seem to love needles

Fun walking on this strange trail

Calm, calmer, Buddha

Another close-up

Dozens of ladybugs descended upon me - and my phone

If there's someone in Ottawa who now wants to walk this trail to, here's a map.

Earthquake!!!

There's been a tiny earthquake in the Montreal region, which, reportedly, could be felt even in Ottawa. I didn't feel anything, I was sound asleep, but when I saw all the wonderful Twitter posts, I couldn't resist writing to a few earthquake experts to find out how often things like this actually happen.

82% of Montreal believe this morning's earthquake was Quebec literally trying to separate from Canada
— Stats Canada (@stats_canada) October 10, 2012

The first scientist that answered wasn't in Ottawa. She'd flown to California to do earthquake research. How ironic - she traveled 500 miles to get closer to earthquakes, and then missed the one in her home town.

1st picture of damage in Montreal from that 4.5 magnitude earthquake. twitter.com/KennyB899/stat…
— Kenny B (@KennyB899) October 10, 2012

Anyway, I will try to get some nice radio interviews with earthquake experts and will then publish them on here sometime. Stay posted. Don't let the big bad earthquakes get you.

Just when you thought you knew everything about busses

Canadian busses can be overwhelming.
First, they (almost) always seem to be on time, and often too early.
Then, if you want to get off, don't start for handy little buttons to press. Nope, much cooler than that - you have to pull on a yellow cord that is drawn once around the inner walls of the bus.
Thirdly (I should have made this a bullet-point list), the back doors don't open automatically (which could be an advantage during the winter to avoid having the cold draft over and over again, but could also be a disadvantage for all the unassuming tourists (and new students) that wait desperately for the doors to open by themselves. But no matter how long you wait, they won't open. Unless you press a yellow bar which at first glance resembles a holding post - but it isn't. It's soft and squischy and yellow and you can never be completely sure how hard you have to press it.
While the doors might be a slight inconvenience, the Ottawa busses make up for it by having a bike rack at the front - outside. You can just pull it down, put your bike on, and hope that the driver won't be distracted by having a dazzlingly pink bike in front of him.

Picture: STW