I can't really go a year without baking, so I mentioned to my host family that I love to bake, and they were very excited, especially when I said that I like to make bread. I started making bread once in a while, and my first batch was... considerably less than ideal (my host family still loved it though, because they are fantastic and encouraging). Since then I have made a few adjustments - mostly due to the different flour. I think that Canadian flour has a higher protein content, so I had to add more milk than normal.
During Thanksgiving time, I really wanted pumpkin pie, so I decided to give that a go. It took a while to even find the ingredients (or adequate substitutes). The recipe I use at home uses canned pumpkin (see - not a food elitist!), brown sugar, and evaporated milk - all of which I wouldn't find. Of course I just cooked and pureed fresh pumpkin, which was easy enough, and I found something similar to brown sugar (a type of demerara), but I'm fairly certain that evaporated milk doesn't exist here. No biggie - evaporated milk is just that - milk that has been concentrated through evaporation. So I measured out twice as much milk as I needed, and started heating it on the stove. This was harder than it sounds - too hot and the milk will curdle. Another adjustment was using all butter in my pastry, instead of half lard. I probably should have found an all butter pastry recipe, as my pastry was not terribly flaky.
I'm intimidated to try my North American recipes here for more than just not being able to find ingredients, measuring cups don't exist here. We use a scale, measuing spoons, and we have one jug with dL on the side. In the end my pie was pretty good, certainly not my best creation, but I still liked it.
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