Well Bread Cooking School

Crabapple Jelly tutorial

Recipe
4 pounds crabapples, washed, leave the skins on, core in and stem on, slice in half
5 cups cold water
Cook without stirring until soft (~30 mins) with lid on
Line a colander/sieve with cheese cloth or fine mesh game bag (that’s what I used) and place over a large bowl or pot to catch all the juice.
Carefully spoon the cooked mixture including all the juice into the cloth
DO NOT PRESS THE SOLIDS. Your jelly will not be clear if you do that.
Let hang or leave to drain 2-4 hours.
Strain the juice through more cheesecloth to catch any solids that made it through the first straining.
3 cups white sugar
1/2 teaspoon citric acid (or 2 tablespoons lemon juice)
Stir well.
Bring to boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat as the mixture thickens.
Skim the white solids off the jelly as it cooks.
Cook to 215F or 102C
Test for consistency on a chilled plate.
1/4” head space.
Process in water bath canner for 10 minutes.
Yield 4 cups (1 litre) jelly.
3 3/4 cups unsweetened apple sauce
1 cup seeds, skins and stems fed to my compost worms

I use apple jelly instead of apricot jam to glaze my pastries and fresh fruit. I love it in thumbprints at Christmas. I put a thick, luscious layer over the baked apples on a Frangipane Apple Tart.

Enjoy your harvest!

📣 Big Changes at Wellbread! 🍴

After years of cooking, teaching, and sharing beautiful meals in this space, I’m shifting gears! Over the next year, I’ll be transitioning away from the physical cooking school to focus on in-home lessons, culinary consulting, and leading food tours abroad.

✨ The vast amount of culinary equipment is for sale (think 12+ of every single item in a kitchen and then some), plus the space is for lease (first offered to the buyer of the equipment) — and ready for someone with a great idea to take over. Think café, pop-up, catering kitchen, creative event space, or even your own cooking school.

✅ Turnkey-ready

🌳 Gorgeous garden + courtyard

🚗 Plenty of parking

📍 Prime location

I’m not leaving town, still happily married and flirting with the landlord (my husband) — just making room for the next chapter.

Do you know someone dreaming of launching a food-based biz? Send them my way!

[email protected]

With love and excitement,

Chef Cat

Celebrating Super Bowl this Sunday? Three northern chefs with three fantastic game day recipes for you to try!

If you’ve never been able to get your chili to taste “just right” try my recipe in the attached link. It’s made many people very happy. It’s easy and comes together in less than half an hour (but made the day before, tastes even better the next day).

Enjoy!
Chef Cat

I represent all 3 Northern Territories of Canada in this campaign. Find your pulse! 🤣 beans and lentils are all classified as pulses. They’re healthy and if you incorporate them daily, even a little bit, your gut microbiome will thank you 😊 and you’ll be less farty if you eat them more often. You’re welcome 😉 👩🏼‍🍳

Make your salad spinner basket do double duty. I always berry pick using my salad spinner basket. All the shrapnel falls through, I rinse them right in the basket and just beautiful berries remain 🫐👩🏼‍🍳!

Check out Northwestel for three great recipes from some of Canada’s northern chefs.

Don’t miss the meeting tonight Tuesday November 21st 6pm at Library.

Statement from Premier Pillai and Minister McPhee on downtown Whitehorse community safety | Government of Yukon Premier Pillai and Minister McPhee share progress updates on Downtown safety.

If you only get your news from FB, X, or Insta then you may not have seen this. And it’s unlikely your local newspaper will alert you about the news that may actually affect you 🤦🏼‍♀️

If you feed your pet raw food, have contact with cattle or other livestock, or know of someone who has suffered a Salmonella infection recently you need to make yourself aware of how Salmonella is transmitted (doesn’t just come from uncooked chicken fyi).

Wash your hands.
For 👏🏼 the 👏🏼people 👏🏼 in 👏🏼 the 👏🏼 back 👏🏼
Wash your hands!!

Time to take care of the nuts for holiday baking. Read some baker tricks below👇

Can you believe how big those Hazelnuts are? 🙀 I could not resist them at the Superstore last week. They’re so oily and rich!

Did you know Hazelnut, Filbert and Cobnut are all just different names for the same nut? Now you do. 🤓

A blanched nut is one that’s been submerged in boiling water for a few seconds, then plunged into cold water and the skin slips off with a little rubbing. Blanching doesn’t cook the nut, but allows the skin to be removed easier. You would still need to toast them after to enhance the flavour but some recipes don’t call for toasted, only blanched.

No matter what nut you’re toasting 325F - 350F is your target heat. Don’t rush, you’ll only burn them. The Hazelnuts took 17 minutes, the Walnuts took 13 minutes. Your oven might be different. Always check at 6 minutes and stir, stir, stir.

Always stir the nuts throughout the baking. The nuts on the edge of the pan will toast more quickly (even with convection) so get in there and stir them every few minutes. Otherwise you’ll likely be picking out some charred ones.

If you’ve never seen my tip to use the basket from your salad spinner then here it is again. Aggressively rub the cooled nuts against each other, and the sides of the basket, to remove the skins. The skins fall through the basket and voila, easy peasy.

Don’t wash the skins down your drain. Remove them to your compost, put them outside for birds or if you have worm friends in your house like I do, give them this lovely treat! In the summer I do this outside to save myself a step.

And aren’t you proud of me this year?! First nut post in 5 years with no jokes! There’s hope for us all 😇

Let’s talk about egg wash 🥚 you need this trick if you’re a baker.

Most of us were taught to add a splash of water to our whole egg and beat it for a looser egg wash. That works, but I have something better.

Add a pinch of salt to your egg, no water, just salt. Beat it up and let it sit for at least 30 minutes before using.

Before I even start to mix anything I make my egg wash.

The salt helps break down the proteins in the egg so you don’t have those gelatinous stringers when you try to brush it over your pastries and bread before baking.

In the bake shop we make a container of it and keep it for up to 3 days in the fridge. It’s like water when the salt has time to do its magic.

Some of us even have a special spray gun or spray bottle that we put this egg wash in. When you have to egg wash croissants you will understand why 🤪

The colour also changes to a dark orange. Totally normal. Try it with your baking and bread making. You won’t go back to a watered down egg.

I was featured in my alumni magazine and here is the online article if you’d like to learn a bit more about me, my approach to food, and what I share with my guests and students. 👩🏼‍🍳💕

On the Job: Preserving culinary traditions, one home cook at a time Food can tell stories about ourselves, our cultures and our past. Red Seal Chef Cat McInroy shares importance of those stories and keeping those connections alive to pass them on to others.