Desserts for Valentine’s Day from Edmonton’s Duchess Bake Shop

Desserts for Valentine’s Day from Duchess Bake Shop’s Giselle Courteau Laura Brehaut

‘I’m one of those people that doesn’t like to share their dessert,” pastry chef Giselle Courteau says.

For people with similar priorities, she recommends making a verrine for Valentine’s Day. Simple, stylish and individually portioned, the French dish shares its name with the small glass it would typically be served in.

Layers of textures and tastes, verrines are artfully composed concoctions with room for i nterpretation. Courteau’s blackberry goat cheese blancmange, from the updated version of her debut cookbook, Duchess Bake Shop (Appetite by Random House), features a creamy buttermilk base topped with orange blossom-scented blackberries.

“Verrines are so cute and fun to make. And they travel really well because you can put lids on them,” she says. “You can use Mason jars and mix up the ideas of what goes in there.”

For an appropriately redhued dessert, Courteau recommends making a sour cream cherry pie – the most popular pie at her celebrated Edmonton bakery, Duchess Bake Shop. With its fouringredient filling, the lattice-topped treat shines in its simplicity.

“It’s beautiful, easy and really lovely for Valentine’s Day,” she says. “If you have a ( date) and you’re not sure what they’re into, they’ll like the cherry pie. People love it.”

Recipes excerpted from Duchess Bake Shop: French- Inspired Recipes from our Bakery to Your Home by Giselle Courteau. Copyright © 2014 Duchess Bake Shop. Appetite by Random House ® edition published 2017. Published by Appetite by Random House ® , a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.