Nutella Coils

One recipe that is fast and with great result! Only need to have 2 rises and bake!! The buns are soft and Smooth like cotton. It's from a cinnamon roll recipe and I spread on Nutella instead of cinnamon. It may not be the prettiest buns, but definitely it's a fantastic texture which I doubt anyone would say NO! :) Whenever I know I might not have enough time to 'Play' with the dough, I will just go for this dough. Trust me, trust me...!

Delicious Home Made Style - Banana Muffins

Using the Berry berry berry Muffins recipe, I added banana which is my all time favourite when comes to muffins. If only I could have the most effective description to tell you how wonderful is the muffin's' texture. It's soft, moist and flavourful. I will always come back to this recipe for all other flavor muffins.

Sakura Leave Powder

Sakura leave powder. 

Kahlua Chiffon

Chiffon with coffee flavor and tint of liquor. It's not something very coffee, though, I would say it's like an 'Adult' cake. ?? If anyone likes to drink Kahlua, he or she will know what I mean. This is be something pretty suitable to go with a cup of coffee or cappuccino during tea time or after dinner. But I didn't find it good for breakfast though.

For coffee cakes lovers, do try this out!

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Ingredients:

Egg Yolk 3

Sugar 80g

Veg Oil 40ml

Instant Coffee 2 1/2 tbsp

Hot Water 45ml

Kahlua 1tbsp

Flour 80g

Egg White 4

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Methods:

1. Instant coffee mix with hot water to get the coffee liquid. Let it cool.

2. Whisk yolks and 1/3 of sugar till sugar dissolved, add in oil followed by the coffee liquid and Kahlua. Mix them well. before sift in flour. Mix everything till you get a thick batter.

3. Beat egg whites till foamy, and slowly add in the remaining sugar. Beat till soft peak.

4. Mix 1/3 egg white to the coffee batter, and blend them well. Fold in the remaining white to batter and mix them up gently.

5. Pour cake batter into 17cm chiffon tin and bake for 30 minutes at 180'c pre heat oven.

6. After the cake is baked, invert the cake tin to let the cake cool completely before served.

German Rye Bread

. Look at the air in the sponge.

Before going in to the oven

. The lines from the basket.

. Well risen dough.

I think this should be my third rye bread in the blog. This time, I used the German bread fermentation basket to get the GERMAN look/effect! However, this is a different recipe from the old ones. I find it rather salty, but has nice colour and very good texture. You can hear that cracking sound as you tear the loaf, and followed by the soft yet chewy sponge. On top of that, I used natural yeast (brown packet on the left). For those who like country loaf, this is a must try!

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Ingredients:

Bread Flour 200g

Rye Flour 50g

Sugar 12.5g

Salt 4.5g

Yeast 5g

Water 157.5g

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Method:

1. Mix all the dry ingredients (except the yeast) in a mixing bowl.

2. Add in water and combine everything to get a rough dough.

3. Pour in yeast and give it a good knead. The dough will be quite sticky, but just keep on kneading till the dough gets stiff and elastic. Slowly the dough will be smooth and springy. You may dust a little flour as you knead.

4. Cover the dough with cling film and let it rise in a warm place till it's 2.5 size bigger.

5. Push the air out from the dough, and shape it to a ball shape then let it have a rest for 15 minutes.

6. Dust the fermenting basket with lots of flour and sit in the well shape dough with the seam side up. Cover the dough with wet cloth and let it rise till 2 times the volume.

7. On a baking tray, line with parchment, flip the well risen dough over and sit on the tray with the seam side down. You can see the dough imprinted with the flour of the basket lines. Slit the top of the loaf then spray with some water and bake in a pre heated oven at 200'c for 30 minutes.

8. When it's baked, cook the bread on the wire rack.

Japanese Dried Shripms with Vegetables Pasta

Using Japanese ingredients for a simple plate of pasta would taste a great deal! The mini tomatoes is so sweet like it has honey in it. The cabbage is juicy and crunchy as well as sweet! Fried some dried shrimps and garlic as the base of the dish, together with wonderful vegetables, I can't ask for more! A little top of rocket leaves is my standard garnish.

Egg and Tuna Mayo Buns

Few days ago, saw the Hearty Bun from HHB's blog. She inspired me to make some of these. I went through my recipe books and chosen a bun recipe which turned out OK. It's soft when it was fresh from the oven. However, it didn't last till the next morning. Instead of the tuna filling, I made the egg n tuna mayo, top with some Italian dried herbs.

Beside the Heart shape, I also made some into Flowers. But my little one said it's Star Fish!! He was kind enough to finished a bun to himself although I think it's not up the the expectation. :)

Black Forest Cake

My very first Black Forest Cake made for a friend who's been very helpful all these while. :)

If anyone remember the previous cake (Edible flora cream cake) I made from this very same book. All the cakes in the book are so simple yet have that 'back to nature ' look. Plainly beautiful and never too tacky. And it's rather easy for me or anyone to follow. The chocolate sponge is one of the softest and lightest I have ever made. Or I'd say, all the Japanese recipe books are very reliable. As long as we follow the steps...

It's so amazing, with the simplest ingredients could produce such great cake texture. I was trying to see if I could get couples of Cherry leaves from the box, to decorate the cake, while I was buying the cherries at the fruit stall. Well, it's obvious I didn't manage to get any. So I used mint leaves instead. Hope my friend and her family will enjoy the cake.

Maple Sugar Roll Cake

Today is father's day. But hubby is way for his work. I made an early Father's day cake for him yesterday - Maple Sugar Roll Cake. I added some crushed walnuts in the cream to give some crunch to it.

Hubby always prefer to have simple soft sponge with smooth creamy filling. So I thought this should be something pretty good, other than his all time favourite, vanilla Swiss roll with butter cream filling. This recipe yields very soft sponge, so soft that I couldn't make the slices 'sit' up before I chill it in the fridge. I told Happy Flour I would wanna make this Maple Sugar roll cake after seeing her beautiful Swiss roll, somewhere last week. Hope she has time to try it out after I post this. :-)

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Ingredients:

Egg 4

Egg Yolk 1

Sugar 102g

Maple Sugar (a) 18g

Violet Flour/ Top Flour 65g

Fresh Cream (Dairy) 18g

Maple Sugar (b) 7g

Cream Filling:

Dairy whipping Cream 200g

Maple Sugar 15g (can use maple syrup)

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Method:

1. Beat eggs, sugar and maple sugar(a) over hot water till the sugar dissolved. Move away from heat and continue beating to reach ribbon stage.

2. Sift in flour and fold in gently. Add in maple sugar(b) and blend well, followed by cream. Mix in very carefully in order not to break too much air in the batter.

3.Pour batter into a lined Swiss roll tray (28cm x 28cm) and bake in 180'c pre heated oven for 14 minutes.

4. When cake is cooked. Remove from the baking tray and let it cool on wire rack.

5. Whip up cream and the maple sugar and spread on the cake. You may sprinkle some crushed walnuts on the cream and roll the cake up. Chill the cake for at least 20 minutes before served.

Coffee Layered Cream Cake

Well, it's another cake from the same book!! Ha ha... I simply couldn't resist not to try them out. We had a BBQ session at one of hubby's colleague's. We had so much to eat and dessert is sure something we won't miss. This coffee layer cake is simply awesome! Everyone enjoyed every piece of it and received very good feed backs! You can name all the good things about a cream cake and this particular one carries all!! Soft, moist, aromatic, smooth.... And again it's that unique layering that I love most - Vertical layering!

However, I wish I could take better pictures for this lovely cake though. Or may be I should perfect my decorating skills before I get my good camera for better cake pictures!

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Ingredient's:

Large Eggs 3

Sugar 90g

Instant Coffee ( I used decaf instant) 1 tbsp

Warm Water 1 tbsp

Violet Flour 70g

Dairy Whipping Cream 30ml

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Cream Filling:

Dairy Whipping Cream 200ml

Sugar 15g

Instant Coffee 1tbsp

Warm Water 1 1/3 tbsp

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Cream For Deco:

Dairy Whipping Cream 170ml

Sugar 10g

Chocolate Coffee Beans (Deco use)

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Method:

1. Mix warm water with instant coffee. Sift flour. Set them aside.

2.In a mixing bowl beat both eggs and sugar over hot water till the sugar dissolved.

3. Away from heat, and continue to beat till ribbon stage. Add in the coffee and give it a gentle mix, followed by flour and fold in carefully. Lastly, add in the cream and blend them well.

4.Pour the batter in a 40cm x 30cm Swiss roll tray lined with parchment. Bake in pre heated oven 200'c for 10 minutes.

5. After the cake is done, bring out and cool in the wire rack. After it's cooled. Cut the sponge into 5 equal long pieces.

6. Mix the warm water and instant coffee to make coffee paste. Pout into whipping cream and whip till soft peak. Spread on the cream to the sponge. Roll up like a coil with all the 5 pieces HERE.

7. Whip the cream and sugar, and decorate the cake as you like. Chill the cake before served.

Baked Pene with Bolongnes Sauce

One of the dish I prepared to bring to our friend's BBQ party together with the coffee cream layered cake. Nothing could be more simple than doing this ONE DISH meal. Especially for the children. Even the adults liked it too. This is something my lil one would not say no. However, I used tomato sauce from the jar instead of cooking my own sauce like before. These days I hardly see any nice Roma tomatoes around. Even I can find it'd cost me a lot to cook such big portion of sauce to get this dish done. Something good about this dish is, I added different kinds of vegetables inside, for kids who don't like vegetables, they could hardly tell!

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Ingredients:

Minced Beef 250g

Chopped Garlic 3 tbsp

Chopped Onion 1head

Chopped Button Mushrooms 10

Chopped Carrot 3/4cup

Mozzarella Cheese (for topping) 100g

Tomato Sauce 2 Cups

Boiled Pene 3/4 Packet

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Method:

1. Cook garlic, onion and carrot in a pan with olive oil till onion turn soft. Add in mushrooms and cook for 1 minutes.

2. Stir in minced beef and cook. Pour in tomato sauce and let it simmer. May add in pepper to season it.

3. Place cooked pene in a baking dish. Pour over the bolongnes sauce and top with cheese. Bake it at 200'c for 20 minutes. Done.

Matcha Chiffon II

This green tea chiffon may not look as pretty. But I have to say the texture and taste is really good. It's that very Japanese taste ( yes, I know it's green tea...) and characteristic for a chiffon cake. Could it be the red bean plays a part of it??! Oh ya, it's a recipe from that EXPENSIVE book I just bought. SO it better be good! ha ha...

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Ingredients:

Egg Yolks 3

Sugar 20g

Water 2 tbsp

Salad Oil 30g

Violet Flour 50g

Match Powder 4g

Whole Red Bean 50g

Egg White 3

Sugar 50g

Method:

1. Mix yolks, sugar will sugar dissolved. Add in water followed by oil.

2. Sift in flour, matcha powder and mix them all together till you get a thick yet runny batter. Add in red bean and mix well.

3.Beat the egg white till foamy, and add in sugar in 3 additions. Beat the egg white till soft peak.

4. Mix 1/3 of the egg white to the green batter and blend them well. Add in the rest of the egg white and fold in carefully.

5. Pour the batter to a 17cm chiffon cake tin and bake at 170'c for 30 minutes.

6. Invert the cake tin and let the cake cook in the tin. Cut the cake after it's completely cool.

Green Tea Pound Cake

The sale is on at Kinokuniya till late of the month. How could I miss the opportunity to get some books that I wanted?? Bought 3 more Japanese recipe books and one of them simply captured me when I first flipped through the pages. I didn't even check the price and decided to buy it. I only came to know it's pretty expensive when I was at the cashier and ready to make payment! However, I have no regrets!

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The night itself, I couldn't wait but to try out one of the nicest looking pound on the book. There are butter, chocolate, marble, lemon, English tea, mixed fruits, orange,banana, and matcha pound cakes. Suddenly I remember I have a can of whole red bean in my pantry which called in the recipe. Hence, I made this....

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This pound cake recipe has got a very light sponge which is very different from the usual pound cake I've tasted. With the red bean added in the cake, it gives that extra biting in the mouth. However, I find the edges are little dry. Could be my baking time a little too long? But I like the cake raised up so high, which I followed the 'trick' mentioned in the book. It's something so simple, yet I never thought of - After 20 minutes of baking, use a knife and slit through the centre to let the cake batter have room to rise up. Therefore I got that tall pound cake! After all, pound cakes are suppose to have that Volcano top effect. Well, I'll try out the rest of the pound cake recipes, see which one taste the best.

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Ingredients:

Unsalted Butter (room temperature) 100g

Sugar 100g

Eggs 2

Nisshin Violet Flour 90g

Baking Powder 2/3 tsp

Matcha Powder (for cake baking) 1 tbsp

Melted White Chocolate 30g

Whole Red Bean 50g

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Method:

1.Beat butter and sugar will creamy. Add in eggs one at a time. Beat the batter till it's pale and fluffy that looks like butter cream.

2. Sift in flour, baking powder and green tea powder together to the egg batter. Use a spatula and fold them together the get a thick batter.

3. Add in the melted white chocolate to the batter and mix well. Followed by the whole red bean.

4. Pour batter into a pound cake tin (17.4 x 8cm, height 6cm) lined with parchment. Bake the cake at 170'c for 20 minutes and bring the cake out to give it t a slit in the centre, then back to the oven and continue baking for another 30-40 minutes.

5. Cool the cake on the wire rack without the tin and rest the cake side way.

Japanese SWEET Potato

I like this little snack when I feel a little hungry or when I am bored. Love the caramel taste of the sweet syrup coated on the sweet potato... These days, things are made so conveniently for home cooking. I simply bought a packet of the Japanese sweet soy syrup and a good size Japanese sweet potato from the supermarket, all I need to do was fry the sweet potato and pour out the syrup and mix! My son and hubby could just sit there and slowly munch them one by one. It's such a joy to see them loving it!

Horizon Dairies

Cream Cheese

Plain Yogurt

Whipping Cream.

I prefer to buy Organic dairies if possible. They do taste better! But they are also very expensive...

Whole Red Bean

This is a whole red bean in can, which i bought from Japan. It's none sugar steamed red bean, it is good adding to cakes and bread. Many Japanese breads and cakes use this whole bean.

Little Cupcakes

My son has couples of classes he attends. Since it's his actual birthday today, and also his music lesson, I thought I wanna bake some little cup cakes for his classmates. Using edible printed sheets for the main decoration. That's the best thing ever invented I think! Made chocolate base cup cakes which I am sure all the kids will love them.

The Actual Day - June the 13th.

He's 3 today! Today is my boy's actual birthday. We had a small celebration at home with family members... I made him a Piano cake this time. Reason being I still have a number '3' birthday candle which I bought it from Japan 2 years ago!! Ha ha... I know it sounded pretty silly. But After today, there won't be any use of the candle if I don't make him another cake for today's celebration! Well, I guess it's just my silly excuses. I just wanna MAKE CAKE!

Yes, yes... I know the cake look so GIRL. Basically, I didn't have much choice. First, the candle has got no other colours beside pink. Two, the little pink daisy are the only candy flowers I have in my pantry. So!....

I made a green tea sponge strawberry short cake. Using Kit Kat as the black keys. The cake was gone in just few minutes! I didn't even have time to take a picture of the cut cake. So I could only take the one on my plate...Everyone liked the light and refreshing taste. And also the cream I used this time was the Horizon organic double whipping cream. The creamy taste is so smooth and milky. It's pretty close to the Japanese ones. However, it's not quite cheap though. But for my son's sake....

Thomas and Friends Cookies

Gordon

Thomas

Henry

Percy

Part of my boy's birthday cake has got cookies on it. The remaining cookie dough I made them into Thomas and Friends cookies. I needed a cut out cookie recipe so that could cut out the letters to have his name on the cake. This simple and light butter cookie dough made it perfect for what I needed!

Ingredients:

Cake flour / Plain Flour 200g

Icing Sugar 65g

Butter 120g

Egg Yolk 1

Milk 2tsp

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Method:

1. Beat butter , milk and sugar till light and fluffy. Add in yolk and continue to beat till well

blended.

2. Sift in flour to the butter mixture and use a spatula to mix them together to form a soft cookie dough. Keep the dough in fridge for 30 minutes before rolling out and cut.

3. When roll put the dough, use a piece of plastic over the dough to prevent the dough sticks to the rolling pin.

4. Bake the cut out cookies at 180'c for 12 minutes.

The 3rd Birthday Cake for my Lil' One

The better pictures taken by a friend's DSLR camera.

Phew! I have made the cake FINALLY. Using 3 different cake recipes to pick one that has the most refined result in order to see the trains in details yet the taste is good. But, I can't have the best of both world. The recipe came with the mould was way too sweet for anyone who doesn't like sweet cakes. Tried the soft and light sponge, the details of the trains didn't came out quite well. So I ended up with something in between.- Chocolate Victorian Sponge.

After that Lancome cake made with my friend using fondant deco. I thought I should make the centre piece using fondant that gives neater look. I don't have much experience of decorating with fondant, but thought just a simple one should do. My head running the whole day, as to what to do with the cake.... So This is the final result!

The kids had so much fun eating the 'Trains'. Each of the kid got to bring back one 'Train' as the party gift. Though the party was s very small one. But it was a memorable one. :)