Christmas highlights

I've solely enjoyed the festive season's baking and tasting all sorts of Christmas treats;) Here is my highlights!

For the porters I made chocolate cupcakes. With cocoa powder and white chocolate, they should be a nice warm up sugar supply. I also made a panettone. I used the giant cupcake mould to shape the bread, and it came out like a.... hat of some kind...., but it had a very nice Christmassy taste;)

We visited Andy's mum and dad over the Christmas.
On Christmas Eve, we had cheese raclette and pancake for dessert. It was a great fun to make pancakes on the table:)





Moving on to Christmas day, following the tradition, Christmas pudding was lit up nicely. Home-made custard and sherry trifle with extra thick cream and Steve's cheese cake made my stomach more than full...

After a little rest on Boxing day.....,


On the bank holiday Monday, Andy's uncle, aunt and cousins came around to Andy's parents' house. There were 14 people in the house! Thanks to the well-organised buffet by Chris and Pete, we enjoyed a nice dinner. And of course..., desserts;) cupcake, apple tart, cheesecake, trifle....
I couldn't choose one, so I tasted them all.... so full, so good...

Andy's birthday cake

It was Andy's birthday yesterday. We went to a pub and restaurant called HUB in Osaka.

I made a Strawberry Tea flavoured Swiss roll and brought that to the pub ;b

The soft sponge, and strawberry marshmallows in the middle of the cream might not be a classic birthday cake, but it was easy to cut and serve... It was important for me to serve it quickly since I brought the cake in secretly in order not to be noticed by the pub staffs... Cheeky...;)

When we go back to the UK and have Andy's 30th birthday party properly again, I'll make a bigger and more sparkly cake and put 30 candles on it... huh, just an excuse to make another cake..?

Nangoku Shirokuma 南国しろくま

Icecream again! Tonight, we had the famous (in Japan) Shirokuma Ice!
The Shirokuma I knew of was a simple stick type milk ice, but these ones we got from my uncle were milky icecream with some fresh frozen fruits inside in a cup and more satisfying;)

There is nothing better than having icecream in a heated room in winter. What a treat!

Ah by the way, Shirokuma （しろくま）means Polar bear in Japanese.

あいすまんじゅう Ice Manju

We visited my sister's place tonight. I love their house because they've got lots of sweets, snacks, and icecreams! My sister used to be a icecream monster but she's not having any at the moment because of the little boy in her belly. So...,
Andy and I helped to consume some of them ;)
I got "Ice Manju", which is a vanilla icecream with red bean paste (Azuki) in it. Quite heavy, especially after dinner, but strangely it goes down well. This is what I call a real Japanese icecream!!

Okinawa!

We've been to Okinawa, south coast of Japan. Pure blue sea, tropical fish, hot weather, and unique Okinawa food and sweets made me feel as if I was abroad again!

One of the most popular sweets in Okinawa is the purple sweet potato icecream. I specially like the one from the biggest icecream company in Okinawa called Blue Seal Icecream.

Potato and icecream does sound odd, but strangely they go well and kind of addictive....

Since I got back from Okinawa, I've been finishing up The World of Sweets.com website. Hopefully, it'll be out pretty soon:)