Ginger & Spice Sourdough Loaf

Ingredients:

Starter 125g

Plain flour 125g

Strong white flour 125g

Milk 150g

Yoghurt 50g

Butter 15g

Honey 1 tbsp

Sugar 1 tsp

Salt 4g

Mixed spices 1/2 tsp

Crystallised ginger (chopped into small pieces) 50g

Maybe because of all the sales emails I get or the Christmas lights in town, I've started to feel I want to add some festive touch to my baking too. I added my favourite fiery aromatic root veg, ginger, and mixed spices to my loaf.

And bang! Even before baking the loaf, the kitchen smelt like Christmas! Love it. ;D

Adding plain flour made the crumb soft and bit more on the cake side. The spices came through even more when I toasted it. I think other dried fruits will work too... (hum.., maybe rum soaked dried fruits next time...;)

Sourdough Croissants

I confess...that I ate 6 croissants the day I baked these...

The winter is definitely here. The other morning I took my dog out for a walk and the grass was all frosty. Oh yes!!, I (and I think my dog) love that 'crunch crunch'!

You know what this cold weather means, don't you? It's the perfect time for the buttery pastry thing, CROISSANTS!

Ingredients:

Sourdough starter 125g

Flour 400g (300g Strong flour + 100g plain flour)

Milk 200g

Sugar 40g

Butter 40g

Salt pinch

Butter (for folding in) 230g

Here is the how to - sourdough croissant recipe.

The key to good croissants is patience. And my patience was really tested this time. The first rise took nearly 24 hours in
low temperature. Then, the folding the butter business. At last, I get to do the shaping and the final rise. Again, it took long..., so long that I went to bed...

I'm sure that when you watch the dough, they won't rise!!!

I woke up with a nightmare. In that, my chiffon cake went horribly wrong...;( But, when I actually went back to the kitchen my croissants were waiting there nicely and ready to go in the oven, phew...

Here, we have beautiful layers!

Looking this brought tears in me eyes... (ok,  not really, not that much...)

Flaky outside and light texture with a hint of sourdough kick.

Who can say no to this...

I also made some with Hazelnut praline paste.

I ate it in 5 seconds... ;-d

豆ぱん〜 Mame Pan 〜 Sourdough bean bread

This is a variation of sourdough pain de campagne but with a Japanese twist on it.

Before we start, here is a bit of Japanese lesson for you... 'Mame' means beans and 'pan' is bread in Japanese so 'Mame Pan' is... literally 'Bean bread'!

I cooked red kidney beans with water and sugar until they were soft. (It's very common to cook beans in this way, and we often have sweet beans part of a savoury meal although they are bit like dessert...) I kneaded a generous amount of these beans into my Pain de Campagne dough.

I don't know if it was because of the beans, the cold weather or my broken scale, but the dough was little bit on the tight side and took longer to prove than usual. But in the end, it did come out great. ;D

Nice rise and good tough crust. :)

Look! Lots of sweet beans inside. 

My daughter loves beans and she loved my 'Mame Pan'. ♥

Remember to grab your FREE 2015 Calendar with 12 recipes including Sourdough Bread!

Rich Sourdough Beer Loaf

Have you seen my Walnut & Beer Sourdough Bread that I made with leftover beer the other day?

This mini loaf has the same idea. Made with leftover beer, but this time I added eggs and butter to make it super rich. ;D

Ingredients:

Starter 125g

Very strong flour 250g

Egg 2 + Beer =165g

Honey 30g

Butter 30g

Salt 4g

It is like brioche. It's buttery and has slight sweetness. And on top of that, there are depth and body that (I think) come from the beer.

Beautiful crumb!

Toasted is even better!

(I like my toast to be well-done...;D)

Remember to grab your FREE 2015 Calendar with 12 recipes including Sourdough bread and rolls!

Sweet corn & Cheese Sourdough Rolls

I wanted sweet corn and mayo but there was no mayo in the fridge....

So..., this was my plan B.

Sweet corn and mayo bread is common in Japan, and I certainly loved it when I was a kid. Now, my daughter loves sweet corn, so I decided to make this nostalgic bread for her.

Like I said I didn't have mayo... and when I realised that, I was already rolling out the dough to put fillings in it... my typical 'non-planning-bake'.... Change of plan, I added cheese instead.

Mayo would have given more moisture in the filling but still sweet corn and cheese was a good combo. Cheese gave an extra savoury taste to the rolls too.

The recipe is... the same as my Smiley Rolls, plus sweet corn and cheese (or mayo) for the filling;)

Remember to grab your Free 2015 Calendar with 12 recipes including sourdough bread!

Walnut & Beer Sourdough Bread

I had a half can of beer leftover from the other day, so I decided to use it for my bread instead of water.

I've made Sourdough Beer Bread before with leftover beer, and this one is the same as that but with roasted walnuts. A lot of them... I love breads with nuts, so as I was doing the stretch and fold, I kept adding the walnuts.

See! Every slice has so much walnuts! I love it!

The beer added a good flavour to the loaf and really worked well with the walnuts too. The crust had a good tough texture and the crumb was nice and chewy. 

I don't know much about science but I think the beer did some good job to this loaf!

Remember to grab your FREE 2015 Calendar! Sourdough bread recipe is in it too!

Grab your free 2015 Calendar!

We've only got less than 2 months to go until 2015!

As a thank you to all those lovely people who read and share my blog, I made The World of Sweets 2015 Calendar with some of my favourite recipes each month.

Visit '2015 Calendar' to grab your free copy now!

Bit of sneak peak for you...,

Macaron, sourdough breads, cheesecake, doughnut, and more... ;-d

4th Anniversary Cake

So crèche..., but time flies.... 

 ♥︎ Happy Anniversary to us  ♥︎

It was four years (and a week now...) ago we got married in Las Vegas in front of Elvis-look-a-like. ;D

Andy booked us in for a lovely evening spa treatment followed by dinner (thanks you, Andy!) and I... made cake...as usual...

This year I made Swiss roll with hazelnut praline cream and some fruits in the middle and topped it with macarons. It's simple but the hazelnut cream and four different flavour macarons were enough to make it special. :)

Some of my favourite flavours...

Liquorice, Purple sweet potato, Matcha, and Caramel.

Macaron is always a way to add that little bit of extra to simple cakes and desserts, isn't it? ;)

Remember to grab your FREE copy of  The World of Sweets 2015 Calendar! Of course, the macaron recipe is in it too!

Sourdough-nuts!

Latest sourdough creation!!!

THE SOURDOUGH-NUTS!

Are you thinking "what's that?!"..?

Ok... let me explain..., they are doughnuts as you see, but they are not just doughnuts. They are made with sourdough starter, so I call them "SOURDOUGH-NUTS". :D

The recipe is in The World of Sweets 2015 Calendar. 

Grab your free copy today!

As a raising agent, I use sourdough only, no yeast nor baking powder. Same as most of sourdough bakings, the Sourdough-nuts need long proving time. But, once you've prepared the dough ready to be fried, you can freeze them. Then, you can have Sourdough-nuts sitting in the freezer ready for breakfast or snack;)

Fluffy... and surprisingly light!

You don't taste the sourness at all, and the texture is so light that it's hard to believe they are made with sourdough starter.

Freshly made Sourdough-nuts for little lady. :D

Pumpkin Chiffon cake

More pumpkin stuff...

Ingredients:

Egg 4

Flour 50g

Sugar 80g

(Sourdough Starter 20g)

Pumpkin puree 100g

If you're interested in more detailed recipe for this bread, please sign up to my mailing list. ;D

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This is a variation of my sourdough chiffon cake. It's as light and airy as the original sourdough chiffon cake. But with a bit more moisture, and of course, the sweet pumpkin flavour and pretty colour. ;D

We had it with my recent favourite, hazelnut praline cream. Pumpkin and hazelnut went really well. It was another 'wow' moment... ;)

Sourdough Pumpkin Bread

Pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins...

They get their prime spots everywhere this time of year, don't they...:)

Lots of pumpkins around means... I'm making lots of pumpkin breads and cakes! :D

To begin with, I made mini sourdough pumpkin loaves.

Ingredients:

Strong flour 250g

Starter 125g

Salt 4g

Brown sugar 20g

Butter 20g

Milk 160g

Pumpkin puree 100g

***

Butter and cinnamon sugar for topping

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When I make pumpkin breads or cakes, I use Japanese pumpkins called Kabocha. It has natural sweet flavour and nice fluffy texture that are perfect for baking.

My pumpkin loaves came out with bright yellow colour and had a nice light texture. The cinnamon sugar on the top made them taste warm and it felt kind of festive... it was just how I wanted...;) 

She loved it too! Great way to make your kids eat veggie!

Hazelnut Praline Rolls

Hazelnut Praline paste never disappoints me, it did it again.

The other day I made these scrumptious rolls with my remaining hazelnut praline paste.

Ingredients:

- Rich dough -

Starter (I used lemon starter this time) 130g

Very strong flour 250g

Butter 40g

Sugar 30g

Egg 2 + Milk =155g

Oil 1tsp

***

Hazelnut praline paste (see the recipe here)

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They were like cinnamon rolls but with even richer, nuttier, and deeper taste. 

This brioche type rich sourdough takes more time to prove. But, that long proving time and patience definitely pay off when you bite into the nice soft roll.

Praline paste going through the bread with perfection...

Is it a bread or cake...? Whatever they are, they are awesome... :D

 

Purple Sweet Potato & Chestnut Sourdough Bread

This is a variation of my Purple Sweet Potato Sourdough Bread.

I wanted to make something Autumny so I added sweet chestnut paste in this pretty pink rolls.

At the final shaping I put the chestnut paste in the middle of the dough and kind of shaped the bread around it so that the paste was sealed in... But then, I scored the top... to let the paste out...?, hum..., I sometimes (or often) don't know what I'm doing...

Anyway, the caramelised bits of chestnut paste on the top and some on the sides were the nicest bits!

We discovered cheesy toasts with this bread work too. The sweet paste and the saltiness from cheese went very well. (They were too good that I ate them all before I had a chance to take picture...)

You can of course make this bread with your usual white bread too.

Here is the recipe for Chestnut Paste. :D 

Choux with Hazelnut Praline Cream

Attetiooooooon, everyone!!

This is one of the best cakes I've ever had, and by far the best cream puffs I've ever tasted in my life!

...Ok..., sorry about my over excitement and praising myself this much, but seriously, you've got to try this Hazelnut Praline Cream!

Andy kept telling me how great the cream puff he had the other day was. He told me that some sort of hazelnut butter cream thing was in a big choux pastry... Hummm, sounds yummy...

So, I decided to recreate this amazing sounding dessert.

First I made the hazelnut praline paste. It's very simple.

Ingredients:

Hazelnut (roasted and shelled) 200g

Sugar 200g

Salt pinch

1. Heat up sugar on a low-medium heat until it's golden.

2. Take the pan off the heat, add hazelnuts to coat them well with the sugar.

3. Pour 2 onto a baking sheet and leave to cool down.

4. Blitz the sugar coated nuts in a food processor until it's smooth.

Here is my step-by-step choux pastry recipe.

I mixed this hazelnut praline paste with my favourite double cream (custard and whipped fresh cream). I filled the choux pastry with the hazelnut cream until the cream was oozing out. ;D

Looooook at that!

The light choux pastry is a perfect match to this sweet rich cream.

One thing was I made only three of them and that was NOT enough!

Cakes for Tinny's house warming

Last weekend Tinny invited us to his house warming party. And as you expect... I brought some cakes!

Fudge-like chocolate & raspberry cake and Strawberry shortcake.

I guess I didn't need two cakes. But because I was little too excited to visit his new house and meet his girlfriend and the bump for the first time, I made two... (ok, I'm very indecisive too.)

Thanks again, Tinny and Alina, for inviting us. I looooooove your flat and can't wait to see your little man! Oh, and I hope you didn't mind having a few extra slices of the cake for dinner...! ;D

Happy 70th Birthday!!

Happy 70th Birthday!!!

Last Saturday was a big day for us... It was my dad-in-law's 70th birthday and we planned a surprise party for him. With three weeks of careful planning (or maybe it was a bit suspicious...), the party was a great success. :)

We managed to contact his cousins and friends, and invited them to come and celebrate his 70th birthday. We did this all in secret....

In the end about 50 people gathered together for his big day. So..., when he came home and saw all those people in the garden singing '♪Happy Birthday♪', it must have been a total surprise to him.

Pete, I'm sorry that we lied to you, and I promise there will be no more surprise party... ;D

The barrel cake was rum soaked fruits cake. The middle tree stump was lemon, and the bottom grass was chocolate. 

This surprise party was one of the biggest events ever at the World of Sweets kitchen too. 

Not only did we make the birthday cake, we also catered most of the food ourselves including the breads for sandwiches. (Yes, of course, 100% my sourdough breads!)

It was such a great day. I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did!

Once again, Happy Birthday to Pete!

Homemade Granola

Homemade granola has been on my baking list for a while, and I finally got around to make one!

Ingredients:

*Oats 4

*Coconut flake 1

*Almond., Walnut, Pistachio 1

*Mixed spice 1/2 tsp

*Salt Pinch

*Dried fruits (Rum soaked preferable...) 1

Peanut oil 1/5

Honey 1/4

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºc. Combine all the * ingredients on a baking tray.

2. Mix hone with oil.

3. Pour 2 into 1.

4. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes.

5. Turn the oven temperature down to 150ºc and bake for 40 minutes. Cool down in the oven.

**I used a cup that is approximately 200ml for this recipe.

This is it..., I'm not buying granola anymore... This homemade granola is the best granola I've ever had! It's so easy to make, and you can try lots of different variations by using different nuts, fruits, or spices. 

 

Nice sweet crunches from the coconuts and honey.

I warn you.., it's highly addictive!

I'll be impressed if you can stop yourself with one bowl...

Mini rich sourdough rolls

I'm testing out some recipes for rich bread rolls that are perfect for mini sliders. What I'm looking for is a bit like brioche, quite rich and slightly sweet so that the savoury taste of fillings really stands out.

This time I tried using cream and egg in order to achieve my perfect buns.

Ingredients:

Strong flour 250g

Starter 125g

Egg + Cream = 165g

Light brown sugar 1 tsp

Salt 4g

Oil 1 tsp

If you're interested in more detailed recipe for this bread, please sign up to my mailing list. ;D

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Although I didn't put any butter, because of the cream it had nice buttery taste (I guess the cream became like butter while mixing...?).

Double fried egg sandwich...

The roll worked well as a supporting actor. The runny egg soaked into the bun nicely and it had just the right amount of sweetness and buttery richness.

I'm thinking about modifying the recipe slightly to make the rolls little softer but I must say I'm pretty happy with this attempt!

Banana Chiffon Cake - Sourdough -

Ingredients:

Egg 4

Flour 50g

Sugar 80g

Sourdough starter 20g

Banana 1 (mashed)

I've been making lots of breads recently, but clearly not enough cakes. Last weekend I finally got a withdrawal syndrome, and had to do something about it...

So.., I made banana cake! :D

This is not one of those moist dense type ones (I like them too!), but it's rather light and super soft. I used my Sourdough Chiffon Cake recipe and added mashed banana before folding in the flour.

When I took the cake out of the oven, I had to put my nose on the cake... the smell was irresistible...

I love love love chiffon cake because it's so ridiculously light that after you had a big slice or two you  don't feel heavy. It's perfect for someone greedy like me who wants at least two slices when it comes to cake...

I had some with plenty of unsweetened cream. 

Wholemeal sourdough bagels

Bagels..., I love both eating and making them, but I've been thinking 'agh, I can't be bothered to do that extra step of boiling water and cooking the bagels in it before baking...'

Yes, I was lazy.

However, my hungry brain won against my lazy bum.

I made bagels. Not only did I do so, I made five different types..., I can be motivated, sometimes....

Ingredients:

Wholemeal starter 125g

White strong flour 250g

Salt 4g

Water 145g

Oil 1tsp

***

Honey and water

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I used my strawberry wholemeal sourdough for this recipe. It has such a nice beer-like smell that even with a simplest plain bagel you can get the sweet moreish flavour.

As I was shaping I added different fillings to each one of them.
(Here is how I shape bagels.)

* Plain

*Chocolate

*Blueberry

*Cinnamon & raisin

*Rosemary & pink rock salt

My favourite was Cinnamon & Raisin. ;D What's your favourite?

Purple Sweet Potato Sourdough Bread

Do you know purple sweet potato?

Purple sweet potatoes are sweet potatoes with beautiful vivid colour. I've never seen them in the UK but they are quite popular in Japan, especially I see a lot of purple sweet potato desserts in Okinawa, south coast of Japan.

I've got a sachet of purple sweet potato powder in my cupboard, and tried using it with my sourdough bread.

Ingredients:

Strong organic white flour 250g

Starter 125g

Purple sweet potato powder 5g

Milk 178g

Salt 4g

If you're interested in more detailed recipe for this bread, please sign up to my mailing list. ;D

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Look at the crumb! What a pretty pink! That must put a big smile on your face when you cut into it, right? (It did to me anyway....) :D

Not like the sensational colour, I couldn't really taste the sweet potato..., but the texture was good. The nice bit of toughness and slight chewiness was there.

Interested in getting some sweet potato powder?

Here is a link (it's in Japanese) ; パイオニア企画 紫芋パウダー 20g×5袋, or if you would like information in English, message me.