Peanut butter cinnamon roll

My peanut butter addiction comes in waves, and the big wave has come again recently. I've been constantly having a spoonful of peanut butter whenever I see the jar...  I felt I should make something with peanut butter, not just eating it...

So here, I made Peanut butter cinnamon roll! I mixed peanut butter, bit of brown sugar and ground cinnamon as the filling. I like crunchy peanut butter for this bread to give a bit of ..."crunch", but smooth one is nice too. ;)

For the dough I used my basic rich bun recipe.
Ingredients:

- Brioche type sweet buns -

Starter (strawberry) 130g

Very strong flour 250g

Butter 40g

Sugar 30g

Egg 2 + Milk =150g

Oil 1tsp

The smell of peanut butter and cinnamon was so inviting!

Look at the inside, it's nice and soft. ;D

Andy said 'it was like a nice peanut butter sandwich.'

Well, I take that as a compliment...

This rich brioche type dough is not only for cinnamon rolls but also works with buns with sweet fillings such as custard or jam;) 

Cornmeal bread

Ingredients:

Starter (Banana yeast) 130g

Very strong flour 250g

Cornmeal 20g

Milk 190g

Salt 4g
Olive oil 1tbsp

A variation of my basic white loaf. I added cornmeal to give the bread extra flavour and slightly yellow and lighter crumb.

I also tried a new scoring pattern, which, I have to say, I'm quite please with. It's my interpretation of 'Corn'. ;D

So, last Saturday started with my freshly baked Cornmeal bread. For breakfast we had some slices with butter, and some more toasted...

Bread and butter, such a simple combo yet, so satisfying. 

With the left over slices, 

we made nice homemade sandwiched for lunch.

....♥︎....

Mine with salad and peanut butter...

It sounds weird but tasted pretty good. ;)

The meat eaters had Andy-made burgers.

As I was preparing for lunch I caught Lana diving for a big piece!

I can already see this Cornmeal bread becoming one of our regular;D

'Crones'

I made something highly addictive the other day... Layered scones and I'm calling them 'Crones' because they are like cross between scones and croissants... ;)

My intention was to make really flaky scones with my sourdough starter. So I used the folding technique like you do with croissants or puff pastry but without actually folding that 'crazy' (but nice...) amount of butter.

Ingredients:

•Flour 300g

•Salt 2g

*Milk 50g

*Egg 1

*Starter (Banana yeast) 100g

*Honey 20g

Butter (diced and chilled) 50g

1. Combine all the wet ingredients (*) in a bowl. Set aside.

2. In a Ziploc bag combine all the dry ingredients (•), and butter. Rub the Ziploc bag to mix in the butter.

3. Add 1 into 2 and keep rubbing the bag until everything in the bag comes together.

4. Roll out the dough while it's still in the bag. Put it in the fridge.

5. Fold and roll out the dough at least 3 times. (See here for how you roll out and fold.)

6. Finally preheat the oven to 200ºc. Roll out the dough to 2cm thick and cut the way you like! ;D

7. Put the Crones in the oven and turn the oven down to 180ºc and bake for 20-25 minutes.

I've used my banana yeast this time but I'm sure strawberry yeast will do too;) If you like sweeter taste, I recommend you add one table spoon of brown sugar to the dry ingredients.

The great thing about this recipe is that once you prepared the dough and put it in the fridge, you can come back to it whenever you have time. I did it over three days! I must have folded more than 3 times thought. ;D

Another good thing about this 'Crone' is that once you prepared the dough in a bag, you can keep the dough in the bag while you do the folding, so you have no flour-mess to clear up. Nice, right?

'Crones'... can they be a next 'Cronuts'? :D

Purple sweet potato bread

Since we fired up the oven for the pizza, I decided to have a go with baking my bread in the stone oven for the first time.

The bread I chose was Purple sweet potato bread, a variation of simple pain de campagne. I added purple sweet potato powder as I was mixing the dough, which coloured the dough nice baby pink;)

So, the verdict of baking in the stone oven is...
'Not too bad but needs work'...

Although the thermometer said it was around 280 ºc, I don't think the bottom heat wasn't high enough and also the heat circulation wasn't great. I think I need to learn how to build a better fire. :)

The bread still came out ok. The crust was thinner and softer than usual, which I would have liked to be tougher, but Lana prefers softer crust and she actually ate the whole thing! (She normally leaves the crust...)

I couldn't really taste the purple sweet potato but still the colour was pretty.

Pink + Pink♥︎ I made some salmon sandwich. 

Sourdough Pizza

The sun is shinning, it's nice and warm outside. That means one thing... Time to fire up our stone oven in the garden!

Last Saturday when I woke up I knew it was going to be a pizza-weather day so I made pizza dough with my strawberry yeast in the morning ready for the woodfired pizza evening;)

Ingredients:

Starter 125g

Strong flour 230g

Semolina 20g

Milk 160g

Honey 10g

Salt 3g

Olive oil 2tsp

Using sourdough starter to make pizza dough takes more time, but since it's getting warmer the dough rises quicker and most importantly it tastes so good!

The good thing about making your own pizza is I can put as much cheese as I want (although it seems that however much cheese I put on pizza it's never enough...;D)

I thought I made too much dough for two big people and one little person, but we ended up eating them all! 

I was absolutely stuffed but it was just too good to be left...

Basic pancake

Every now and then, I have an urge to make pancakes...  

And today was one of those days. It was probably because one of my friends asked me for a pancake recipe...

So, I made pancakes for lunch. 

This is my recent favourite pancake recipe. 

Ingredients:

Self raising flour 150g

Milk 150g

Egg 1

Honey 1-2 tbsp

All you need to do is mix everything together and cook on a low-medium heat pan. It's simple but tastes great;)

You can add some vegetable or fruit powder. 

I added carrot, spinach and purple potato before;)

As an alternative to the self raising flour, I often use rice flour and baking powder;)

Lana loves them too. ;D

It's got no sugar so I feel ok even when she eats two big pieces!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Lana!

Last week we celebrated Lana's 2nd birthday! Happy Birthday, Lana! xxx

We were just back from three weeks holiday in Japan and still pretty jet lagged on her birthday, but I managed to make her birthday cake and Lana managed to get up to blow candles and have some cake;)

I made small sponge cake by using some tuna tins. They are perfect for making small cakes. Then, put a lot of strawberries and blueberries that Lana loves and also a generous amount of fresh cream. ;)

Lana fell asleep while I was making her cake... 

She looked very cosy and peaceful. ♥ 

Last year she tucked into the cake before birthday song or photos, but this year she waited and even sang happy birthday to herself too! 

成長ってすごいな〜。これからもすくすく元気に育ってね。

二歳、お誕生日おめでどう。