Basic Sourdough Loaf

As much as I love hard crusty country type bread, I sometimes do crave for a very simple white loaf...

Such as this one...

It's one of my basic bread recipes and can be used for rolls as well. ;)

Ingredients;

Starter 125g

Strong flour 250g

Milk 168g

Salt 4g

Brown sugar 25g

Butter 25g

Having butter and milk in the dough, the crumb is nicely soft and springy, and there is also a gentle sweetness from the brown sugar.

Some people say you need to wait for bread to cool down after the bake. But with this one, I really can't help myself breaking it apart ...and..,

...with a bit of butter, tuck in while it's hot...

This bread is definitely Lana's favourite too. 

She destroyed one third of the loaf!

And here we go..., I made cheesy toasted sandwich for myself;)

Have you seen my epic video of this sandwich on Instagram? 

If not yet, then take a look here! ;)

Sourdough Beer Bread

I normally use water or milk for making bread, but I tried something a bit different this time,... Beer...

I used leftover opened beer I found in the fridge that was a pale lager. I love a kitchen experiment... and I got a bit excited as I was pouring the beer, I ended up making very high hydration dough, 94%!

I have to admit that this super wet dough was very difficult to handle, and not only that my hand slipped when I was transferring the dough on to the tray (Opps, maybe because I had a bottle of beer or two...!). But anyway, as the bread was in the oven, I could already smell the rich flavour coming from the beer... ;d

The result was... good, very good indeed! The crust was nice and hard, the crumb had good bubbles and moreish flavour. It was so good that we had half the bread for breakfast and the rest for lunch. ;D

I can see myself making this Beer Bread whenever we have leftover beer now. ;)

We made some sandwiches with the Beer Bread too.

Tuna mayo & Cheese.

Yum yum :)

Sourdough Biscotti

I made my first attempt of Sourdough Biscotti, and it came out rather good;)

I was going to put more variety of nuts like whole almonds, pistachios, and hazelnuts... but..., I simply forgot...

So, this time it's just a simple almond biscotti. ;D

Ingredients:

Starter 50g

Strong flour 50g

Plain flour 50g

Almond powder 20g

Egg 1

Flaked almond and/or any nuts or dried fruits of your choice! ;)

Honey 1 tbsp

Salt pinch

My Sourdough Biscotti was a little softer than the biscotties made with baking powder or baking soda but it still had that nice nutty flavour and crunchy texture. I'm definitely trying this again with bigger bits of nuts and fruits!

To dip or not to dip...

Carrot cornet bread

I love the way the cornet bread looks....

These cute looking cornet rolls are very poplar in Japan. They are normally filled with sweet cream such as custard or chocolate.


I used to make them everyday at my old job but I haven't made them for a while, so I thought 'why not practice the shaping a bit'.  Some of them were bit loose but I think I've still got it. ;)

This time I added carrot powder in the dough made with strawberry yeast to use them for a savoury meal. When I was making them, I actually had one very specific thing in mind to fill these buns...

Yes! Egg mayo! It was aaaamazing! 

I overloaded it and had to push the filling in with some asparagus...

Does this look like a carrot? ;D

Gluten free vegan coconut cookie

The other day I was talking to my sister on Skype, and she told me that she had made cookies first time in a long time... and there was me thinking... 'Oh, I haven't made cookies for a little while, I want to make some too!'

So, when I came off the call, I went into the kitchen and I started mixing the ingredients.

This time I've tried a new 'vegan' cookies with my homemade coconut butter. I made the coconut butter by food processing coconut flakes about 10 minutes until they became like 'butter'.

I also use gluten free flour, so the cookies ended up being both 'vegan' and 'gluten free'. Humm, I like the sound of it...;) But, not only do they sound nice and healthy, they also taste well good!

The sweet smell of coconut was so good, and I loved how it crumbled!

Lana loved it too. 

She even said 'more biscuit?' when she finished her half. ;D

Ingredients:

200g coconut butter

1tsp sesame seed oil

50g brown sugar

100g Gluten free flour

Chiffon cake with sourdough starter

Lately I am addicted to both making and eating this cake...
It's incredibly light. So light that it seems to melt in the mouth.

I've been testing out chiffon cake recipes that requires no oil. Instead of oil, I decided to use my starter to achieve that nice bit of moisture in a chiffon cake sponge.

I also tried to reduce as much sugar as possible without losing the sweetness and volume. I started off with 90g of sugar but I managed to reduce it to 60g. I think that's probably the limit since the 60g sugar sponge slightly lost its height compared to 90g one, but still tasted really good.

Ingredients:

Egg 4

Flour 50g

Sugar (white or brown) 90g-60g

Starter (strawberry or banana) 20g

Vanilla extract or other flavours of your choice

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºc. Separate the eggs. Add half the sugar to the egg white and the rest in the yolk.

2. Beat the egg white and sugar until it's reached just before stiff peak.

3. Beat the egg yolk and sugar until fluffy, add starter and mix just enough to combine them all (don't mix too much).

4. Sift flour into 3. Mix until there is no flour.

5. Fold 1/3 of meringue gently into 4. Continue the same process two more times.

6. Pour the mixture in the tin. Turn the oven down to 160ºc and bake for 30-40 minutes.

You need a bit of attention when you fold meringue in order not to knock the air out, but otherwise, it's quite simple. And when you see the well risen cake in the oven, it's sure to put a big smile on your face;D

I love Love LOVE having this cake with fresh whipped cream! They just go so well together!

This one was the one I made for Easter.

Mixed spice sponge and a thick layer of cream...

I can (and do) easily have a couple of big slices of these. :D