Double Chocolate Cupcakes

Although I've lately been posting about more breads than cakes, I still do cakes too;)

I made these for our car sales guy and he specifically asked me to make 'very chocolate' cupcake.

So..., I made sure I did 'very' chocolate cake...

Melting chocolate and gently folding it in the cake batter is always a very therapeutic event. I love it! :)

Moist cake with plenty of milk chocolate on the top,

it's got to be a nice sugar supply for a Friday afternoon...

Ingredients:

Egg 5 (Egg white 4, Egg yolk 4, whole egg 1)

Sugar 125g

Butter 125g

Self raising flour 110g

Dark chocolate 125g

Coco powder 15g

Milk Chocolate chips for the topping

I also made these cupcakes for Lana's nursery teachers since she is moving up to the next class and today was her last day at the current class. (Awe, she is growing up too fast...)

☺︎☺︎☺︎☺︎☺︎☺︎☺︎☺︎

Smile!

Earl grey sourdough cube loaf

I believe that the more you use (feed, refresh, whatever you want to call it) the sourdough starter, the better they get. So, based on this, I'm currently using my still-very-new Lemon Yeast more often than my other starters.

Mr Lemon has quite a strong lemon smell, which gave me an idea for this particular loaf, Earl grey tea loaf. Yes, lemon tea, indeed! ;D I used earl grey tea as a liquid (The tea was very strongly brewed, and cooled down beforehand).

Earl grey and lemon worked well together. The tea gave the loaf nice caramel colour and the bread had quite a distinctive fruity aromatic flavour.

Along with the regular size cube loaf, I made some small ones. I bought some small cube tins back in Japan, and I absolutely love them! They are the cutest mini loaves. :D

Loaf for one? ;)

With the Lemon and Coconut curd..., it went down beautifully too...

(The lemon and coconut filling from the croissants.)

Croissants with Lemon Yeast

My new Lemon Yeast is doing pretty well, and the sweet smell of the starter inspired me to make some pastry stuff with it such as...,Croissants, yay!

The recipe is the same as Croissant - Strawberry Yeast -.

Although the lemon starter has a quite strong lemony smell that carried on to the dough, I didn't really taste the lemon when the bread is baked.

This time, I made three different types of croissants.

Plain...

Almond... (filling recipe below.)

Lemon and coconut... (filling recipe below.)

Almond filling -

Ingredients:

Almond powder 50g

Sugar 40g

Butter 40g

Egg 30g

• Cream all the ingredients and chill in the fridge. 

Lemon & Coconut filling -

Ingredients:

Fresh lemon juice 100ml

*Sugar 50-100 g

Egg 2

Coconut butter 75g

Lemon zest 1/2 tsp

(*50g make it very lemony and sharp. Adjust the amount according to your desired sweetness.)

• Mix all the ingredients together in a heat proof bowl, and Bain Marie until the mixture thickens. Sieve the mixture for a smooth texture.

I made these croissants a day before the Race for Life 10km run so that I could treat myself after my race. And yes, I did... I had four of them afterwards! The flaky buttery pastry was the best cure for my empty and exhausted stomach...:D

Andy made me omelet to make a croissant sandwich.

Seriously..., the Croissant sandwich...

If I didn't care about my figure, I would choose croissants as my sandwich bread all the time...;d

Illustrated Choux Pastry recipe now online!

As I promised on my previous post, the illustrated Choux Pastry recipe is now on my Free Illustrated Recipes - BON APPETIT. - :)

The online version is not a very high resolution file, but if you would like a higher quality version for printing it's available too. Drop me an email, or leave me a comment. xx

Did you know that you can freeze unbaked choux pastries (at the step 8)? So, why not make a batch and freeze them. Next time all you have to do is to take out the frozen choux pastries and defrost them in the fridge overnight then bake as usual. You can enjoy small amount of choux pastries (even as little as one!) freshly made;D

I also tried freezing baked and cream filled choux pastries (the leftovers from the Matcha and Vanilla ones) and had it like an ice-cream....

It was awesome! Try this out too!

Check out BON APPETIT. Choux Pastry recipe.

Two New Sourdough Starters

I'm bit of a maniac when it comes to bread, especially sourdough bread...

I currently use three different starters on a regular basis, strawberry, banana and yoghurt & raisin, all of which are about two years old now. Most of my breads (if not all), and some of my cakes and biscuits are made with these starters.

If you are interested in making your own starter, then join me! See the bottom right of the page, and sign up to the mailing list, or you can contact me directly to join the course too!

And now..., I've got two more potential starters that might become my regular guys. ) One of them is "Lemon" and the other is "Rose". Hah, don't they sound like people? ;D

Hello, here is Mr Lemon!

And, this is Miss Rose!

For both of them, the liquid part of the starter is done. (Oh?!, are you thinking "what's liquid part?" then, see the bottom right! Sign up to the mailing list to find out more.)

Left: Mr Lemon. Right: Miss Rose.

Now, Mr Lemon has been fed for three days, and looking nice and active, so I reckon he is ready to go. Miss Rose is looking good too but probably needs bit more time.

These two new comers are still in the state of 'not quite establish', so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they mature as well as my other starters and help me make great breads.

Meanwhile I've tasted out Mr Lemon. I made lemon and poppy seed muffins with it. 

It was ok..., it needed bit more time to mature but I could definitely see the potential in it. :) I'm doing some more experiment with them and will be posting here about their progress. ;D

Oh and! before you go..., don't forget to see the bottom right of the page! ;D

Matcha & Vanilla Eclair, Choux

Bon Bon Bon Appetit!

Choux pastry filled with a generous amount of cream, especially what I call 'the double cream' (the combination of whipped cream and custard...) has always been one of my favourite things to make and eat.

This time as well as the classic Vanilla custard cream puffs and eclairs, I also made Matcha flavoured ones.

Seriously..., I've said this before but 'I love matcha soooo much!' This matcha double cream takes the already-awesome-cream-puff to the next level.

Look! It's definitely to die for.;D

Choux pastry is not hard to make, yet the end result looks impressive and can be made into different shapes such as Eclairs, or even with different colours! (Have you seen my Halloween puffs? ;)

I'm now working on my illustrated recipe for choux pastry that will be soon on BON APPETIT., so please bare with me! Meanwhile you can enjoy my quick fun choux pastry making video on Instagram;)

Here comes the Cream puff family♥︎

This is how I make basic custard.
Ingredients:
Egg yolk 2

Sugar 50g

Flour 1 tbsp

Milk 200g

Vanilla beans (1/4-1/2)

1. Mix egg yolk and sugar together.

2. Add flour into 1.

3. In a small pot warm up milk with vanilla (Do not boil!).

4. Slowly mix in the milk into 2.

5. Put 4 back into the pot.

6. Cook the mixture on a low-medium heat until the bubble starts to appear (Be careful not to burn the bottom). *

7. Cook another minute, then pour the mixture in a container to cool it down.

*For Matcha custard, mix 1 tsp Match powder with 1/2 tsp water to make a paste. At step 6 add the paste and mix well.

Spinach & Walnut bread for 10km Run!

"You don't need to have cancer to fight it."

So.., in less than two weeks time I'm running 10km to support Cancer Research UK. ;D

Please visit my page if you're thinking about supporting a good cause!

I've never done this before....

As the race day gets closer, I'm getting more nervous... I find myself reading about how to prepare for 10k, what to eat..., running for beginners...(probably too late...;D)

Anyway, hoping to boost my energy and to advertise my run to get your support (have you seen my page? :D), I made this vivid green 'RUN 10K' bread!

My 'RUN 10K' bread has Spinach and Walnut. Popeye eats spinach and gets stronger! I'll have the same, please!

Not only does it tasted pretty awesome, but also the beautiful colour lifted up my motivation! I had a few slices before my training, then more afterwards... (when I say more it means 'a lot more...'...;-d)

The roasted walnuts worked very well in this bread. Spinach and walnut, you should try them! They are definitely a good combo;)

Ingredients:

Starter 125g

Strong flour 220g

Wholemeal 30g

Frozen spinach 3 cubes +

Milk = 170 - 175g

Salt 4g

Walnut Handful

Peanut oil 1tbsp

"You don't need to have cancer to fight them."

So, get involved in supporting Cancer Research UK with me.

Wish me luck with my 10km run, and

Please visit my page and help me reach my goal!

Or you can sponsor me by texting YUMI92 and your donation amount of £1, £2, £3, £4, £5 or £10 to 70070.

Thank you for your support! xxx