Sugar free almond cake

Another recipe with leftover egg yolks. This time "Sugar free almond cake". :)

Although it doesn't have the rich sweetness from sugar, the almond powder and butter is enough to give this sugar free cake a moreish taste.

In fact..., I baked them before dinner and they were all gone after dinner... Hum, greedy greedy... ;D

Ingredients:

Flour 75g

Almond powder 15g

Sweetner 3tbsp

Baking powder 1 tsp

Egg yolk 2

Egg 1

Butter (melted) 100g

Vanilla extract 1tsp

1. Preheat the oven to 180º.

2. Beat egg yolk and egg until it's light and fluffy.

3. Mix in melted butter and vanilla extract into 2.

4. Fold flour, baking powder and almond powder into 3.

5. Pour the mixture into cake tin and bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes.

Lemon yeast bread

For the last few weeks I've been making lemon yeast. It took longer than my raisin yeast to be ready and I didn't get as many bubbles as raisin one. But it started to smell like alcohol so I decided "it's ready" and baked a mini loaf with it.

I thought... since I waited patiently for this yeast to be ready, I shouldn't rush for the important "bake" part. So, I took my time:) I left the dough in the fridge for overnight. Resting the dough in a cool place for a long time brings the sweetness of the flour and gives the bread more depth of flavour.

After two weeks of careful preparation, my lemon yeast bread came out from the oven nicely. I couldn't wait any longer and had one immediately!

It was so good, simple, sweeter than usual bread. Hummm, nothing can beat freshly baked bread...

Ingredients:

Flour 500g

Sugar 40g

Salt 7g

Honey 2 tbsp

Oil 2 tbsp

Lemon yeast 350ml

1. Put all the ingredients in the standing mixer with a dough hook attached. Turn the mixer on and knead for 10 minutes.

2. Cover the dough with cling film and rest it in the fridge overnight.

3. Punch the dough to let the air out. Rest for 10 minutes.

4. Grease a loaf tin with oil, place the dough and rest it until it has doubled in size.

5. Preheat the oven to 200ºc. Bake for 30 minutes.

Raspberry jam cake

When you have a baker in the house nothing will be wasted... Andy left 2 egg yolks in the morning to make his white omelet and by noon those egg yolks were used in my cake.

I thought making a plain cake was a little boring and looked into the cupboard and the fridge to see what I could find... Oh yes, Raspberry Jam! Done!

So here we were... the easy peasy Raspberry jam cake was ready for the afternoon tea time ;)

Ingredients:

Flour 100g

Baking powder 1 tsp

Sugar 100g

Butter 50g

Egg yolk 2

Egg 1

Raspberry jam 2 tbsp

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºc. Melt butter.

2. Beat egg yolk, egg and sugar together until it's light and fluffy.

3. Mix in melted butter into 2.

4. Sift flour and baking powder into 3.

5. Stir raspberry jam into 4.

Pour the mixture into cake tin and bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes.

わらび餅もどき (Fake Warabi mochi)

Yesterday it was a nice hot summer's day in London and I had a sudden craving for this Japanese summer dessert called "わらび餅 (warabi mochi). It's made from starch and a bit like jelly but more wobbly....

To make warabi mochi you need warabi mochi powder but of course I can't find it easily here in England. But that didn't stop me from fulfilling my want for Japanese food...

So, I made "わらび餅もどき (fake warabi mochi)" with gelatin. I simply set sweetened water with gelatin and ate it with kinako and date syrup (normally it's eaten with brown sugar syrup). Hummm, it didn't have the texture of Warabi mochi but certainly had the taste! I liked it.

I'll tweak the recipe to get the texture right but for now it filled my Japanese food hole. ;D

Father's Day foot print biscuit

It was the very first Father's Day for our baby girl, Lana. She (or rather me...) made biscuit for daddy. It was no usual biscuit but her actual foot print!

I made templates of her foot print by applying baby oil on her foot, pressing them on a coloured paper and quickly drawing the outline before the foot print dried out. Then I used them to cut out the biscuit dough.

So that's how her tinny feet made into biscuit for her daddy. ;D Happy Father's Day!!

Sugar free ginger cake

I made another one of those cakes that are perfect for those who are watching their diet. (Me! ...for my baby's sake....) This time Sugar free ginger cake.

As soon as I heard that ginger was good for breast feeding mums, I immediately wanted to make a cake with ginger. As a baker, I can't help tasting the ingredients that are supposed to be good for you in my baking...;)
And I thought I might as well make this cake a bit healthier by using no sugar and less fat.

So... here is how it's made.
Ingredients:

Flour 50g (or alternatively brown flour 30g + oat 20g)

Egg 1

Date syrup 2tbsp

Oil 1 tbsp

Ginger powder 2tsp

Baking powder 1tsp

1. Preheat the oven to 180º.

2. Beat egg until it's light and fluffy.

3. Mix in Date syrup and oil into 2.

4. Fold flour into 3.

5. Pour the mixture into cake tin and bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes.

I used brown flour and oat this time but normal flour will work too.

Add crystallised ginger for an actual bite of ginger (though that will the cake not sugar free).

As this cake is light, not too sweet and won't make me feel too full, it's perfect for breakfast or side dish of any meals. ;)

Jubilee tea party

Britain was filled with a festive feel as people celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. We enjoyed the last day of this long weekend too in a very English style... Afternoon tea.



The menu of our Jubilee tea party was...;

- Variety of sandwiches with homemade bread (I baked my super easy bread and Andy made the sandwiched.)
- Homemade scones (For the recipe, see The World of Sweets: United Kingdom)
- Berries & cream tartlets (For the sweet pastry recipe, see my Lemon meringue tart)
- Union Jack Battenberg. I made one too in a slightly different style for the royal wedding a year ago. (Have you seen my royal wedding battenberg?)

All the food was really good and I loved this cheesy setup too:D Now I'm thinking we should have afternoon tea more often ;)

Oh and these are the cupcakes that I made for the street party on Sunday which didn't happen in the end because of the bad weather... So we just ate them and took some to Andy's mum and dad. Raspberry cupcakes and Blueberry cupcakes for the colour of Union flag... tastes yum yum too... :)

Let's hope we'll have another Jubilee tea party in 10 years...