Happy birthday to Pete

Happy birthday to Pete, Happy birthday to Pete, Happy birthday to Pete, Haaapy Biiirthday toooo Pete♪...

Today is my dad-in-law's birthday. Happy birthday, Pete ;)

I made a selection of breads and funny face biscuits for him. They were... "seedless raspberry jam bread", "chocolate bread", "purple grape bread" (have you seen how to make it?), apple and cinnamon roll, and birthday special... "Jumbo cinnamon roll"!

I hope he is enjoying those sweet buns and rolls with the birthday tea. ;D

Green tea pudding

I haven't had Japanese stuff for a little while and seeing my mum adding a photo of Japanese food on Facebook made me miss a taste of home...

So..., I searched cupboards and found green tea powder that my mum got for me from Japan. Great! Since I have THIS demanding baby in my arms, I decided to make green tea pudding in a super easy way.

Not only is this pudding easy to make but also it doesn't have mike or eggs, so it's good for those who have dietary issues with them. And of course, it's yummy. ;D

The smooth pudding and rich green tea flavour was just what I needed to satisfy my Japanese food craving...

You can use normal milk instead of soy milk if you prefer...;

Green tea powder 1tbsp

Sugar 1tbsp

Soy milk 200g

Corn flour 1 1/2 tbsp

1. Combine all the ingredients in a sauce pan and mix well.

2. Cook over a low heat until the mixture thickens.

3. Pour the mixture into a cup. Let it set in the fridge.

Blackberry and cream cheese Swiss roll

More blackberries and another Swiss roll! (Hum? Am I addicted to Swiss rolls? My last Swiss roll was only a few weeks ago, was it?)

This time I added blackberry jam in the sponge to make it taste "super blackberry". ;D And of course, there is blackberry jam in side along with cream cheese icing... Hummm, what a combo!

They were already in the "Sooo goood" territory as is but they went extra level when I froze them. Oh man! I easily downed three pieces after a massive pasta meal...

Even my top taster Andy said "It's a little piece of Heaven." Yum yum yum, life is not bad... :)

Skinny blackberry muffin

We still have a lot of blackberry jam left that I made after our foraging the other day so I made skinny muffins with it to go with morning coffee.

Only sugar in those muffins are from the jam and I reduced the amount of fat as much as I could. So..., they weren't like those very sweet and buttery cupcakes but still have nice moist texture thanks to the blackberry jam and it's perfect for someone like me who sometimes wants to feel "Oh, I'm being healthy!".

You can use any jams instead of blackberry jam;)

Ingredients:

Flour 100g

Egg 2

Blackberry jam 3 tbsp

Oil 2 tbsp

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºc. 

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

3. Add blackberry jam and oil into 2. Mix well.

4. Fold flour into 3. Pour the mixture into muffin tin. Bake for 20 minutes.

Purple grape bread

This is the ultimate grape bread! I made these rolls with the grape juice that I made from the grapes from our garden.

In stead of water I used grape juice as a liquid to make the dough, which made the dough into beautiful purple colour. Because our grapes have pips, I didn't want to put the fruits in the dough but to give the sweet taste of grape I added raisins.

The dough took longer than normal to prove. I don't know the science but maybe it's because of the grape's acid? Anyone got any ideas?

Anyway, the breads came out nicely and had lovely colour inside. (They were gone before I had a chance to take a picture of inside...,oops.. greedy again...)

I've changed water to grape juice but everything else is the same as my Super easy bread. I had my home made grape juice available but a shop-bought 100% grape juice would be fine. ;)

Blackberry and apple pie

A few days ago we went balckberry foraging. It was simply amazing. To start with we didn't see many but then a kind lady with a dog came around and told us "the spot". There we found a lot, really a lot... we were like "We've hit the jack pot!" It seems the blackberries were appearing more as we picked... it was just endless.

We filled about half of our big box, which I believe was more than 5kg...It's not bad considering I was carrying a 6kg baby and Andy wasn't prepared well enough (he had shorts on and was getting cut by the thorns...;(...)

So, back in the kitchen I made the ultimate classic, Blackberry and apple pie. I made blackberry jam and apple compote (yes, apples were from our garden!) to go in the pie. Based on Andy's request I used a "healthy pie pastry".

The jam oozed out a bit while being in the oven but the pie came out very pretty. The combination of sharp blackberry jam and juicy apple went very well in the light pastry. And as usual..., those little pies were gone before we knew... (My intention of having "A" little pie has never worked...)

Here is the healthyish pie pastry:
Ingredients

Flour 250g

Baking powder 1/2 tsp

Oil 2 tbsp

Warm water 150ml

1. Combine flour and baking powder. Mix water and oil well.

2. Add liquid into flour mixture and bring them together. (do not over work. The dough doesn't need to be super smooth.)

3. Roll out the dough on a floured surface to 2mm thickness and place on a tart tin.

Grape jam swiss roll

Another tea time treat with my grape jam. Grape jam Swiss roll.

I love it when a Swiss roll has as thin sponge as possible with a lot of cream inside (I guess it's a very Japanese way of Swiss roll...).
So.., I put a generous amount of cream and jam in my really light thin sponge.

Yes, it's a baker's prerogative to make what she likes. And yes, I got exactly what I wanted... yum yum yum:D

Here is my other Swiss rolls...
"Thank you cow Swiss roll", "Bush de noel".

Funny face biscuit

"Hello, hello, hello"... Those funny face biscuits are the best friends with a nice cup of tea and sure to bring a smile to everyone's face. :)

To dress up the funny face I sandwiched my grape jam in the middle. The almond shortbread biscuit worked very well with the thick grape jam.

Dunk one face in a tea..., and another and another..... such addictive stuff those faces are... :)

To see how to make the almond biscuit, please see my biscuit assortment.

Grape jam

The grapes in our garden are becoming fatter and darker each day and I saw some birds were eating them, so I decided to pick some before they all get eaten.

I got a bowlful of grapes and they turned into a beautiful wine red jam. I didn't even take the grape skins off but they were cooked well so I didn't notice them.

Because I wanted to use the jam for cakes I added much less sugar than normal jams. However it was still sweet enough to have it as is. In fact the bit of sharpness was nice and refreshing.

So...now, what shall I make with it. A jam cake? Jam biscuits? Or Jam roly poly?

Bagels & Rolls for sleep over

Last weekend we had a sleep over with the Greenway at our house. We decided that each one of us would arrange their own food so that everyone got what they wanted for dinner. So..., Boys had Chinese..., Greenway girls had pizza and I...bagels...(yes, it was dinner, not brekki...)

I baked some bagels and also some rolls for the following morning breakfast... (...? however...., there were only a couple of rolls left in the morning... hum, I must have kept eating them in the night...)

Since it was "Fish Friday", I did smoke salmon and cream cheese bagels. I love it, I love it, I love it... As far as I remember I eat at least three of them, maybe four... it was that good. ... salmon and cream cheese... I can't get enough of it...

By the way, the photo of smoke salmon bagel was taken by Brian. Look! how much better his picture is than mine, and he used our camera too! That's the difference between a "Pro" and a "Monkey"... Thanks, Brian. :D

The weekend was great fun. Thank you, Brian, Mahalia, and Skyla. ;)