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

Carrot Castella - 人参カステラ -

Carrots, carrots, carrots.... I had a lot of carrots in the fridge that needed to be dealt with, and you know what that meant... Carrot cake... ;)

This time I used the same method as the popular Japanese cake カステラ (Castella), but I replaced the strong white flour with wholemeal flour to make it feel more..."healthy", and added quite a bit of carrot.

This cake has two stages to enjoy. Day one, it's light and you might feel like you want to call it a 'loaf' rather than a 'cake'. Then, when you rest it for a day or two, it gets more moist and juicy, which makes the cake more 'cake'-like. Two in one, sounds good right? ;D

Ingredients:

Wholemeal flour 100g

Dark brown sugar 100g

Mixed spice 1-2 tsp

Egg 4

Honey 3tbsp

Shredded carrots 100g

Hot water 1 tbsp

More carrots cake?

Carrot cake with homemade carrot jam

Carrot brownie

Carrot cake with Homemade carrot jam

I don't know why, but I bought more than enough carrots for us to eat... So to rescue those carrots, I made a jam with them. It's a bit unusual but they don't taste like vegetable, but more like a marmalade without bitterness from the orange skin....

Now, the hard part of dealing with the carrots was done, I had to make a cake with it... Yes, it's the classic Carrot and Spice cake.;)

When I add jam in a cake, I normally use less butter and sugar because jam has already got sweetness and moisture. When it comes to a carrot cake, I like to add quite a bit of spice such as cinnamon, vanilla, mixed spice.... I love the smell of these spices coming out of the oven. :D

I added cinnamon butter cream icing and more carrot jam on top. The cake was nice and moist, and with every bite there was a satisfying amount of carrots in it, which is exactly what I expect from a Carrot Cake! Hummm, heavenly...

Another carrot cake from two (wow, time flies!) years ago!

Or here is another way to use up those carrots: Carrot Brownie.

Carrot brownie

I love it when a recipe I imagined in my head actually worked. And today was one of those successful times;)

My new recipe... Carrot Brownie! It sounds unusual but try it when you have lots of carrots and don't know what to do with them. I've used white chocolate just because I don't eat normal cacao chocolate, but I believe it would work just as good.

What is nice about this brownie is that you get a good nutrition from carrots while enjoying a soft and sweet piece of treat or two...

I'd forgotten about how versatile a brownie can be until now, but the success with this brownie made me want to experiment with more unique brownies... Well, wait and see how it goes...

Ingredients;

White chocolate 100g

Butter 25g

Egg 1

Brown  sugar 50g

Flour 65g

Cinnamon 1/2 tsp

Carrot (cooked and mashed) 170g

Vanilla extract 1 tsp

1.Preheat the oven to 180ºc.  Melt white chocolate and butter together.

2. Beat egg and brown sugar until it's fluffy. Mix Vanilla extract in.

3. Pour 1 into 2. Mix well.

4. Sift flour and cinnamon into 3. Fold in.

5. Mix mashed carrot into 4.

6. Pour the mixture into a cake tin. Bake in the preheated oven (180ºc) for 30 minutes.