Hot cross buns

On Easter weekend, I made hot cross buns for the first time. Instead of a usual hot cross bun recipe that has quite a bit of sugar and butter, I used my sugar free banana bun recipe as a dough.

You don't really taste of the banana but it plays an excellent roll of bringing a natural sweetness to the bread. Not only is the banana a good alternative to sugar but also it makes the bread dough nice and soft.

For the hot cross buns, I soaked dried fruits in orange juice for a little while, and mixed them into the dough.

I really liked these buns. I think I will make them more often!

Here is the recipe for Banana Buns.

Easter Monday & Joint birthday party

As well as it was Lana's birthday yesterday, it was Easter Monday and we had an afternoon joint birthday party for Lana, Steve and me.

So..., there were three cakes on the table, what a treat! Of course, I started (oh, Lana did too!) with a slice of cake...

My birthday cake was made by my mum-in-law. It was a very pretty iced cake with lemon curd. Umm, yum yum, thank you, Chris!

I made sugar free non baked cheese cakes for Steve. Since it was Easter, I used Easter eggs as a cup and put bunnies and eggs on top.

Andy wanted to make vegetarian sausage rolls so I made a sheet of puff pastry too... I love making puff pastry. It's very therapeutic and much more rewarding when you see a nice rise and flaky pastry come out of the oven. ;D

Considering we had a bit of hectic days beforehand, I'm very pleased that we managed to have a lovely afternoon. :)

Easter cakes

Easter treat made by Andy's mum, Chris! Awesome! Not only was it a giant cup cake but also it had a nice surprise of jam, dolly mixtures and chocolate eggs! Oohoo, and the butter icing was so good that I kept scraping it...

There was another cake also made by Chris, a traditional Easter cake. Look at the marzipan! They are so nicely coloured:)

Thanks for all the nice goodies!

Easter eggs

Happy Easter weekend!
Nice looking chocolate eggs and bunnies are everywhere this time of the year. However, unfortunately I don't eat chocolate, so I won't get those cute sweets for myself... humm, shame;(
But, never mind because this year I made coconuts cake eggs! When I found this egg shape cake mould in a supermarket, I was like.." Yest! this is what I was looking for!"
The recipe was quite an experimental one, but it did go well with Andy's help:) Thanks, buddy!

The cake is semolina sponge cake, which is coated with jam and coconuts icing. They aren't the traditional chocolate eggs but I'm really happy that I'm going to have my own Easter eggs this year ;D