Orange custard cream

The other day I made orange custard cream... well, I was going to make orange curd but as I didn't have specific recipe in mind and I was kind of going with the flow, I ended up making more like an orange custard than curd, which turned out to be rather tasty! ;D

So the recipe goes like this...
Ingredients:

Orange 2

Sugar 50g

Butter 25g

Cornflour 1 tbs

Egg 1

Egg yolk 1

1. Squeeze the juice out of oranges. Keep 1 tbsp of the juice aside and combine the rest of the juice with sugar and butter in a pot.

2. Bring the pot to boil and strain the liquid.

3. Mix cornflour and 1 tbsp of orange juice.

4. Add 3 into 2 and mix well.

5. Beat the egg and egg yolk and mix into 4. Put the pot back on a low heat.

6. Stir constantly until the liquid thickens.

I'm not a big fan of orange skin so I don't add zest of orange but if you want more punch, then please go for it.

After squeezing the juice, I boiled the remaining of oranges with water, and then pureed in the food processor. I cooked the pureed oranges again with some ginger syrup (approximately 4 tbsp) and strained the liquid to make orange and ginger jam-sauce type thing (it wan't as thick as jam...)

This by-product was also very nice! I used it in the bread and cake, both of which had really nice refreshing orange flavour. :)

I used the orange custard cream as a filling of my Match macarons. And oh yes! Holly molly, the combination of match and orange tasted amazing...

Recipes for the gluten- free cake and brioche I made with the orange cream and 'jam-sauce thing' will be coming soon! Don't miss them;D

Coconut Swiss Roll

My love for Swiss rolls has been mentioned quite a few times here on my blog, and the recipe has already made it to BON APPETIT.

This Coconut Swiss Roll is a variation of my basic Swiss roll, but it's a little bit different.

It has no sugar, no flour in the actual sponge nor in the cream. Hum, good news for those who are watching their sugar and carb... Well, I'm not a health mania but I still love this Swiss roll!

I used coconut flour in stead of plain flour and honey as a substitute for sugar.  (I've been using a lot of honey recently, aren't I? ;D) Although some of the ingredients are replaced, the method of making the sponge is the same as the basic Swiss roll sponge.

The sponge had less volume and was slightly more fragile than the basic Swiss roll but still had a nice texture with a beautiful flavour of coconut.

I rolled dairy free cream and my homemade coconut jam known as Kaya in the middle (I came across Kaya when I was in Malaysia and loved it so much that I often had roti kaya for dinner...).

So here we are..., ultimate Coconut Swiss Roll! I have to admit it was really good that I had more than half the cake to myself, but still there was no sugar, no flour, I didn't feel guilty at all! In fact I felt super satisfied! ;D

More Swiss Rolls?
Chestnuts Swiss Roll
Thank you cows... Swiss Roll
Grape jam Swiss roll
Blackberry and cream cheese Swiss roll Bush de Noel
My Birthday Swiss roll
Dad's Birthday Swiss roll

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.

Chestnut jam

The other day I found chestnuts in the supermarket and I got all excited BECAUSE I can make one of my favourite jam, chestnut jam!

It's quite a job to peel the chestnut shells but when you see the nice sweet jam as a result, it's all worth it. I do "chestnut : sugar = 2:1" and it's already very sweet for my liking, but if you want to make it even sweeter you can add more sugar.

I made quite a lot so some of them are going into my cake..;) Let's see how it goes...

Ingredients:

Chestnut:Sugar=2:1

Water

1. Cook the chestnuts in the shell in a boiled water for 10 minutes. Let them cool in a fresh water.

2. Peel the shell off.

3. Place the chestnuts in a pot. Pour just enough water to cover the chestnuts. Add sugar and cook over a low heat until it thickens.

4. Puree the jam to make it smooth.

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?

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.

Homemade Jam - Apple, Plum, Kiwi & Nectarine

I believe it's nicer, and more importantly much more fun to make your own jams and compotes than getting a jar from a supermarket. Especially in the summer, there are so many different fruits available, which definitely gives me a lot of ideas for lovely homemade jams;)

A few days ago, we got a good selection of fruits such as kiwi fruits, plums, nectarines and apples. They were so ripe that I decided to turn them into jams.

I had tried apple jam and plum jam but never made a jam with kiwi fruit before... well, that could only mean one thing, "Just give it a go".
However, because I don't really like the tanginess of kiwi..., because I didn't have that many of them..., because I had some nectarines...., and because I simply wanted to try it... I decided to make Kiwi & Nectarine jam.

When I make jams, I normally use this ratio;

Fruits:Sugar = 2:1 (with a pinch of salt and some lemon juice)

Good! All under control... cut the fruits.. add sugar and cook them until they become nice thick consistency. See? Easy peasy... ;D

Let me introduce my lovely Jam family...
On the right is the dark red Plum, on the left is the yellow with black dots Kiwi & Nectarine, and on the back is the shiny golden Apple!

Enjoy them with bread, yogurt, ice cream, biscuits... anything and everything!!

Tomato jam

Tomato is one of my favourite vegetable. Especially in the summer, I eat them not only in my salad but also just as a snack, lovely...

On the other day I got a bag-full of tomatoes in different sizes from a veg & fruit stand, and I decided to try making that amazing tomato jam I had in Spain. I love the vivid red sweet jam so much that I had it almost anything when I was there...

So..., my tomato jam is dead simple! All you need is tomatoes (1.2kg), sugar (500g), a red pepper, and a teaspoon of lemon juice. I cut the tomatoes and pepper, and cooked them with lemon juice in a pot for a little while. Then I started adding sugar. I've used 500g of sugar but the amount of sugar can be changed depending on your taste:) Here, you need a little bit of patience.... you've got to simmer the jam down until it becomes half its volume... it does take time, but I promise, it's worth it! Soon, you'll smell of nice sweet tomatoes...

I had my home made tomato jam with Camembert. Unfortunately I was too hungry to prepare those fried Camembert I had in Spain, but this would do for now!

Verdict... simply awesome...! I can't wait to try it on some other stuff. I'm thinking of vanilla ice cream...
Any recommendations?