Purple Sweet Potato & Chestnut Sourdough Bread

This is a variation of my Purple Sweet Potato Sourdough Bread.

I wanted to make something Autumny so I added sweet chestnut paste in this pretty pink rolls.

At the final shaping I put the chestnut paste in the middle of the dough and kind of shaped the bread around it so that the paste was sealed in... But then, I scored the top... to let the paste out...?, hum..., I sometimes (or often) don't know what I'm doing...

Anyway, the caramelised bits of chestnut paste on the top and some on the sides were the nicest bits!

We discovered cheesy toasts with this bread work too. The sweet paste and the saltiness from cheese went very well. (They were too good that I ate them all before I had a chance to take picture...)

You can of course make this bread with your usual white bread too.

Here is the recipe for Chestnut Paste. :D 

Vanilla & Matcha Melon pan with sourdough starter

Following my last post, Sourdough Annn pan, here is another Japanese bread.

Melon pan!

(Are you thinking 'what's melon pan?', then here is the answer.;D)

Lana, Andy, and I, we all love this sweet buns. This time I made one with vanilla biscuit on top and the other matcha green tea biscuit. The matcha ones also have chestnut paste inside.

I think the beauty of Melon Pan comes down to the skin (the biscuit.) I like my skin to be nice and crunchy, not to thin but not too over powering to the bread. The ratio I usually do is '50g dough to 40g biscuit' for a bun.

Ingredients:

*Bread*

Starter (banana) 120g

Very strong Flour 250g

Milk 150g

Egg 1

Sugar 30g

Honey 1 tbsp

Oil 15g

Butter 35g

Salt 3g

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*Biscuit*

Butter 60g

Sugar 115g

Plain Flour 200g

(For matcha, use 190g flour +  10g matcha powder)

Egg 1

Not only is the biscuit goes well with the sweet bun, but also it's pretty awesome as is. So, if you get any leftovers, bake them at 175 ºc for 10 minutes, then another 10-15 minutes at 150 ºc.

They are so moreish. ;-d

Inside the Matcha Melon Pan.

Chestnut and Matcha, it's like a dream team!

They are best eaten on the day they are baked (if you could kept them long enough...), but if you're having them the following day, I recommend you put them in the fridge (since it has chestnut paste inside) and take them out to room temperature or warm them up slightly in the oven before you eat them.

Chestnut tart

As I mentioned on the previous post, now I've got a lot of chestnut jam, I will be making quite a few chestnuts stuff. :D

First off, it's a chestnut tart! I put a generous amount of chestnut jam in the filling. The tart is simple but the combination of the sweet pastry and dense, moist, aromatic chestnut filling is for me a perfect winter treat.

A few slices of that and a hot milky tea in front of TV.., what else do we need...?

Ingredients:

Sweet pastry 1 (see here)

Chestnut jam 200g (see here)

Almond powder 100g

Egg 1

Sugar 50g

Cream 50g

1. Prepare the sweet pastry. Line the pastry on a 9 inch tart tin. Prick the bottom of the tart case with a fork. Rest it in the freezer.

2. Preheat the oven to 180ºc. Make the filling. Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix well.

3. Pour the mixture into the tart case. Bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes.

Chestnuts foraging

The other day we went for chestnut foraging. We found an awesome spot! Not only were there a looooot of chestnuts on the ground, but also some chestnuts were falling from the trees while I was picking them. We got four big shopping bags full of chestnuts (we could have got more..., but we thought we shouldn't be greedy...)

Back in the kitchen, I took the chestnut out from the spiky shells (ouch ouch ouch..., it was a real pain on our fingers!) and peeled the hard shells. The whole preparation even before cooking took 3 days!

Most of the chestnuts were made into chestnut jam. Now I've got 8 pots of jams to use for my breads and cakes!

I've already made some chestnuts bread. They are now back in stock on The World of Sweets - Bakery -, better be quick or they will be all gone! (... and the good new is..., the delivery is FREE* too!)

*Ipswich and surrounding areas only.

Chestnuts Swiss roll

From my older posts some people might know by now that I'm a big fan of Swiss roll. And here we are again..., another day with a slice or two of mouth melting Swiss roll.

This time I went for a taste of Autumn and Winter, chestnuts! I added a good amount of chestnut jam in the sponge as well as in the butter cream in the middle.

I probably put a little too much of butter cream in the middle (because I'm a greedy monkey...) so I struggled to roll up the sponge a bit but it did taste amazing...

Even though I knew exactly how much butter and sugar went into the whole cake, I could not resist the second piece... (well anyway, I have a policy that I don't care about the calories when it comes to cakes and sweets...)

Have you seen my other Swiss rolls and the recipe?
Grape jam Swiss roll
Blackberry and cream cheese Swiss roll

Chestnut bread

Look at these shinny breads! I love it when the breads come out from the oven like this. :)

It's the Autumn's must, Chestnut bread!

Not only does the bread have the sweet chestnut jam inside but also the jam is mixed in the bread dough. I shaped and decorated the bread to look like a chestnut too... (although it looks more like onigiri...)

These sweet tasting breads are so good that I can have them as breakfast, snack, with tea, or simply anytime! In fact I ate it after dinner as an evening treat to myself... ;D

Chestnut crumble cake

I made a chestnut crumble cake with my homemade chestnut jam. With a generous amount of chestnut jam, the cake came out really moist and had a nice sweet chestnut flavour. The cinnamon flavoured crumble on top gave a nice crunch too.

The good thing about this cake is that you can enjoy it in two ways. It's nice warm straight from the oven or rest it to cool in the fridge and have it the following day. Either way, this is a real Autumn treat for me and definitely has got that moreish-ness!

Ingredients:

Flour 150g

Baking powder 1 tsp

Brown sugar 150g

Egg 3

Butter (melted) 100g

Chestnut jam 150g

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Crumble

Butter 50g

Demerara sugar 50g

Flour 75g

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºc. Make the crumble by combining all the ingredients in a bowl and rub with fingers until the mixture becomes sandy.

2. Make the cake mixture. Beat eggs and sugar together until it's fluffy.

3. Add melted butter into 2 and mix well.

4. Sift flour and baking powder. Fold them into 3.

5. Fold in chestnut jam into 4.

6. Pour the cake mixture into a cake tin. Put the crumble on top.

7. Bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes or until the top of the cake is lightly golden.

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.