Sweet potapo & Soy bread

Look at this beautiful colour! It's from roasted sweet potato and soy flour. :) I replaced some of the flour to soy flour, which is a good source of protein, and added left over roasted sweet potato.

When I cut into the round loaf, I was very pleased to see the nice yellow colour, and not only that, the bread tasted really good. Roasted sweet potato was a hero! It gave the bread a soft silky texture as well as natural sweetness.

They were so popular in the house that the whole loaf was gone before noon... ;D

Ingredients:

Strong flour 200g

Soy flour 50g

Yeast 3g

Salt 3g

Milk 180g

Roasted sweet potato (skinned and mashed) 200g

Olive oil 1 tsp

1. Put all the ingredients except oil in the standing mixer, and knead for a few minutes.

2. Add oil. Keep kneading for 10 minutes.

3. Place the dough in a clean bowl, cover with cling film and rest it until it has doubled in size.

4. Punch the dough to let the air out. Make it into a ball and rest for 10 minutes.

5. Gently reshape the dough and place on a baking tin. Rest it until it has doubled in size.

6. Preheat the oven to 180ºc. Bake for 40 minutes.

Sweet potato and apple pie

Winter is coming... It's time for nice comforting treats so I made these mini pies filled with sweet potato cream and apple confiture.

I make the fillings and puff pastry myself but if you can't find time to do all that, use a ready made puff pastry and apple jam. (I don' know if you can find sweet potato cream in a shop... maybe you've got a time to make sweet potato cream yourself?) Then all you've got to do is to roll out the pastry and put the jam and cream... and bake!
The super cute and tasty pies will be ready in less than a hour. Glaze the pies with thinned apricot jam to make it pretty. ;)

I like these mini pies a lot but I think Andy liked them even more... He kept going back to them. What a nice complement to a baker. :D

Sweet potato cream

Another seasonal vege that I love, Sweet potatos!

I made sweet potato cream in the same way as the pumpkin cream. Sweet potato is very similar to pumpkin when it's cooked, so as I said for pumpkin cream you can use it for pretty much for anything.

I usually make a batch of sweet potato cream and freeze certain amount in small containers so I can take one out when I want to use it for my breads, cakes or desserts.

This time I made mini sweet potato mont blanc for morning tea time. Look at these tiny tea cups! I got them from IKEA kid's section... I think they are supposed to be toy? They're super cute anyway...;D

Ingredients:

Sweet potato (after cooked) 700g

Double cream 80g

Demerara sugar 60g

Salt 5g

Butter 50g

Cinnamon 1/2-1 tsp

1. Peel the sweet potato skin. Cut in small pieces. Put them in a microwave safe bowl. Cover the bowl with cling film and cook for 10 minutes or until the sweet potato is soft.

2. Put the sweet potato in a blender and make a smooth paste.

3. Add the remaining ingredients and blend until they're mixed together well.

Have you tried my Pumpkin cream yet?

Purple sweet potato cake

Amongst of all those potatoes out there, this Purple Sweet Potato is..., I believe, the most unique one. Purple sweet potato (we call it "紫いも (Murasaki Imo)" is very popular in Japan, and especially in Okinawa , where the purple sweet potatoes are originated, we can find a lot of purple sweet potato sweets such as ice creams, cakes, tarts and many more.

Not only do these potatoes taste nice and sweet, but also they have a very vivid purple colour, which is perfect when you're making a eye-catching cakes or desserts.

Today I used a packet of purple potato powder that I brought back from Japan to make petite purple potato cake :) As soon as I started mixing in the purple potato powder, the mixture got... well, very very purple ... like a beetroot... and that indescribable homely smell of sweet potato hit my nose.... :) Ahaah, bless me...  Oooh, have a look at the picture! See..., how bright they are!

Unfortunately, I don't know where we can find purple sweet potatoes in the UK although I saw something similar in Whole Foods...  So, please let me know if you see one ;D

Ingredients;

Flour 170g

Purple potato powder 80g

Sugar 100g

Baking powder 1 tsp

Butter 100g

Egg 2

Honey 20g

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºc. Cream butter and sugar together until it's fluffy.

2. Add eggs into 1, and mix well.

3. Add honey into 2, and mix well.

4. In a separate bowl, combine flour, purple potato powder, and baking powder, and mix well.

5. Fold in 4 into 3.

6. Pour the mixture into cupcake moulds. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes.

Sweet potato cake for Peru

From my whole Sunday afternoon research, (ok.., maybe not literary but at least a good few hours...) I came to a conclusion that sweet potato is originally from Peru. And it is true that sweet potato is often used in South American cuisine including some desserts.

...So..., there were three sweet potatoes looking at me for last couple of days. I thought, "well... maybe it's time to say thanks and bye to them...". I mashed them and turned them into a lovely moist sweet potato cake. I'm going to give the credit of this treat to Peru, the origin of Ipomoea batatas. (that's what the sweet potatoes called there.)

To see the recipe, visit The World of Sweet Recipe Peru.