Prune and Walnut Butter Cake

It has been awhile since I post a recipe for cakes. I baked this cake a few months ago to take it with me to a gathering. The brown sugar and chopped prunes gave this cake a very nice caramel fragrant.

It goes really well with a cup of coffee or tea.

Dark Chocolate Bark with Sea Salt, Macadamia Nuts and Dried Fruits

This bark is by far one of the easiest desserts to make. You can mix up a batch of it in 10 minutes before leaving it to set up. The best part of this bark is you can put your own spin of topping ingredients to it like nuts, dried fruits, toasted coconut, candied ginger etc.. The combinations are endless.

Cranberry Chicken Salad Sandwich

I attended a high tea party at a good friend house last week. It was a pot luck party and I prepared some scones, cheesecake bars and mini chicken pot pie (recipe coming up soon). The host prepared a huge Sandwich Platter and it has a few types of sandwiches in it and one of them was chicken salad sandwich. There were really good and I have been craving for it since.

Well, since I have some leftover roast chicken I decided to make some for our lunch. I won’t consider this as the best chicken salad but this is how we like it. I usually make a huge batch and will have as salad or make sandwiches out of it. The great thing about this salad is you can add toasted nuts, grapes, apple, raisins or some crumble cheese to it but for this one I decided to add some dry cranberries. It gives the salad a nice sweetness.

Panettone (Italian Christmas Bread)

This bread is a must in our household during Christmas season. I will usually buy them but I did attempt making them once a few years ago. I followed the recipe from a book but it turns out as hard as a rock and never try baking them again until this year. This time I used the recipe from the internet. I found there are so many of them out there but most of them requires a lot of work and days of proofing. Those who knew me will know I will not attempt recipes like that as I don’t have the patience for it. So I end up using the recipe from Laura in the Kitchen which is a very straight forward method just like making regular bread but it does require longer proofing time than regular bread.

This recipe makes beautiful, soft, supple dough that is much like a brioche. This bread is a true show-stopper. It’s stunning, and the flavor lives up to its looks. The bread is soft and sweet, and just loaded with flavor thanks to the vanilla extract,dried fruits, orange and lemon zest.

Chocolate Chips and Pistachio Granola Bars

Carlos like granola bars. He will always have one or two in his lunch bag so he can munch on it when he gets hungry. Granola bars are not cheap. It cost around $4.00 for a box of 5 or 6. I usually make it myself as it is not that difficult. Most important is basic proportion of chunky (nuts, dried fruits) to sticky (syrup, honey, sugar, peanut butter, butter or oil) and from there you can go to town with it. You can toss in things like oats, cereal, flax seeds, chia seeds etc. I will normally add in whatever I have in the pantry. The vanilla is optional and so is the cinnamon. The possibilities are endless. Since we like an extra crunch granola so I twice bake these bars.

Pumpkin Bread with Raisins

I love making quick bread for our breakfast especially using pumpkin or bananas. I used the same recipe that been feature here a few years ago. You can read about how I got the recipe here . This time I cut down on the sugar as I used the kabocha pumpkin instead of butternut squash. I love the texture of this insanely moist and soft bread. The additional raisins compliment the bread really well. This bread taste even better after a day or two. You can substitute the raisins with other types of dried fruits or nuts.

Date Rolls

I have a lot of dates left from my Christmas baking and I wanted to use it all up for my Chinese New Year baking. I can’t keep the dates for too long as it tends to get dry real fast so I decided to blend it all up in a food processor and used it as the filling of these rolls. It turns out really good and it will be on the bake list for my next Christmas baking.

 

Ingredients for the filling:

600 gram dates – I used Medjool dates
¼ cup sesame seeds – toasted
3 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp soft butter
½ tsp cinnamon powder
1 tbsp orange zest
3 tbsp orange juice

 

Dried Cherry Shortbread Cookies

We love shortbread but I hardly make any because of the high fat content in it. It is so addictive and you can’t stop just having one or two so the best is not to make any of it but I did make some to be given away for Christmas. This way there won’t be much left for our own consumption so we feel less guilty ha ha.. Anyway instead of making plain shortbread I added some dried cherries to it this time. All my friends love these cookies and some of them even asked for the recipe. So here it is.

 

Plum Frangipane Tart

I have lots of plums from the backyard tree. They were super sweet and juicy and actually they were the best plums that I’ve even tasted. I Google to find what type of plum this is and they were called Satsuma Japanese Plum. They were a bit smaller than the regular plums, solid red skin, and firm with dark red flesh. They were rich in carbohydrates and Vitamin A and C, calcium, potassium, and iron. It contains high amounts of fiber too. Like other fruits, plums are also low in calories and contain no sodium, saturated fat or cholesterol. We love eating them fresh but with so many of it I reserved some to make jam and also tarts. Actually we are able to finish it all but it is just an excuse for me to do some baking with it :)

I used some of the plums to make frangipane tart. It turns out really well. The pastry dough is buttery and crunchy, the sweet and a hint of bitter tart plums (from the skin) compliment so well with the aromatic sweet almond filling. This is a dessert for summer!

Mix Fruits and Pistachio Biscotti

I always have soft spots for dried fruits. I like adding them in cakes and cookies. I know, some of you hate fruit cake but I just love it but it has to be the homemade kind though. These biscotti are no acceptation. I just love it!! These twice baked biscotti are crunchy and packed with dried fruits. I put 2 pieces in Carlos lunch bag everyday as I think this is much healthier than the store bought granola bar.

Rum and Raisin Cake

I always like some dried fruits in my cakes. Normally I will add some raisins or dried cranberries to it. I like the taste of this cake as the raisins soaked up all the rum and gives this cake a very nice flavor. You can always adjust the amount of rum that soak the raisins to suite your taste. Soaking the raisins in rums keeps them moist and soft. The rum is not too overwhelming but you will know it is there when you bite into it and it goes perfectly well with a cup of coffee.

Ingredients:

1 cup raisins
¾ cup dark rum

Soak the above for an hour. Strain the raisins, set the rum aside to be use later.

Pineapple Rolls

I know I bit late in making these as CNY was long gone. I actually made these 3 weeks ago as I don’t have the time to make it for CNY. We were moving from PA to CA during that time so I don't have time to bake anything. Instead of the using enclosed or cut out pineapple tarts I made them into rolls. This time I used the recipe from Jun of Indochine Kitchen with very minor changes and I like it a lot. I made 1 ½ recipe as a recipe don’t yield too many pieces. I re-post the recipe here so I can refer to it whenever I want to make this again. You can go to her website and check out the step by step on how to do this.

Banana, Cranberry and Apple Bread

I whip this bread up one late night when I realized that we don’t have anything to eat for breakfast on Sunday morning. It is just a simple mix and bake bread which take no effort at all. All it takes is 5-6 minutes to measure, mix everything and about an hour to bake and you have something wonderful for breakfast the next day.

Coconut Pomegranate Jelly- Day 8

We are 8th day into the Royal Selangor Jellyriffic challenge. This is the very 1st jelly I made with the moulds. On my very first tried, I completely destroyed the jelly when I tried to unmold it and I had to re-do again the very next day. The key to unmolding it is dip the mould in hot water for 15 seconds; run the butter knife along the side of the moulds before turning them out. For this Jelly I used pomegranate which is in season now. I just love them. Love the rich, ruby seeds and savoring the sweet juice when I pop them into my mouth. They make great dessert too.

Ingredients for coconut layers:

200 ml water
250 ml coconut milk
1 1/4 tsp agar agar powder
pinch of salt
3 tbsp sugar - more if you like it sweeter

Steamed Butter Caramel Cake with Dates - Day 6

I hardly steam any cakes as I prefer to bake them. My big steamer is at the basement as I find it too much hassle to take it out, clean it and then put it back again, but once a while it is nice to have something different from the usual oven-baked cakes. Actually I find steam cakes are moist and tender compared the bake ones and I should do it more often. Since the jelly mould is steam-proof I decided to make some steamed caramel cake. It is a bit like the Dates Pudding but instead of steam bakes this is steamed. It turns out really moist, delicious and a nice fragrant of the caramel. I am definitely going to make this again but a bigger one :)

Dried Longan with Wolfberry Jelly - Day 3

I thought we are having some nice autumn temperature but it turn out hot and humid again a few days ago. With weather like this I normally like some cold sweet soup of grated winter melon and dried logan but since it is the Royal Selangor Jellyriffic challenge I make it into jelly. I omit the winter melon and added agar agar powder to it. Nice little dessert for the hot summer like weather.

Citrusy Hot Cross Buns

It’s a lovely windy sunny spring, and all the spring flowers are blooming. The aroma of these freshly baked hot cross buns hangs around in my kitchen and it certainly adds the joy of making them. Hot Cross buns are traditionally eaten on Good Friday and Easter in Christian households, beyond the religious significance, hot cross buns are rich in folklore. Eating one is a symbol of friendship for the coming year when shared with another. Sailors would often bring the buns aboard to guard against shipwrecks and hanging a hot cross bun in the kitchen would help protect against fires and would guarantee that all breads baked in the kitchen would turn out well. Who knew?

This year I used the same recipe from my previous posting but with some minor changes.

Apple Cranberry Tea Ring

Weather is so cold and snowing outside and the best way to warm up the house is doing some baking. But it is definitely not a good idea to make bread. Wrong move on my part and because of the cold making this loaf of bread took me over 6 hours from start to finished baking. It just refused to rise. I even stick it into the warm oven to help with the proofing. The end results, I would prefer it to rise a bit more and softer. Nevertheless, it tasted good. I think this tea ring will be great for Christmas breakfast or brunch.

Ingredients
Dough recipe adapted from Taste Of Home recipe book.

3/4 cup warm milk (70°F to 80°F)
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 egg, lightly beaten
3 tablespoons water (you might not need it)
3 tablespoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
3-1/3 cups bread flour
2-1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast

Brown Sugar Cake

This cake is made with dark brown sugar. So far I think this is the first butter cake I made using dark brown sugar and I was pretty satisfied with the outcome. The brown sugar gives the cake a rich, buttery, caramel like flavor, almost like butterscotch. The cake taste even better the next day.

Ingredients:

2 stick/226 gram/1 cup butter
1 ¾ cups dark brown sugar
2 ½ cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
4 eggs
½ cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
½ cup chopped walnuts
1 cup dried cranberry

Steamed Fruit Cake

Christmas is still a long way to go and why am I a baking fruit cake? Oh well, I am trying out one or two recipes now and if I like it I will bake it for the coming Christmas. I will usually use my old fruit cake recipe but I am a bit bore with it so I want something different this year. Today I tried out the famous CMG Kek Kukus Buah Buahan or Steamed Fruit Cake . I aged this cake for a few days before cutting into it. This cake is really moist and full of caramel flavor but a bit too sweet for me. If not it will be perfect. So the next time I make this I will cut down on the amount of sugar. I have another half of the cake left and will try it out in a few weeks time and see if there is a different in taste.

Ingredients:

375 g mixed fruits (I used raisins, currants, cranberries, pineapple, papaya and apricots)
250 g butter
150 g brown sugar (I used light brown sugar)
3 large eggs
¼ cup almond flakes (I used walnuts)