Sandwich Loaf

Thanks to wonderful ex-colleagues, we now have a smart looking bread maker sitting in our kitchen. Here's the first sandwich loaf from the machine. Recipe's taken from the booklet that came with the machine.

Water 250ml (I replaced with fresh milk)
Butter, melted 1.5 tbsp
Sunflower oil 1.5 tbsp (I used Canola)
Sugar 3 tbsp
Salt 0.5 tsp
Strong white bread flour 3 cups
Fast action / instant yeast 1 tsp

The texture is not bad. More dense than store bought bread.  I'll reduce the yeast the next time round though. Don't fancy the yeasty taste.

Enjoy!

Apple Cinnamon Craneberry Muffins

With a couple of apples that I need to use up quickly, I baked some Apple Cinnamon Cranberry Muffins -  something that my son would never ask for (he doesn't like the smell of cinnamon :P)

The recipe was from taste.com and it was quite simple.  I didn't have any raisins (my son doesn't like them) so i subsituted with cranberries (no, he doesn't like these either).

Here're the ingredients:

• Melted butter or margarine (optional), for greasing
• 300g (2 cups) plain flour
• 1 tbs baking powder
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 150g (3/4 cup, firmly packed) brown sugar
• 2 medium (about 375g) Granny Smith apples, cored, peeled, chopped
• 125g (3/4 cup) seedless raisins (I subsitiuted with dried cranberries)
• 125g butter or margarine, melted, cooled
• 2 eggs, lightly whisked
• 185mls (3/4 cup) milk

Salmon Teriyaki with Ume Somen

Was out for most of the day with Yohei today and by the time we got home, I was a bit too tired to cook.  Whipped up a quick Salmon Teriyaki with Ume Somen

Ingredients for the teriyaki sauce was only shoyu, mirin and sugar.  I don't have any mirin at home so I substituted with a grapefruit wine that's sitting in the refrigerator.

Ume somen was bought in November 2011 from Isetan when they were having some fairs. 

Comments from the boy? "the fish is good."  That means a lot as this boy is partial to Salmon.

Nutella Muffin

New bakes! Yohei declared break from his vegetables in his bento so I decided to bake him something for school. Tried out a recipe for Nutella Muffin from Tasty Kitchen.

I halved the recipe as I'm not sure how sweet it would be. Half the recipe yielded a batch of 7.






Ingredients

• 1-½ cup Flour
• ¾ cups Sugar
• ½ teaspoons Salt
• 2 teaspoons Baking Powder
• ⅓ cups Canola Oil
• 1 whole Egg
• ⅓ cups Milk
• 1 cup Nutella, Divided

How-to:
 
Pre-heat oven to 190 deg C.

Mix the dry ingredients. In a jug, mix the wet ingredients (except the Nutella). Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and gently fold together (don't over-do it or you will get tough muffins).

Scoop a small amount of batter into the muffin cup, then put in a small spoon of Nutella (to your taste, really. I didn't follow the exact amount recommended). Then top off with more batter.

Bake till done (about 18 - 20 minutes). Recipe called for drizzling melted Nutella over the top of the hot muffins but I simply put a small dollop on them.