Granola

(makes 1 large jar)

30g butter 

10g rapeseed oil

(or 40g of coconut oil)

120ml maple syrup or honey

½-1½ flaked salt

150g rye flakes

100g jumbo rolled oats

50g almond slice

50g pumpkin seeds

50g sunflower seeds

(or pistachios, pecans and macadamias or nuts of your choice)

50g chopped dried cranberry (or raisins, dried apricots, dates or dried fruit of your choice)

50g banana chips

1 egg white

1.  Mix all the dry ingredients except banana chips.

2. Make egg white fluffy by hand mixer.

3. Melt butter and add rapeseed oil and maple syrup together.

4. Mix well 1. & 3. first then add 2. and mix well.

5. Spread over the oven tray and bake for 20-30 min (stir sometimes) at 150 degree oven.

In summer, when the heat and humidity sweat up your body and loose your appetite but cold drinks, I crave for granola with chilled yogurt and milk. 

As not much real granola available in Japan (in my opinion, the popular one by major brands sold in the super market is not considered as granola but just crispy puffy snacks to me), I had to make it myself (as always, you know I don't like anything ready-made by a factory/manufactured). 

You can add any nuts/seeds you like or change the base oil to the one you like.

Eating with chilled yogurt and milk is nice but adding as topping on ice cream or mousse makes a bit more special and brings a crunchy joy.

Dried Tomatoes

2 ways to make dried tomatoes. 

1. Sun dry

2. Oven dry

As rainy season of June in Japan isn't suitable for making dried tomatoes, I went for oven dried. 

It's simple, but have to be patient.

Cut out mini tomatoes in half, sprinkle sea salt over, then dry them in low heat (around 120 degree) oven for about 2-3 hours.

It become a bit hard when completely dried out, but preserves for longer.

I prefer a semi-dried, which concentrate the flavour intensely and still soft enough to chew without rehydrate them.

Put them in good oil. I always use EXV olive oil or rapeseed oil. (*make sure to sterilize the jar before putting oil and tomatoes) It should last about 3 weeks or so in the refrigerator. Very good topping for a fresh salad, or  any pasta dish.

Before drying

After drying in the oven for 3 hours

Summer fresh salad topped with 3 kinds of tomatoes

Canelé de Bordeaux

May 2014, our Honeymoon destination, Bordeaux, France (and Basque region in Spain later on). 

Not only the wine and fine dining make Bordeaux attractive, but these little delights proud of their presence in the town. 

In a history, as Bordeaux flourished with wine making, they had much yolk left as the egg whites were used for purifying in the wine making. No wasting yolk, added some more cake ingredients, the Canelé were born as sweet treat. Canelé's main ingredients are milk, sugar, yolk and flour, and added vanilla and rum for the rich aroma. It has dark black-brownish caramelised crust, and soft pudding-like inside. 

Me, a freaking home-baker, of course ate a lot of canelé during my few days of stay in Bordeax and gave a much glaze to the show window of each canelé shop. No doubt, I bought a canelé shape for my home baking, the silicone mold. (it's even a de-buyer's!)

Canelé box in Bordeaux

Canelé shop in Saint-Émilion

Canelé shop in Bordeaux

It took me a year to open and use the canelé mold at home, to be honest (it's an excuse, but I was away from home as my work required me outside of Japan) but anyway, it is finally baked, the reminder of honeymoon. 

Voilà! my first attempt. 

It looks a bit deformed as I didn't use beewax as a coating but taste superb, outside is crispy and gooey in the middle as it should be. 

Bread Basket / Wreath / Miniture Baguette

Salt-dough basket is one of the thing I wanted to challenge for long time.

Mix plain flour and salt as 1:1, then add water until the mixture become soft-shapable strength. Now it's same as play dough. Just shape as you wish.

The basket was the hardest one. I used a back of the bowl. It sticks if you don't flower the surface of the bowl well.

Bake at 100 degree for about 1-2 hours, then take out the bowl to bake inside for another 1-2 hours until the dough dries out colored well. To make the color shine, put egg-wash in the last half an hour.

Chocolate Croissaints / Pain au Chocolat

There are nothing more appetizing than freshly baked croissants from the oven on the Sunday morning. 

Making danish pastry dough cannot be shortcut although the ingredients are very simple. 

1. Flour

2. Butter

3. Yeast

4. Sugar

5. Salt

6. Water

Cold buttery dough has to be fold several times to make a beautiful layers. 

The good croissants have very crispy skin, almost crunchy, and layers of butter is melting on your tongue. 

I usually make the dough in advance and finish until shape it, then freeze it. 

A night before you bake, put it on the tray and cling film lightly and rest it in the refrigerator. The size will become just right in the morning and ready to bang into the oven (Graze with egg-wash if prefer prettier outlook).

I said, freshly baked but same for the normal loaf / bread, wait until cool down as the bread is still cooking right after they come out from the oven. Butter should be sweeping out on your tray but don't worry, it absorbs as cooling down. 

Bon Appetite! 

Meringue Kisses

I had a several egg whites left in my fridge.

I didn't want to bake another complicated complete cake nor biscuits, so I came to please myself in a very simple and easy way. 

Meringue kisses are simply made only by egg whites and sugar, that's really it. 

You can add food coloring like this if you like, by drawing a stripe in the piping bag to make the swirl. 

1. Egg White : sugar = 1:2

2. Make meringue

3. Bake for 2 hours at 100 degree oven for 2 hours.

It lasts more than a month if keeping in a good dried condition.

Digestive Biscuits

Digestive Biscuits.

McVitie's digestive biscuits are the most eaten biscuits in my 5 years of British life.

It could be with milk chocolate, sometime with dark, sometimes no chocolate at all.

It's got snap, it's crispy, it's crumbly, it's delicious. 

I don't know how many times I swear it's the last slice, then a few seconds later I got another slice in my mouth. 

Oats to be grained in a food processor, not too finely.

No eggs are added in this biscuits, that's why it's crumble.

Chocolate is optional but absolutely worth the effort.

Joy for the eyes and your mouth.

English Muffins

Crispy skin with bites from corn grits and soft dough in the middle. 

It's been 3 years since I left London. 

It is true that difficult to find a good real bread at reasonable price in Japan. (There are bakeries who bakes good bread but it's not something you want to do everyday that taking train to buy a bread to the decent department)

There are several recipes for the English Muffins. 

Some does with plain dough like white loaf, but I tried this with enriched dough, which worked perfectly. 

Just slice and toast with butter. 

That makes a perfect accompany with your morning coffee.

Kardemummabullar (Swedish cardamon bun)

In Autumn 2012, London. 

Before I and my boyfriend (at that time, now a husband) were rushed to leave Britain for good, the places that we came across we wanted to visit at last to conclude our life in Europe were, the Scandinavian peninsula. 

Sweden, Finland, Denmark. 

We took a flight in the early morning to Stockholm where the winter visited earlier than London. 

Cold air and sharp sunshine were refreshing to wake up our sleepy eyes.

As always, literally my face was glued to the bakery windows, shown their glamorous baked goodies.

The very popular swedish buns with such irresistible fragrant of cinnamon and cardamons from every corner of the town. 

A perfect accompany of the morning walk to the park in the Stockholm's chilly Autumn morning. 

3 years later, the smell is from my oven in Japan.  

Kardemummabulla.

The base is enriched sweet dough, and mixed well with generous amount of pounded cardamons. 

I rolled up blueberries and deseeded plum as an extra excitement which oozing out on the tray. 

Who can resist these gorgeous sweet buns?

Portuguese Custard Tart

So, Nigel Slater, my favourite British food writer and cook, I am very much influenced by his style of cooking. Simple and comforting, sort to say. Well, he is also influenced and learned from many others, like by this Portuguese-born beauty.

His another programme was on air (remotely available even at my home) and this is from one of the Portuguese man who came to England and opened his custard tart shop.

Flaky pastry case holds thick custard filling, flavoured with hint of cinnamon and lemon.
This gives you a heavenly comforting bites for your tea break.