Having not spent many days out the door, I really do dream of the times when one can go outside and wander aimlessly. The way I try to get pass this though is to use my imagination through writing and drawing. I always think that a creative mind allows endless possibilities – a new country, a forest or a cave deep under the sea? It’s so fun just to let your imagination take you there! ❤️
To be honest, I haven’t picked up a brush or a pencil to draw for years now (possibly not since I dropped Art after my GCSE lol! 😂) But I used to really enjoy doing sketches and painting, and it was definitely a big hobby of mine growing up. (My mum and I especially had a fondness for scenery paintings back then.) So today I thought why not do a painting cake? 😉
As you may be able to tell, I was reminiscing my time in Paris last summer when I made this. 😂 The cake is a vanilla sponge covered with a coconut buttercream. The painting was done on edible wafer paper with food colourings. (I used a combination of water-based food colourings and a black food colouring pen to draw the outlines.) Also, kudos to my mum, who pointed out that she didn’t like the initial “baldness” of the lady which is why I added hair to her after! 😂
(Oh, and I just noticed this is my 100th blog post after I posted this! Happy milestone lol! 😂)
A typical Sunday means a lazy day for me in bed and eating (so basically living like a pig haha!🐷 Quarantine life, eh? 😂) But having, for once, not stayed up late on a Saturday night, I woke up early this morning to cook myself a delicious Sunday brunch.😋
I really enjoy experimenting when it comes to baking and cooking. Once in a while, I will start browsing online looking for new recipes to try out. With the current coronavirus crisis and lockdown situation in the UK, it has become very difficult to find all the ingredients I want (eggs and flour are particular rare sights now!) But when I came across this recipe of a savoury cheesy mushroom cake last night (which I happened to have all the essential ingredients for), I knew it will be the perfect Sunday brunch to start my lazy day! 🍄🍄
I know some of you will SCREAM at the idea of a savoury cake 😱🤣 but I got to say I am really enjoying the rich mushroom flavour in it, especially when paired with some green chilli pesto.😋 You can see the original recipe here at this link👉 https://www.easycheesyvegetarian.com/cheesy-garlic-mushroom-cake/ . I did adapt the recipe slightly by substituting some of the mushrooms with grated carrots and also added a little less cheese, since I didn’t want it to be too heavy.
Having spent most of the times in lockdown watching TV lazily at home (mostly food programs lol! 😂), I have been missing being able to go outside to visit different foodie places and sample great food. 😞 One of my favourite cuisines is Japanese cuisine, and I have been trying to create a little bit of the magic at home. 😋 Though that mostly equates to making big pots of miso soups, today I have tried to create a savoury Japanese fusion bake! 😉❤️
These savoury eclairs are based on some savoury choux bites I have done a while ago (See link here👉 https://tangosbaking.home.blog/2019/07/31/fusion-confusion-🤔/), and they are infused with sushi nori (roasted seaweed) and filled with tuna mayo. I gulped down the whole thing in minutes! They were so delicious! 😋😋 But maybe I am biased? 😛
Nori Eclairs with Tuna Mayo
Quantity: 4 Eclairs
Ingredients:
For the choux pastry:
25g unsalted butter
75ml water
33g strong white flour
1 egg, beaten
½ large sheet of sushi nori
For the filling:
1 small, canned tuna
2 tbsp mayonnaise, to taste
A pinch of salt, to taste
A pinch of black pepper, to taste
Method:
1. Place the butter in the water in a saucepan. Heat until the butter has completely melted and the water is boiling.
2. Keep the saucepan over heat and tip in the flour in one go. Beat vigorously until a smooth dough is formed. Remove it from heat.
3. Add the beaten eggs a bit at a time, stirring vigorously after each addition, until you have a smooth, soft batter. Take care as you may not need all of the egg. The batter must not be too stiff or too runny. You can check if you have the right consistency by lifting a bit of the batter up with a spoon, and it should just hang off it, holding a V-shape.
4. Cut up the nori finely. Add the nori to the choux batter and mix until well-combined.
5. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/gas 6.
6. Line a baking tray with baking parchment. Sprinkle droplets of water over it. Pipe the choux batter into 4 straight lines of equal lengths, leaving enough room between them for them to rise.
7. Bake the eclairs for about 30 minutes, or until they are golden and fully cooked inside. (Reduce the oven temperature if they start to brown too quickly.) As soon as they are taken out to cool, use a sharp knife to slice them across in halves. Cool the eclairs on a wire rack. (You may return them to the oven for a few more minutes to dry them out more if you need to.)
8. While the eclairs are baking, prepare the filling by mixing the canned tuna with mayonnaise, and seasoned with salt and black pepper to your taste.
9. Once the ecalairs are cooled, fill them with the tuna mayo before serving.
How is everyone doing this Monday? Hope everyone is staying safe and healthy during these times. The days may seem gloomy and grey right now, and things seem difficult, but don’t forget that little ray of sunshine in your heart. ☀️☀️
Today was a weird one for me as I got up early to do some work but then ended up falling back asleep in the afternoon… Things at work got strangely stressed at one point, but then I reminded myself that there are many others out there working even harder than me to keep the world going and protect those we loved right now. ❤️ So really, my so-called stress is really no biggie and I should just focus looking after myself and my loved ones. Doing my part to stay at home to keep everyone safe. 😊
So for dessert today, I made a yogurt and lemon curd Swiss roll. The first ever thing I learnt to bake was a Swiss roll, so that really made me feel a sense of nostalgia. Plus, I love yogurt and anything citrus! 🍋🍋 So what a treat for myself! 😋 Bright and colourful! 💛❤️💛❤️
Yogurt and Lemon Curd Swiss Roll
Quantity: 1 cake
Ingredients:
For the vanilla sponge:
4 eggs, separated
113g caster sugar
50 ml warm water
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp salt
100g self-raising flour
1 tsp cornflour
1 tsp baking powder
For the lemon curd:
3 egg yolks
120g caster sugar
1 lemon, zest and juice
53g unsalted butter
For the yogurt filling:
200g natural set yogurt
Decorations:
Raspberries (optional)
Icing Sugar (optional)
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas 4. For the vanilla sponge, whisk the egg whites in a large bowl with half of the sugar until stiff.
2. In a different bowl, mix the yolk, water, vanilla extract, salt and the remaining sugar together until smooth.
3. Mix the flour, cornflour and baking powder together in a separate bowl until well-combined. Sieve into the yolk mixture, and mix until well-combined.
4. Fold this mixture into the whipped egg whites gently until well-combined.
5. Line a baking tray with baking parchment and pour the cake batter onto it. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until firm to the touch and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. When ready, turn the sponge over a new sheet of baking paper. Peel off the baking sheet on the bottom of sponge. Leave the sponge to cool on a wire rack.
6. While the sponge is baking, make the lemon curd by mixing the yolks, sugar, lemon juice and zest in large pan. Cook over a low heat, stirring frequently. Continue to cook for about 5-7 minutes, or until the mixture can coat the back of a spoon.
7. Remove the pan from heat, and stir in the butter.
8. Pass the lemon curd through a sieve and let it cool before using.
9. When the sponge and lemon curd are cooled, spread the yogurt evenly over the sponge cake, followed by the lemon curd. Take care not to overfill. (Any leftovers can be used to make little dessert yogurt pots! 😋)
10. Roll the sponge tightly into a roulade shape.
11. To finish, place raspberries on top of the Swiss roll. Dust with icing sugar and drizzle lemon curd over it.
Also, shout out to my mum who is having her birthday tomorrow! 🎉🎊 Sadly, I cant celebrate with her this year due to the ongoing situation. But here is a flashback to the birthday cake I made her 4 years ago! May all your wishes come true, mum!
How is everyone doing this midweek? This afternoon, while having a brief Skype meeting with my colleagues, I decided to make bagels for the first time! 😋😋 (Bagel is an occasional late night guilty pleasure of mine since I live a short walk away from a bagel bakery that runs well past midnight.) I found the recipe itself as straightforward as any other bread recipes, though just with the additional step of cooking the dough in boiling water before baking. It was a little hot baking indoor at this weather, but the sunny weather today definitely helps with the rising of my dough. ☀️☀️
My dough rises beautifully under this glorious weather ☀️❤️A bit rough looking but they will do for now… 😂 First time cooking dough in boiling water 😬I don’t know why I am a little anxious flipping them over 😂 I didn’t have anything like sesames or poppy seeds at home, so I went with salt, black pepper and lemon zest. Because why not? 😛All ready! 😋😋Can’t eat bagels without some cream cheese and Serrano ham! 😚😚🤤🤤🤤
The recipe I used is adapted from the bagels recipe in ‘How To Make Bread’ by Emmanuel Hadjiandreou.
Mix the flour, salt, sugar and butter together in a bowl and set aside.
Place the yeast in a large mixing bowl. Add the warm water and stir until the yeast has dissolved.
Add about half of the beaten egg to the yeast mixture and mix, saving some for egg wash later.
Add the flour mixture to the yeast mixture. Mix until you form a dough.
Cover and let it stand for 10 minutes.
After the 10 minutes, knead the bread by pulling a portion of the dough up from the side and press it into the middle. Repeat this process with another portion of the dough and repeat another eight times.
Cover the dough again and let it stand for 10 minutes.
Repeat steps 5-6 for two more times.
Knead the bread one last time (In total, you should have kneaded four times.)
Cover the dough and let it rest for 1 hour, or until doubled in size.
After the rising, punch it down with your fist to release air.
On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough into a large log and divide the dough into four equal portions.
Roll between your hand until you get perfectly smooth, round balls.
Take each ball of dough and push your finger through the middle. Keep working to form a neat hole.
Place them on a baking tray lined with baking parchment. Cover and let them rest for 10 minutes.
Just before the dough finish resting, fill a saucepan with water. Add 5g / 1 tsp salt to the water and bring to boil.
Cook the bagels in batched in the boiling water until they rise up.
Turn the bagels over and boil for a further 5 minutes.
Transfer the boiled bagels to the baking sheet again and let them cool slightly before baking.
Preheat the oven to 240C/475F/Gas 9 and place a roasting pan at the bottom of the oven. Fill a cup with water and set aside.
Brush the bagels with egg wash and add any toppings.
Place the bagels in the oven. Pour the cup of water onto the preheated roasting pan.
Bake the rolls for about 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown and the rolls make a hollow sound when tap at the bottom.
Once the bread rolls are ready, set them on a wire rack to cool.
Hope you will give the recipe a try and enjoy these delicious bagels too! 😋
For those of you who live in the UK like me (or elsewhere with similar situations), I wonder how life in the lockdown is going for you? It’s undoubtedly going to be a worrying time for many, but for me, I believe it’s important to still enjoy the small moments in life. Having not stepped out the house for most of the past days, my social communications with people have reduced to via social media, texts and emails. In a way, I feel very blessed to have the technology nowadays to support this network of communications (since I dread to think how a lockdown would have been like decades ago.) I frequently have texted my mum back home, kept up to date to how my friends are doing, and stayed in touch with work. These are definitely small things that keep me going and drive me to carry on with my daily life right now. It’s important to remember that there are people that rely on me as much as I rely on them.❤️
Whenever I feel down, dessert is a place I can turn to (and I believe this will also be the case for many!😁) As a famous quote once said, ‘Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first,’ let’s all make sure pudding is on the menu every day! While someone might call me out now for ‘encouraging’ unhealthy eating, the most essential thing is that you keep on doing things you enjoy (though just not outdoor. 😛)
Anyway, the dessert on my menu today is Japanese milk pudding – which the idea sprung to my mind when I discovered my unused carton of milk in the fridge. 😂 Traditionally, it’s made with the renowned Hokkaido milk from Japan. But obviously I have no access to that at home, so I just made do with ordinary milk.😛 It’s very simple to make. (See the YouTube video I used here👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzp21yBLcmQ. Credits to Peachy Bunny Bakes.) To make it a bit more elaborated, I chose to top mine with some strawberry jam, crushed digestive biscuits and tempered dark chocolate, but it’s just as delicious on its own! (And I am loving the wobble haha! ❤️)
So from today, I am officially working from home. 🏠 In the past weekend, my daily routine has been reduced to meals, sleeping and binge watching TV (Not that it’s hugely different from the usual haha! 😂) I also set an aim for myself to update the blog as often as I could now that my schedule has freed up more. Hope you all are also doing well! Remember to keep on staying positive and look after each other! 😊
With more than enough time now to spare, this calls for time for some bread making! 🍞🥖🥯 Usually, I can be a bit impatient with the dough, but this morning, I was telling myself to wait patiently for it to rise 😌 (whist answering emails in between! 😝) The bread rolls came out rather well (maybe just a tad under-proved) and the smells of fresh bread from the oven really did lift my appetite up as I got slightly lost track of time on the computer. (Thank god, I didn’t burnt them lol!)
I misread the quantity of the recipe, and only ended up making two rolls instead of four lol! 😅 But it was enough for myself! 😆 Mmmm! 😋😋
The recipe I used is inspired by the bread rolls recipe in ‘How To Make Bread’ by Emmanuel Hadjiandreou. (For those of you who have followed me from before, you may know I absolutely love this book! It’s quite a perfect gift for some self-isolation bread making haha! 😂)
Bread Rolls
Quantity: 4 Bread Rolls
Ingredients:
200g / 1½ cups strong white/bread flour
4g / ¾ tsp salt
3g / 1 tsp dried/active dry yeast
130g / ½ cup warm water
Method:
Mix the flour and salt together in a bowl and set aside.
Place the yeast in a large mixing bowl. Add the warm water and stir until the yeast has dissolved.
Add the flour mixture to the yeast mixture. Mix until you form a dough.
Cover and let it stand for 10 minutes.
After the 10 minutes, knead the bread by pulling a portion of the dough up from the side and press it into the middle. Repeat this process with another portion of the dough and repeat another eight times.
Cover the dough again and let it stand for 10 minutes.
Repeat steps 5-6 for two more times.
Knead the bread one last time (In total, you should have kneaded four times.)
Cover the dough and let it rest for 1 hour, or until doubled in size.
After the rising, punch it down gently with your fist to release air.
On a lightly floured surface, flatten and divide the dough into four equal portions.
Roll between your hand until you get perfectly smooth, round balls.
Place them on a baking tray lined with baking parchment. Cover and let them rise until slightly less than double in size – about 15-20 minutes.
While waiting for them to finish rising, preheat the oven to 240C/475F/Gas 9, or as high as your oven would go.
Bake the rolls for about 15 minutes, or until golden brown and the rolls make a hollow sound when tap at the bottom.
Once the bread rolls are ready, set them on a wire rack to cool.
Bread on its own is definitely kind of bland though, right? 🤔 So I cooked up a delicious brunch by serving the rolls with some delicious corned beef scrambled eggs (a childhood classic of mine whilst growing up visiting cafés in Hong Kong) and butter of course! 🤤🤤
Freshly baked bread rolls with corned beef scrambled eggs and butter! 😋😋
This leaves me with only one egg 🥚 left in the house though.😕 Hopefully I can find some in shops tomorrow…😐 Want to bet on it? 😂
As the current situation of coronavirus gets progressively unsettling as the days goes by, I find myself often overthinking and getting too caught up worrying about what will happen in the future. Work-wise I feel I am placed in a difficult situation that makes me rethink and question about many things around me.😕 However, after some thought, I think I just need to remind myself that I have to take it a day at a time, and that there are so much brightness ahead no matter how bleak a situation may initially looks.❤️
Times like these call for some therapy baking. I love baking at the late night.🌃 It’s so quiet and I feel I am finding my inner peace again working away as I mix the cake batter.😌 Plus, the end product is delicious, since nothing really beats a banana cake (especially while it’s still warm!) 😋😋 No extravagant decorations, just a simple sponge and that’s the best thing about it.😊
Wishing all of you the best weekend, and don’t forget the hopes that rest within us!✨✨
I think of pies as something quintessentially British. The thought of a pie drenched in a rich gravy sauce is one that does make my mouth water! 🤤🤤 I do quite enjoy making pies due to my love of pastry. It was one of the first things I picked up on when I started baking a couple of years ago (which I got interested in from binge watching MasterChef US at home! 😆) Looking back now, time really did fly!
My first ever apple pie 🍎🍏Picnic basket pie filled with spiced rice, beef brisket, beetroot and cucumber The classic British pork and egg pie 🐷🥚 with addition of chicken, pistachio and apricot- made from hot water pastry Departing away from the British Isles- the American lemon meringue pie 🍋🍋
What’s your favourite kind of pies? Let me know in the comments section below! 😋😋
Hope everyone had a great Pancake Day! I was a bit late in writing this post, but surely every day is Pancake Day, right? 😉
So how do you like your pancakes? Is it drenched with syrup or smeared with Nutella? ❤️ For those of you don’t know, I am actually not so much of a ‘sweet guy’ when it comes to eating, but more of a savoury person. Hence, I went for this Italian-inspired, savoury take on a pancake with prosciutto, pesto, roasted tomatoes, lamb’s lettuce, and topped with a fried egg. 😋 It was finished with a slight drizzle of chilli sauce and covered with lots and LOTS of Parmesan. 🧀🧀 The pancake recipe I used is from BBC Good Food – super quick and simple! 👍 (Link is here 👉 https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/easy-pancakes)
How do you like your pancakes? Why not make some more pancakes for tomorrow? (That’s if you aren’t sick of them by now lol! 😀)
Tango's Baking 