Snow me

It's December. The festive month. Time sure does fly by..


I was planning on baking all things festive in the lead up to Christmas.. but I won't be home 2 weeks before Christmas anymore. (ie. in a week's time). No, I'm not going on holiday yet. I wish I was though. Ahh... only 7 weeks until I go to Korea/HK! :D Can't wait!

I made some Christmas pudding/fruit cake yesterday. Crumbled it up and mixed it with some vanilla ice-cream. Mmm.. Christmas pudding ice-cream. I made about 3L of it.. :S And I have half a chunk of cake left. -__- Sigh.

Since I had some condensed milk opened from the other day (A bit of Choya Umeshu, a spoon of condensed milk, then topped with fresh milk = a nice cocktail :P), I also made some quick coconut macaroons. Of course, I had to make them cute. Haha.

Meet my snow-self. Fill my heart in! :P


They're really simple to make. Just add some condensed milk to some dessicated coconut. Mix until they hold shape. Then roll them into balls and bake in a preheated 160C oven for 15-20mins. Allow to cool, then decorate with icing. Simple as. :D



Meet my snow-friends.


:)

I only have this week left to bake festively. My to do list: gingerbread men, Christmas cupcakes, snowmen cakes!

Christmas pudding

I wanted to make Christmas pudding ice-cream. I have vanilla ice-cream in the freezer, but I didn't have Christmas pudding. So I made some Christmas pudding to mix into the ice-cream.


Christmas pudding
Makes a medium sized pudding

375g mixed fruit mix (sultanas, raisins, citrus peel, glace cherries)
200g plain flour
75g butter, softened
125g brown sugar
2 eggs (110g)
1/2 tsp baking soda
250ml orange juice
2 tsp mixed spice

Sift baking soda, mixed spice and plain flour in a separate bowl.

Beat butter and sugar.
Add in eggs and beat.
Add in vanilla extract.
Add in mixed fruit and orange juice.

Sift in flour and mix until just combined.

Bake in waterbath in a preheated oven at 155C for 75-90mins or until cooked.

Allow to cool


Trim the sides off.


Crumb the side pieces and mix into about 1L of softened vanilla ice-cream. Refreeze and voila!, you have christmas pudding ice-cream! Yum yum. (Add in some dessicated coconut and it tastes even better!).


Wrap the rest of your Christmas pudding in plastic wrap and freeze. Reheat upon eating.

Bread(less) and butter(less) pudding

I've just discovered a new dessert! Haha. Tastes like bread and butter pudding.. only without the bread and without the butter. Okay, this creation was unintentional. I mean, I.. wasn't concentrating on what I was doing and ended up with a higher liquid to flour ratio than needed. Thus, I didn't end up with cake; I ended up with pudding! Haha. I was wondering why it was still very moist after a long while of baking. -__-


Banana and date pudding
Makes a medium slab and 3 mini bundts

2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar
125gm dried dates, chopped and soaked in 1 cup water
2 medium/small ripe bananas, mashed
2 eggs, lightly beaten
4 tbsp milk
2 tbsp corn oil
2 cups banana and honey yoghurt

Preheat oven to 180C.

Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and sugar together.
Mix egg, milk, oil, yoghurt, dates (including the water from soaking) and banana together.
Combine liquid mixture with flour and mix till evenly combined.
Pour into lined/greased baking tins.

Bake slice tray for 50mins, and 30mins for the 3 bundt tins.

Serve immediately, by itself or with some vanilla ice-cream. Reheat in microwave when required. This is best served hot/warm, I tell you!!

Perfect hole for a scoop of vanilla ice-cream! Hehe


When it's hot, it's a gooey-ish mixture. But when it cools.. it's not as gooey. I don't like it when it's cooled though. It doesn't taste as good. It tasted best when hot out of the oven, with the crisp edges and goey banana and date centre. Mmm. Sort of reminds me of Asian cakes made with glutinous rice flour or so. :D Yum yum yum..