Cranberry Jam

It's Christmas season, and I recently have been seeing cranberries all over the supermarkets here in Singapore. I have never tasted fresh cranberries before, so when I saw them in Mustafa (of all places)…I immediately grabbed a bag and headed home. I was expecting it to taste sweet. But they tasted so tart, and I couldn't really eat it on its own.

So the bag was lying in my fridge waiting to be baked into breakfast muffins. But I never got around to bake anything this week.  And a can of jam sounded like the yummiest way to use up these fresh berries.

This ruby red spread is so refreshing and delicious...slathered on a piece of toast, it makes a perfect breakfast! Moreover, Cranberries are powerhouse of Vitamin C and antioxidants. Now you don’t need any more excuse to try out this super quick, sugar-free preserve this Christmas season!

Cranberry Jam

Yields: About 1 ½ cups of jam

Ingredients:

• 3 ½ cups – Cranberries
• ¾ cup – Honey
• 2 tablespoons – Raw Sugar (optional)
• 1 tablespoon – Vanilla essence

 Directions:

• Heat all the ingredients in a pan and keep stirring.
• Keep cooking for about 10 minutes until all the berries break down and the mixture thickens. Do not overcook.
• Transfer the contents to a glass jar, and store it in the refrigerator for up to a month.

 NOTE:

• If you prefer a smooth texture for your jam, just blend the mixture in a blender, while the jam is still warm. And then store it in a glass jar.
• I skipped this step, because we like coarse texture for our spreads.

Wild Honey Lemonade

Finally back to blogging! My apologies, for being away for almost two months! That is because we moved to our new place a couple of months back, and it has been hectic with packing and unpacking. Seriously, if I ever have to unpack one more box gain, I am going to flip out!

I love my new house and my new kitchen has so much spaceJ. But I do miss my old house. Speaking of the old house, Mr.David, who was our next door neighbour, lived there with his two adorable dogs – Ginger and Hutch. He was always so nice to us. A few months before we moved out, he gave us this huge pack of wild honey from China, given to him by one of his friends.

He sounded so excited about the wild honey, which was in small cubes. I had no clue what to do with it. I was also doubtful about the taste. My hubby suggested we try it with lemonade first. We both love lemoades, and it turned out great, sweet and refreshing. It tasted more like sugar, not as thick as the normal honey that we are used too. Now we use it with milk and tea too.

Later when I researched online, I found that wild honey has seven times the benefit over the usual honey. It is not as sweet as the usual honey, and when mixed with water, wild honey appeared clear and transparent.

So next time when you come across small cubes of wild honey, do give it a try and enjoy the health benefits!

Whole-Wheat Bread

Seems like a long time since my last post. I have been busy with a lot of stuff at home lately. But I am still trying out new recipes, just couldn’t find time to post them online.

I am so bored with the store bought ‘wholemeal’ bread. When you read the ingredients list printed on these breads packages, you can notice that white flour still has the major percentage than the whole-wheat flour.  I also like my bread with a bit of chewy texture. Believe it or not, I hate white bread!! I know most of you out there remain sceptics when it comes to brown bread, but you have to give it a try, I promise you will start to love it! Brown bread has so many layers of rich flavour and texture, which you cannot get in a plain white loaf!! Previously I have been successful in converting a lot of my friends to switch from white bread to wholemeal!! And I hope after reading this post, more of you join this fab guilt free option.

Baking with yeast is not my forte, I tried two recipes before with no good results. But this recipe is from www.annies-eats.com seemed easy enough. I agree making homemade bread seems too much of a work. But the result is so worth it. I won’t be baking this every week, but it will be a nice switch once in a while from the god awful NTUC wholemeal bread.  FYI I tried dark rye bread from Giant a few times, and I love it.

The dough doubled in volume after 1 hour.

Dough in pan, doubled in volume after 30 minutes.

Whole-Wheat Bread

Yields: Two 9-inch loaves

Ingredients:

2+1/3Cups– Warm Water (around 100°)

1 ½ tablespoon – Instant Yeast

¼ cup – Honey

4 tablespoon – Unsalted Butter, melted

2 ½ teaspoon – Salt

¼ cup – Rye Flour

½ cup – Toasted Wheat Germ* (Toasted the wheat germ in a dry pan on the stove)

3 cups – Whole-wheat Flour (I used Aashirvaad Atta)

2 ¾ cups – Unbleached All-Purpose Flour (I used Plain Flour)

*Wheat Germ - The germ of wheat is the reproductive part of the seed that germinates to grow into a plant. Removal of bran is aimed at producing flour with a white rather than a brown colour, and eliminating fibre.
 Wheat germ is a concentrated source of several essential nutrients including Vitamin E, folic acid, phosphorus, thiamin, zinc and magnesium. It is a good source of fibre.  White bread is made using flour that has had the germ and bran removed. Wheat germ can be added to protein shakes, casseroles, muffins, pancakes, cereals, yogurt, smoothies, cookies, and other goods. 

 Directions: 

• In a bowl, mix the water,yeast,honey,butter and salt with a rubber spatula.
• Mix in the rye flour, wheat germ, and 1 cup of the whole-wheat and all-pupose flour.
• Add the remaining whole-wheat and all-pupose flour, attach the dough hook and knead at low speed until the dough I smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes. (If you don’t have a dough hook, then use your hands to knead).
• Transfer the dough to a lightly foured surface and knead the dough for another 30 seconds, until it is soft and smooth.
• Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough inside and cover with plastic wrap or a moist towel.
• Let it rise in a warm area until the dough has doubled in volume, about 1 hour.
• Heat the oven to 190° C.
• Gently press down the dough and divide it into two equal pieces.
• Gently press each piece into a rectangle about 1-inch thick and 9 inches long. Roll the dough formly into a cylinder, pressing down to make sure the dough sticks to itself.
• Turn the dough seam side up and pinch it closed
• Place the cylinder of dough into a greased 9 X 5 inch loaf pan, seam side down, pressing the dough gently so it touches all sides of the pan.
• Cover the pan, and let it rise for 20-30 minutes, until the dough has doubled in volume.
• Bake for 35-45 minutes.
• Transfer the bread immediately from the baking pans to a wire rack to cool.

Almond Bars

Made some delicious almond bars this weekend. Hubby was playing a cricket match with his team. And it went on for the whole weekend! So I was home all weekend working on my overdue craft orders.

On Sunday hubby’s team won the match! He mentioned during their lunch break, that they were in the finals and were about to win. So I wanted to make something for him to celebrate when he came home.

Almonds are his favourites! I have some wonderful almonds that my aunt brought from Malaysia. I wanted to make something special with those almonds. And hence these almond bars. 

The recipe called for flaked almonds,but I wanted to use the whole almonds that I had. So I soaked the whole almonds for a 3 hours in warm water, and then peeled the skin off. I cut the peeled almonds into thin slices. This is a time consuming project, and not really necessary, unless you have almonds at hand. Otherwise it is better to just buy some flaked almonds.

The super easy recipe is from http://www.aspoonfulofsugardesigns.com/. I loved how simple the recipe was. The almond bars were heaven! They were chewy, soft and super moist! The brown sugar and the slivers of almond gave the bars a deeper level of richness to them. Hubby loved it!

Ingredients:

Makes 8 big bars

1/4 cup - butter

1 cup - brown sugar

1 - egg

3 tablespoons - honey

3/4 cup - plain flour

1 teaspoon - baking powder

1/2 teaspoon - vanilla extract

1/3 cup - flaked almonds

Directions:

• Heat oven to 180 degrees C (350 degrees F).
• Line a square pan with baking paper.
• Melt butter in a heat proof bowl, in the microwave for 30 seconds.
• Add brown sugar and honey, and stir until well combined.
• Stir in egg. Mix well.
• Combine flour and baking powder, then stir into the mixture.
• Add vanilla and fold in almonds.
• Pour batter into pan and bake for 23-28 minutes, or until golden.
• Cool in pan and then cut into pieces. 
• Dust with icing sugar before serving.

Blueberry Wholewheat Muffins

Oh muffins, how do I love thee? I make these for breakfast all the time. They are super easy to make, and convenient as a grab and go sort of breakfast. There are so many possibilities of what you can add to the muffin batter I am certain you will find a combination that you (and your kids) will love. They freeze beautifully!!

I put strawberries or blueberries in some and some leftover pear that I had on hand in others…and why not raisins?

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour (I used Ashirvad Atta)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup oil
• 3/4 cup orange juice or apple juice
• About 1 cup of total filling (berries, fruit, nuts, etc. – see below for details)
• Muffin/Cupcake liners
• ¼ cup white sugar

Directions

1.      Heat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. In a large bowl with a fork or whisk mix the flour, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg.
3. Make a well (hole) in the centre of the flour mixture and pour in the eggs, honey, vanilla, oil and orange juice.
4. Mix the dry and wet ingredients together – do not over mix.
5. Line a muffin pan with liners and fill 2/3 to 3/4 of the way full with batter.
6. Sprinkle 1 – 2 teaspoons of whatever you would like (from the list below or from your own creation) onto the top of each raw muffin in the pan.
7. Then gently mix each one with a fork or spoon. Here are some options to consider for the fillings:

• blueberries
• diced strawberries
• peeled and diced pears
• either diced or mashed up bananas and chopped walnuts
• grated carrot and chopped walnuts
• orange or lemon zest (only add 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of zest per individual muffin)
• a mix of dried fruit bits
• jelly

8.   After the filling has been mixed into each muffin slide the tray into the warm oven and bake for 10 – 15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Serve warm or at room temperature and freeze some for a later date.

9.   Yield: 12 muffins

We don’t usually use butter for our morning toast at our house. Hubby prefers Kissan jam or Nutella. I came across this recipe at http://half-bakedbaker.blogspot.com/ while I was browsing. I was so intrigued by this recipe that I had to try it out at 1.30 AM on a Wednesday!

I had some strawberries in my fridge, and a little butter left over from a previous recipe. It was a bit of work for a simple morning toast, but it was so worth it. The next morning I used the strawberry butter with Gardenia whole meal bread, and it was so refreshing, and so yum! This butter lasts up to a week or so when refrigerated. But for us it didn’t last long enough, cos me and hubby loved it!

Strawberry Honey Butter 

Ingredients:

1 pint strawberries, hulled
3 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice, or to taste
1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened

Method: 

·  In a food processor purée the strawberries and force the purée through a fine sieve into a saucepan.

·  Add the honey and the lemon juice and boil the mixture, stirring, for 3 minutes, or until it is thickened.

·  Let the strawberry mixture cool to room temperature.

·  In a bowl cream together the butter and the strawberry mixture.

·  Let the butter stand, covered, in a cool place for 1 hour to allow the flavors to develop.

·  This butter is delicious, especially on whole grain bagels!