Jemput Jemput Pisang (Banana Donuts)

Tags

asianfood, dessert, donuts, doughnuts, food, sweet

Hope you all had a lovely weekend. I spent my Saturday roller blading at a place called Artxanda where there is a public outdoor skating rink and you can also get a spectacular view of the city!

On Sunday afternoon, my husband requested for Jemput Jemput Pisang, which is a traditional Malay sweet that we usually have for afternoon tea in Singapore. “Jemput” in Malay means invite or invitation and “pisang” means banana so I don’t really know how the name of this donut came about really. Anyway, all you need for these sweet fluffy bites are just 2 ingredients not including the oil for frying.

Ingredients
• 3 ripe bananas (medium sized)
• 1 cup of self raising flour
• sunflower oil for frying

Method
1. In a big bowl, mash the peeled bananas.
2. Add the flour and combine thoroughly. (You can add sugar if you wish but for me, the sweetness of the bananas were just perfect.)
3. Heat some oil in a saucepan. When it’s really hot, turn down the heat and with a spoon, drop the batter into the oil. (It takes seconds to turn golden brown so make sure you flip them over every so often and don’t put too many into the pan at the same time.)
4. Once golden brown on both sides, place on kitchen paper towels.

Dust with powdered sugar, serve hot…

Perfect sweet snack for a cold Sunday afternoon!

Here are a couple of black & white shots of Bilbao that I took from the skating rink in Artxanda.

Have a great Monday!💕

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Posh Bread Pudding

Tags

bread, croissants, dessert, food, pudding, simple, sultanas

I thought it was time I got back into posting something seeing as I’ve been missing in action for a couple of weeks. To be honest, I have not been cooking anything worth posting and what with all the sad news around the world, I have not been very motivated to blog.

Also with Eid coming up soon and seeing as this year it will just be my husband and I celebrating, it has made me just a little sad that we are not with our families in Singapore and Malaysia or our close friends in Manchester. But like most things, there is always a silver lining….one of my good friends from Edinburgh has decided to come visit us a couple of days after Eid! So we’ll have a mini celebration then! Also, this will be my 100th post!! Yaay! 😊

Anyway, lets get to the recipe of this Posh Bread Pudding I made a couple of weeks ago. I say it’s posh because I used mini croissants instead of normal bread and I used evaporated milk to make it that extra rich and creamy!

Ingredients
• 5 to 6 mini croissants (roughly cut)
• 2 eggs
• 100ml evaporated milk
• 100ml milk
• 50gms caster sugar (or according to taste)
• a handful of sultanas
• 1tsp vanilla essence

Method
1. Pre heat oven to 150 degrees C.
2. Place the mini croissants in an ovenproof dish and set aside.
3. In a bowl, beat the milk, eggs, sugar and vanilla essence before pouring over the mini croissants. Make sure the croissants are completely submerged in the mixture by gently pressing them down.
4. Add the sultanas and bake for 20 to 25 mins or until risen. It will drop once you remove it from the oven.

Serve warm with a scoop…or two..or three of vanilla ice cream…

This is one of the easiest sweets to make and you can create it any way you want!

What’s your favourite easy sweet dish?💞

Somali Doughnuts (Kac Kac)

Tags

bread, dessert, food, snack, sweet

I was on Skype with my mum just the other day and she mentioned that her good friend from East Africa had made her these yummy sweet fried bread. My mum said “You HAVE to try making them Tan, I can’t stop eating them!” (Tan = Tanty, my nickname ever since I was a kid)☺️

So anyway, I gave them a go and my mum was right…they were so addictive!

Ingredients
• 3 cups self raising flour
• 1/4 cup sugar (although I reduced this to less than that)
• 2 tbsp oil
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup luke warm coconut milk (you can also use normal milk)
• 1 egg (beaten)
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon (optional)
• Oil for frying
• Dusting/Icing sugar

Method
1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and knead lightly. If you feel it needs more flour, add more until the dough is not sticky and leave to rest for 30 mins.
2. Roll on a lightly floured surface.

3. With a knive or a cutter, cut into any shape you desire.

4. Deep fry on a medium high heat till they puff up and turn golden before draining on kitchen towel.

Dust with a little icing sugar and serve hot!

They were crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside with just that hint of cinnamon!😋

It was so good that we even had them with vanilla ice cream! They are very similar to Beignets.

I hope you’ll enjoy them as much as I did!💞

Sweet Potato Doughnuts

Tags

asian, dessert, donuts, doughnuts, food, sweet, tea time

Yes…you heard me correctly, Sweet Potato Doughnuts! This is a traditional Malay dessert/tea time snack from Singapore and Malaysia…we call it Kuih Keria. I remember as a child my aunt would make these and we would have them for our afternoon tea.

I had 1 lovely sweet potato left from before so I decided to try out for the first time to make these sweet golden rings of sweetness using only the natural flavours of the sweet potato. No added sugar except a little for dusting.😊

Ingredients
• 1 Sweet potato (mine was 400gms)
• Self raising flour
• Sunflower oil for frying

Method
1. The potatoes are usually steamed but it could make it very watery so I just roughly chopped them and placed them in the microwave for 9 mins on high before mashing them. Add a few drops water if you find it’s too dry.
2. In a bowl, combine the mashed potato with the self raising flour. Not too much or it will make the doughnuts quite hard. I used approx. 90gms, just to be able to bind the mixture together.
3. Roll into balls, flatten slightly and with your pinky, pierce a hole in the centre of the dough to shape like a doughnut. Place on a floured surface.

4. Heat oil in a skillet and slow fry them on a medium high heat. Flip over once golden brown.

5. Set aside to cool slightly.

Dust with icing/dusting sugar and serve warm-ish…

Just like a normal doughnut but healthier…apart from the frying of course…

It’s usually drenched in a thick sugar water before serving but I am not a fan of super sweet sweets and in this case, I wanted to keep the natural flavours of the sweet potato.

My measurement made 6 small-ish doughnuts and that was sufficient for us as a treat!

What was your favourite childhood tea time sweet?

Happy cooking!💞

Bubur Pulut Hitam (Black Glutinous Rice Pudding)

Tags

asian, dessert, food, superfood

Bubur Pulut Hitam directly translated means Black Sticky Rice Porridge. It’s more or less an Asian version of a rice pudding drizzled with coconut cream. It was my first attempt at making it so I seeked assistance virtually from my mum’s good friend who is a great cook.

Ingredients
• 1 cup Black Glutinous Rice
• 5 cups of water
• Brown sugar (use palm sugar if you have it to hand)
• a little vanilla essence (use screwpine leaves for fragrance if you can)
• Coconut cream

you can get this in any Asian stores

Method
1. Wash the rice thoroughly before placing in a saucepan to boil. Some say you have to soak the rice overnight, but with a good quality rice there is no need for soaking.

2. Cook on a low heat. At this point, add the knotted screwpine leaves if you have them or the vanilla essence. Once the water warms up, it will turn deep purple/maroon.

3. Let this simmer and once you think it’s soft and the water has slightly reduced, increase the heat and gently stir until it thickens.

4. As soon as the consistency changes, add to it sugar according to your own taste. (Most people add the coconut cream at this point too but I was advised to add it just before serving so the rice keeps better should you have any leftovers.)

Top with coconut cream and serve warm…

My husband wanted to try it with chopped mangos and I have to say it worked very well together.

There are so many health benefits to black rice and it has been ranked as a superfood!
See: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_rice

Do give it a try and enjoy all the purple goodness!💜

Note: Don’t make a rookie mistake like I did and use a wooden spoon to cook this as it will stain. My favourite wooden spoon is now purple!😊

Apple Crumble

Tags

apples, dessert, food

A few days ago I really wanted a good apple crumble. Unfortunately you can’t get it here, so off I went online searching for inspiring ideas. If you have been following my blog, you will notice that I’m not into making time consuming food/dessert unless it’s absolutely necessary. I came across one of Jamie Oliver’s recipes but I did make some minor changes to the recipe though to suit my own taste…

Ingredients
For the crumble…
• 35 g rolled oats
• 35 g plain flour
• 20 g brown sugar
• 35 g butter

For the filling…
• 400 g apples, cored and quartered (I opted not to peel the skin)
• 50 g brown sugar, to sweeten
• 50ml water
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C. Core the apples, quarter and cut into chunks.

2. Put the apples into a pan with the sugar, water and cinnamon. Cook over a low heat for 15 minutes and place in a small ovenproof dish (add more water should it dry up while it’s cooking in the pan.)

3. Place the flour and oats in a bowl and mix well. Cut the butter into small cubes and add this to the oats and flour. Mix with your fingertips until it resembles an even crumb texture. Add the sugar and mix through.

4. Cover the fruit with the crumble mixture. Bake for approximately 20 minutes or until the crumble is golden and the apple hot.

I served it warm with some fresh double cream instead of the usual warm custard.

It was super yummy and I will definitely be making it again!

Have a great weekend! 😊