Butternut Squash Raisins Bread

Ta-dah! This is the latest gadget in my kitchen: Breville Baker's Oven. A bread maker machine.

And to officiate the bread maker, I made a butternut squash raisins bread loaf, adapted from Fluene's Corner.

Butternut Squash Raisins Bread Loaf

What You'll Need:

20 g milk
30 g butter
1 egg
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp milk powder

50 g whipping cream
60 g pumpkin puree
250 g bread flour

50 g brown sugar
1 tsp yeast
100 g raisins

How To:

1. Lift the bread pan out of the bread machine and fit the kneader blade.
2. Add the milk, butter, egg, salt, milk powder, whipping cream, and butternut squash puree in the order listed or as recommended by the bread maker.
3. Spoon in the flour, make a slight dip in the center and add the sugar and yeast.
4. Insert the pan into bread machine. Shut the lid and set to a basic white setting with preferred crust setting. Press start.
5. Add in raisins when the beeper beeps. If your bread machine is fully automated, put the raisins in the designated container.
6. At the end of the program, lift the pan out of the machine using oven gloves. Loosen the bread with a plastic spatula, turn it out on to a wire rack and leave to cool.

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Barney & Thomas the Train Cake

This post is way long overdue. We celebrated the kids' birthday couple of months back; K-girl hit the big ONE, while K-boy turned 3. Nothing too fancy, just an intimate celebration with the family & the cake with their favourite on it.

Initially I wanted to bake K-girl a birthday cake but I didn't have the time as it was just few days after my business trip to Europe. So we ended up with a Barney jelly cake, which we ordered from our favourite supplier in Taman Desa. The jelly cake was homemade, fresh, not overly coloured with food colouring, and it's not too sweet. And of course the little girl was really happy to see it.

As for K-boy, I promised him I will make him a Thomas the train cake. However, I didn't attempt a 3D cake for him. Just googled for some ideas and came up with a 2D design & with the help of a die-cast Thomas train. It was after this session, I understood how tedious 3D cake/figurine modelling could be as I was going dizzy with just 2D design and it took me a good 10 hours to complete the cake from baking to decorating it.

The result of 10 hours labour of love



And we have a very happy birthday boy!

The cake was a moist chocolate cake, layered with whipped vanilla frosting adapted from sweetapolita.com

Whipped Vanilla Frosting Recipe:

 

What You'll Need:

 

2-1/2 cups (5 sticks)(575 grams) unsalted butter, softened and cut into cubes

5-1/4 cups (600 grams) confectioners’ sugar, sifted

4-1/2 tablespoons (70 mL) milk

1-1/2 tablespoons (23 mL) pure vanilla extract

pinch or two of salt

How To:

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, whip butter for about 8 minutes on medium speed. Butter will become very pale & creamy.
2. Add remaining ingredients and mix on low-speed for 1 minute, then on medium speed for 6 minutes. Frosting will be very light, creamy, and fluffy.
3. Best used right away (for ideal spreading consistency), but keeps well once frosted.

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