Dairy Free Whole Wheat Buns

Just like the name implied, with the success of dairy-free buns, I was experimenting it with whole wheat flour.  It turned out well, still soft but not as soft as the dairy-free buns.  If you shape it big, it will be a hamburger bun, if you shape it small, it will be the dinner bun, just however way you like it.

This bun will turn soggy if you sandwich it with condiment sauces for too long.  So, not suitable for lunchbox.  It is good if you just make it and eat it right away.

Dairy Free Superfoods Muffins

This is the upgraded version of my healthy muffins.  I am making this dairy free because lots of health conscious people don't drink milk.  I am in the transition to change it to almond milk.  The almond milk that I want to make myself.  However, if I can't find raw almonds on sales or gotten lazy, I would buy the one that is non-GMO verified with minimal ingredient list.  Anyway, this dairy free muffin was created because I was out of almond milk and needed to find a substitute.  So, I thought why not tried it with water?  Tada!  It worked beautifully and turned out moist and delicious. Lesson learned:  We don't need milk to make the banana muffin moist.

One of this muffin with a cup of coffee, you are super charge for the day!  Try it and feedback to me ya!  This muffin is delicious!
 

Dairy-Free Buns

I am going milk free, instead of buying organic whole milk, I am switching to unsweetened almond milk (but planning to make my own almond milk).  I am still buying organic yogurt (occasionally, but thinking of stopping it), butter and natural cheese though, just not the milk.  And then I realized that lots of my baking recipes used milk in the recipe.  So, again I had to experiment with my old recipe again.  This is a soft bun recipe that I loved and luckily it worked out well with almond milk.  Hence, my first dairy-free bun uses almond milk was created.  I am not sure but it might work with just plain water, who wants to experiment?

This dairy-free bun is soft and fluffy and goes so well with my matcha kaya!  Next experiment will be to play with the whole wheat version of this bun.  These days, I mostly make my own bread/bun or buy organic bread or all natural bread from Sprouts or Whole Food.  Please read the ingredient list, not all the breads are created equal!  

Homemade Granola

Granola is just toasted oats with a mixture of dried fruit, seeds and nuts.  Homemade granola is so easy to make, so why spend more on the store-bought one?  Since I don't eat oatmeal, but I do buy rolled oats for muffin, cookie, bar and bread, so why not make it into granola too right?  I love the granola on yogurt, so I actually made this for my yogurt.  Besides topping my yogurt with granola, I also added some hemp seeds and chia seeds.  And that would be our dessert!

Granola would make a great snack too.  One or two hands full if you found yourself not really hungry or you just want something to chew.  You actually make this in less than 30 minutes and most of the ingredients are probably already in your pantry.  Next time I would add some nuts too, to make it better.

Matcha Kaya

This idea came about when I was talking to my girls.  I asked them what would be a good filling for swiss roll that I was planning to make.  I told them I have blueberry jam or should I make some kaya?  What else that we can use as a filling and then Evy said green tea.  I was like hmmm green tea... what about green tea kaya and thus this idea was born.  Gotten excited and made this recipe right away (that's the plus point of having a bread maker!)  Tada!  Present to you matcha kaya!  This kaya is sweet, fragrant and hint of green tea flavor.  I thought it was sweet and going to cut down the sugar to 1 cup in my next batch.  Trying to reduce the sugar if I can.  But lots of people like their kaya sweet, so it's up to you!

After I was done making the kaya and browsing over my sponge swiss roll recipe, only then I realized that my electric beater was broken and couldn't possibly make any sponge cake!!  Oh well, no sponge cake at the meantime until I buy a new electric beater.  Thus far, the cake and muffin that I make only required a hand whisk.

Healthy Muffins

I always trying to make my muffin more nutritious.  I was not happy with just a plain banana muffin, I wanted it to be packed with superfood nutrients.  So, for this I added oats, flaxseeds, chia seeds, stone ground whole wheat flour and good oil, extra-virgin olive oil (you can use coconut oil too).  I also added chocolate chips (per my girls request) for my girls and dried cranberries for us.  Next time will also add some walnuts to kick it up a notch!  I made these muffins for our breakfast and it keeps well at room-temperature for up to three days.

These muffins are soft and moist and a delicious healthy muffin!  Try it and feedback to me ya!

Whole Wheat Chia Banana Muffins

Just like the name implied, I modified my original banana recipe to make it 100% whole wheat with chia seeds.  Next time I would add additional 1 Tbsp. of ground flaxseeds into the mixture instead of using it as topping.  By adding the whole wheat and flaxseed cereal, it would be crispy when it was warm out of the oven but it would turn soft later.  So, if you would like to eat it right away or on the day it was baked, then it would be a good idea, if not, just omit it and add the ground flaxseeds into the mixture before baking (I added it in the recipe for your convenient).

This muffin is soft and not very sweet (just nice for Asian taste bud).  I purposely cutting down on the sugar to make it healthier.  I hope you like it!

Granola Hemp Seeds Yogurt

While shopping at World Food recently.  I came across a Hemp seeds sample booth.  Truthfully I am not familiar with hemp seeds but I am interested in anything healthy.  Haha... The salesgirl served the hemp seeds with 365 organic vanilla yogurt and I was impressed with the yogurt.  The hemp seeds didn't taste bad but couple with the yogurt, it actually tasted pretty good.  So, I picked up the yogurt to eat with the sample bag of the Hemp Hearts raw shelled hemp seeds that was given.  With my no-bake granola bar, this was indeed made a delicious breakfast.

Flaxseed, chia seed and now hemp seed.  I read that hemp seed is one of the "Super Food" and one of the nutrient dense food that we should be eating.  Compare to flaxseed and chia seed, hemp seed is more well-rounded as it has fiber, proteins, essential fats, some vitamins and essential amino acids and other nutrients necessary for promoting good health.  It is said to increase energy, lower cholesterol, lower blood pressure, improve memory, control blood sugar, lose weight and an antioxidant food.  About 4 to 5 tablespoons a day is enough to get the benefits.  Google it to learn more!  Compare to chia seed and flaxseed, hemp seed is soft, easily digestible
and great in eating it raw.

No-Bake Granola Bars

No-bake granola bars!!  Who wouldn't love it?  When I saw this easy no-bake granola bars, I just had to try it.  A healthy more natural piece of granola bar is selling for $1.80 or more in a grocery store.  That was pricey if you asked me.  With this easy recipe, you can make a batch and grab one on the go or as a snack, nothing beat homemade.  This would make a healthy school snack for my girls in the coming school year too.

These granola bars are delicious.  Soft and chewy with the taste of peanut butter and all the goodies I put in there.  I added chocolate chips because my girls loved it, but you can certainly omit it.

Milo Chia Seed Pudding

Chia seed is so popular these days because of its high omega-3 fat and long shelve life.  Also, it doesn't have to be crushed (unlike flaxseed) to get the full benefits.  I have been added it in bread, waffle, pancake and muffin. But I also like to try new thing and chia seed pudding caught my eyes.  It seem easy enough, just add liquid and chia seeds and see it transform into a pudding like consistency.

I made a small batch to test it out and luckily my girls loved it too.  Just that we have to add more syrup to make it tasty.  Next time I would probably mix the syrup with the milk first before adding the chia seeds so that the pudding would be sweet.  I think it would be delicious in the Asian style sweet soy bean milk too.

Flaxseed Pumpkin Cake

After seeing all the delicious cakes baked by fellow bloggers, it made me realized that I haven't been baking cake in a while.  But I wanted something that was easy and not too troublesome to make, like my one whisk and one bowl cake recipe.  I finally decided on this pumpkin cake recipe because I have some organic pumpkin puree stock up in my pantry.  This time I added ground flaxseed just to make it healthier, no harm in getting an extra omega-3 right?

This cake is best eaten the next day.  The texture doesn't look like the usual pumpkin cake yet it is dense, soft and moist and so good with my morning cup of coffee.  I could taste the flaxseed, pumpkin and spices in the cake. Delicious!

Three Seed Bread

I always make our bread from scratch via the bread maker at home.  I am also happy to try out any healthy bread recipe for my family.  Recently, I am into flaxseed and chia seed, so I bought a packet of Bob's Red Mill flaxseed and at the back packet of the flaxseed, it included two recipes and one of it is this Three Seed Bread.  I decided to try this recipe because I have all the ingredients and it sounded great.  This bread indeed turned out delicious and soft and we loved it.  Hence, I decided to share it here with all of you. 

Flaxseed and Chia Seeds Waffles

You know I make my own bread/buns for breakfast right?  Sometimes I will make muffins or waffles as they freezes well.  My old waffle recipes used oatmeal and since I no longer buy oatmeal, I tried out a new recipe here.  I added flax and chia seeds simply because I have some in my pantry.  Next time I would buy the ground flaxseed  instead of  the whole flaxseed since it is easier for our bodies to digest.  (Update: I grounded my flaxseeds using a food processor and store it in a Ziploc bag in the freezer.)

I served my waffle with butter and Malacca palm sugar syrup and it was so delicious.  My girls asked me to make another batch of waffles after we are finished with this because they loved it a lot.  I used chocolate chips for them and raisins for us.

Black Porridge Dessert

According to the Chinese, black food is a golden food for the kidney.  And taking care of your kidney is very important as it can reverse aging and makes you look vibrant and younger.  A good kidney can erase the sign of aging, black spots and blemishes on your face, and even turn white hair into black hair.  If you maintain a strong healthy kidney, you will have strong bone and bone marrow, articulate, hear well, clear face and jet black hair. Other black foods that need to be noted are black fungus, black mushroom, kelp, seaweed, fermented black beans, black chicken, black lentils, blackberries, black grapes and etc.  Are you impressed?

So, I made a quick and fuss free black porridge for us, using a slow cooker (the idea came from a Chinese source).  I finally found another way to enjoy some black beans besides cooking it in soup.  Since this is sweet, it is enjoy by everyone, even my girls loved it.  Not only this is delicious, fuss free to cook but also extremely healthy.  For the real benefit, it was recommended to have a bowl everyday and you will see result in week 3 +.  I am not sure whether I want to eat it every day though, but probably once a week (good enough for 3 days) as I do cook with black sesame seeds, seaweed, mushroom and black fungus often during the week.

All ingredients can be found at the Asian supermarkets except walnuts.  If you don't see the black slab sugar, feel free to buy the brown slab sugar.  Dried lily bulbs can be found at the herbal aisle in the Asian store.

Cream Cheese Milk Loaf

Making the bun that uses the Dough function can be quite time consuming as it usually took more than 3 hours to get it done.  Sometimes it was hard for me to allocate the time as I have to fetch my little one at noon and another one three and half hours later.  I did over proving the buns once.  So, I need to find a loaf recipe that creates softer bread without using the Dough function.  This bread machine loaf is soft with light crust.  I added walnuts, dried cranberries, sunflower seeds and black sesame seeds for the extra nutrients.  You can add any nuts and seeds that you have in your house, it is not limited to what I listed here.  After day two, you can warm it up in the microwave to soften it again.  Enjoy it as it, or with peanut butter or jam.

Taro Mochi Cake

Showing you pictures of my Taro Mochi Cake.  I am still in the process of experiment as I am not quite happy with the result so I won't be sharing the recipe for now.  It will be a while until I get my hand on some taro again and begin another trial on this mochi cake.  But will post the recipe once I succeeded in accomplishing the texture that I want.  Stay tuned!

It was okay but a bit too soft, so more experiment needed.  I want to do it differently the next time.

Matcha Mochi Cake with Sweet Potatoes/Yam

 

Why green tea you asked?  It's simply because I adore the Redman green tea powder, it's so fragrant and make your baked good vibrant in this beautiful green color.  I made sure I bought some when I went back to Malaysia few months ago. There is no substitution for me!  Not disappointed, my house smelled like green tea when this was baked and this mochi cake really fragrant packed with green tea smell.  If you just want a plain matcha mochi cake, just omit the sweet potatoes.

The texture of this mochi cake is sticky and chewy with the fragrant of green tea and sweetness from the sweet potatoes.  My next experiment will be with taro mochi cake, wait til I get my hands on some taro!

Purple Sweet Potato Mochi Cake

The inspiration of making this mochi cake came from a Korean mom that I talked to.  I never thought of adding sweet potato into a mochi cake until I tasted some that she made.  Hers was different with orange sweet potato and some other things that she added (she didn't give me the recipe though).  Since I LOVE the purple sweet potato because of the color and sweetness, I wanted to recreate her recipe and hence this recipe was born.  I was glad to say that it was a success and we all loved it very much.  On the day it was baked, the crust was crusty and the mochi was chewy with the sweetness from the sweet potato and a little sourness from the raisins, just perfect!  The crust will turn soft on the 2nd day but just as chewy and delicious!  This is definitely my keeper recipe that I want to make all the times.  Next time I want to try it with taro and play with this recipe a little.  Feedback to me if you ever try it!

Seriously it was so hard to stop at just one piece, got to have two!!  Self-control....self-control....

Banana Carrot Pulp Muffins

With the frozen bananas and carrot pulp in the freezer, I thought of why not just combined the two?  Hence, this muffin was created.  It took the fragrant of banana and not a bad eat I tell you.  This muffin cup that I used made a big muffin so my girls only had half as their breakfast.  I added walnut in this too!

I think the banana flavor stood up because I used canola oil (neutral) and all-purpose flour (neutral).  It might taste and smell different with different oil and flour used for instance olive oil and whole wheat flour, might even have a different texture too. 

Showing you the inside of this muffins.  It's moist and soft with the fragrant of banana!

100% Whole Wheat Carrot Pulp Muffins

This healthy 100% whole wheat carrot pulp muffins uses little oil and sugar.  However, if you like it sweeter, you can increase the sugar amount (I included it in the ingredients list).  To make this muffin healthier, I used extra virgin olive oil, brown sugar and cane sugar (you can use all brown sugar or cane sugar if you like).  And what a great way to use up the carrot pulp left from juicing!  If you read it previously, I measured my carrot pulp into 1 cup serving size container and freeze it individually.  Just thaw it in the refrigerator the night before you want to use it.

These muffins are moist and soft and not sweet.  Since it has egg (protein), carrot (Vitamin A, fiber), milk (calcium), olive oil (healthy fat), whole wheat flour (carbohydrate), salt and sugar, I considered it a balance breakfast or snack.  You can also add nuts or seeds for extra nutrients!