Anpan - JAPAN

Anpan is a bun filled with sweet red bean paste from Japan, It has a pretty rad history, it was invented by a man called Yasubei Kimurain in 1874 who lost his job as a samurai and started a bakery. Can you imagine how disappointed his parents must have been, "Hey Yasu, what are you up to today? Fighting crime? Ninja stuff?"... "Nah, just gunna bake some bread eh..." 

Anyway, he wanted to introduce some western food that was more appealing to Japanese tastebuds and Anpan was the result. It became popular very quickly, soon the emperor was addicted and there was even a cartoon named after it called 'Apanpan Man', a superhero with a head made from Anpan. Awesome.

ANPAN - JAPAN

Ingredients:

For the dough:

4 cups of flour

1 1/4 cups of soy milk

1/4 cup caster sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup olive oil

1 tsp active yeast

For the paste:

1 cup adzuki beans, soaked over night

1/2 cup caster sugar

4 cups water

Instructions:

For the paste, cook the adzuki beans for about 1 hour until soft, drain then mash the beans, add sugar and return to the heat for 10-15 minutes.

For the dough, mix the dry ingredients together, warm the milk and add to the dry ingredients with the olive oil. Kneed well and leave to rest for 2 hours until it doubles in size.

Divide the dough into about 6 - 8 portions and roll into balls. Leave for another 10 minutes.

Flatten and stretch dough into a circle about 3-4 inches in diameter.

Place a ball of the paste in the center and close the edges together and roll into a ball. Seal side down, Leave to rest for another 30 minutes, then bake at 180 degrees for 20 minutes until brown.

Basbousa - EGYPT

At the moment I'm trying to work crazy hours at work to save for my trip to Ghana, so finding time to cook something each day and blog about is a little bit tricky. Tonight I'm doing a bit of midnight baking, which is actually one of my favourite times to cook... a bit of jazz playing on the laptop, no need to wear pants, it makes me feel a bit free and eccentric.
Unfortunately though, this means that when you've forgotten to buy a vital ingredient, everything is already closed and your a wee bit screwed. I forgot sugar. 

BASBOUSA - EGYPT

Basbousa is a sweet cake made from semolina, soaked in syrup, sometimes with the addition of rose water and/or flaked coconut. Also known as herissa in Alexandria, namoura in Syria or revani in Turkey and Greece, the history behind it's hazy but hey, it's sweet, it's easy to make and deliciously bad for you so lets just thank all the countries for this sweet treat.

Ingredients:

For the cake:

1 cup semolina

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup of sugar (phew glad at least I had this much left in the cupboard)

1 tbs melted margarine

1/2 cup soy milk

1/3 cup chopped and roasted pistachios or almonds

For the syrup:

1 cup water

1 cup sugar (I'm all out at this stage so I used 2 tbs golden syrup)

1 tsp lemon juice

1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions:

Heat the oven to 190 degrees and grease a tin. 

Mix the semolina, baking powder, sugar, melted margarine and soy milk together. tip evenly into the tin. Roast your nuts of choice, sprinkle over top the cake mixture, Now I looked at a few different recipes for Basbousa and some say to leave to sit for an hour before cooking and others don't. I got confused and settled for 30 minutes. Cook for 30 minutes until golden.

While it's cooking, heat the water and sugar for the syrup and bring to the boil, add the lemon juice and vanilla, cook for around 5 minutes. Now I think the difference between using sugar and golden syrup, is that the syrup is meant to thicken as you cook it.. and mine did not.

But honestly I don't think it made much difference. Let the syrup cool and pour it over the cake when it's warm just out of the oven.

Little truffles made with love

If I was going to design heaven, it would be made of Booja Booja truffles.

A Norfolk based team who have been operating for the past 11 years (how have I only just heard of them??), everything they make is dairy free, vegan and organic and full of love.
They use Pacari Chocolate in Ecuador, a family owned business dedictated to the organic way and to preserving Ecuador's native Arriba Nacional cacao.

The other day I went to Real Foods supermarket to buy myself something sweet (I'm kind to myself) and I found a huge selection of Booja Booja treats.
They have so many scrumptious flavours, including my favourite 'midnight express' a heavenly expresso truffle that makes me want to sing and dance and make friends with strangers!!


Not only do Booja Booja make delicious sweet treats, they also provide beautiful messages hidden in the bottom of the box that, however unintentionally, inspired my mind to float away on a romantic daydream.


Over the next few days whenever I felt like a little truffle of happiness I had a Booja Booja. As I was about to throw away the box, a little piece of glossy card fell out of the bottom and lay face down on the ground. I picked it up and thinking it was just rubbish was just about to throw it away, when the writing caught my eye...


"Love is what we fear to do until we fall in love"

I spent the rest of the day with a smile playing across my lips.
What more could you want in a truffle?

http://www.boojabooja.com/