Japanese Christmas Cake

Ingredients:

For sponge cake:

• 3/4 cup all purpose flour



• 2/3 cup sugar



• 1 Tbsp milk



• 3 eggs



• 1 1/2 Tbsp butter

For topping:

• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream



• 4 Tbsps sugar



• Strawberries

Preparation:

• Whisk eggs in a bowl.



• Place the bowl over warm water in another large bowl and whisk further.



• Add sugar little by little.



• When the egg mixture becomes light yellow, sift flour and add to the bowl.



• Mix the flour lightly in the egg mixture.



• Mix butter in warm milk.



• Add mixture of melted butter and milk in the batter and stir gently.



• Preheat the oven in 350-degree.



• Place baking papers inside of a round cake pan (18cm).



• Pour the batter in the pan and bake in the preheated oven for 25-35 minutes.



• Remove the cake from the pan and cool it on a rack.

Plum Kuche

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups plain flour


• 2 tsp baking powder


• 1/4 tsp salt


• 75g Unsalted butter at room-temperature


• 3/4 cup brown sugar


• 2 large eggs


• 1/3 cup vegetable oil, I used rice bran oil


• zest of 1 orange


• 5 plums halved

Method

• Pre-heat oven 180.
• Cream together Brown Sugar and butter.
• Combine eggs one at a time, vegetable oil and zest of one orange.
• Add flour, baking powder and salt. Mix well.
• Pour into a 20cm square pan and place plum halves on top.
• Bake for 40 minutes.

Note: I have also made this into a crumble, buy crumbing together flour, sugar and butter and spreading over plums, insure to cook for long if making a crumble.

Strawberry Spongecake

This was a great way to use strawberries!
I used a Nigella recipe for sponge cake, from her How To Eat book. It was delicious, but next time I want an sponge with more of a light consistency this one was made with a food processor therefore didn't have the texture I wanted.

Banana Bread

This is my favorite recipe from the book 'Apples for Jam'.

Ingredients:

• 125 g butter
• 1 cup dark brown sugar
• 4 medium ripe bananas
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 3 tablespoons milk
  

Method:

• Pre heat oven to 180 degrees C, butter a 12 x 4 inch loaf tin.
• Cream butter and sugar until smooth and whisk in bananas.
• Add eggs, vanilla, cinnamon and a pinch of salt, whisk well.
• Sieve in flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and milk and fold in until smooth.
• Scrape mixture into tin and bake for about 50minutes until skewer when inserted into centre of bread comes out clean. Turn onto rack to cool.