Braids

I'm here, I'm here! Still alive and busy!

So much to do, so little time - yet I had time to braid breads. See what I did there?

Had leftover strong flour from pizza-making earlier this year so I decided to make a 5-braid loaf. Only tempted to bake this because I saw photos while surfing through Instagram and it looked pretty! However I think my dough was too wet, and it didn't rise properly, so the texture wasn't great in the end.

Not sure if I'm gonna do a second try on this since I've got very little flour left and I don't really intend on getting any more. Partly because I discovered that I might have gluten-intolerance, I'm trying to cut down on stuff like this. Not avoiding bread totally though, since I love them quite a bit! 

Have you tried Sainsbury's Cranberry, Orange & Pumpkin Seed Loaf? 

or Marks & Spencer's Pecan and Cranberry Baton?

My two favourites! 

Anyway here's the recipe I sort of followed - tweaked a bit here and there since I didn't use cheese and herbs. 

I also really want to try some gluten-free recipes soon so hopefully I'll have the time! Back to work now!

#3 carrot cake

My mommy's recipe:

• 240g carrots
• 120g canned pineapples
• 60g raisins
• 60g walnuts/ I used an extra 60g raisins instead of nuts because Nicole's allergic to nuts
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp vanilla essence
• 4 eggs
• 150g brown sugar
• 180ml corn oil/ canola oil/ I used light olive oil
• 240g self-raising flour with 1/2 tsp baking powder & 1/2 tsp baking soda/ I used Allinsons Wholemeal Seed & Grain Flour, a teaspoon of baking powder and baking soda each
• a pinch of salt, which I forgot to add

Beat the eggs and sugar until the mixture gets fluffy, everything else comes next.

Fold in the flour mixture until you get a nice consistency.

Bake for 40 to 45 minutes on 170 °C.

Note: Squeeze the carrot juice out so that it's not too wet. Also, chop your raisins and nuts before adding for nicer bites. 

As for the cream cheese topping, it's a ratio of 1 to 1 of soft cream cheese, and an equal mixture of melted butter and icing sugar. Meaning that if I use 100g of cream cheese, it's 50g of butter and 50g of icing sugar. I thought that we didn't have any icing sugar left in the house so I missed it out in this batch of cream tonight. Was in the cupboard all along! 

That's it for this week's 52. Hope everyone will enjoy this recipe, goodnight folks!