Piggy Donut

I had wanted to do up this post last Friday, but I ended up catching up on my Kimchi drama instead, oops. -_-


I made these piggy donuts during the school holidays.


They are strawberry glazed baked donuts. Details were drawn in using chocolate. There was some problem with my white chocolate pen though, the chocolate did not come out smoothly, I think I probably kept it for way too long.


These donuts were really mini. I have not used my silicon donut mould for a long time and had totally forgotten how small the donut was. I am sharing the donut recipe at the end of the post. I do have another donut recipe that I usually use, you can check it out HERE. I forgot to buy buttermilk, so I tried another recipe instead.


The inspiration for the donuts were from this shop called Floresta Nature Doughnuts in Japan.


We managed to pop by a branch on our recent trip to Japan last December.


I love the Kitty donut, will have to try making it next time. :)

STRAWBERRY GLAZED DONUT RECIPE

Ingredients:
100g cake flour
20g sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 large egg, beaten
80ml milk
35g melted butter

strawberry glaze:
4 strawberries
1 tbsp strawberry jam
1 tbsp milk
1-2 cups icing sugar, sifted
pink colouring (optional)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius. 
2. Lightly coat your donut pan with cooking spray or butter.
3. Sift cake flour, baking powder and salt.
4. Add milk, egg, butter to mixture in step 3, whisk till incorporated.
5. Fill batter into a pastry bag. Snip off one corner, pipe batter into donut pan. Fill each mould till 3/4 full.
6. Bake donuts for around 8 minutes or till an inserted skewer comes out clean.
7. To make the strawberry glaze, puree strawberries with 1 tbsp strawberry jam.
8. Pour into a bowl and mix in milk.
9. Slowly stir in 1 cup of icing sugar, adding more till you reached your desired consistency. The more icing sugar you add, the thicker the glaze. 

Note:

• As the strawberry glaze is rather sweet, I've reduced the amount of sugar in the donut recipe. Please increase the amount of sugar if you are using chocolate to glaze instead.
• If you are not happy with the natural pink colour, you can add in some pink colouring in step 9.  

Totoro Bread Bun

I baked Totoro bread buns last week, managed to take step by step photos for the recipe, check them out at the end of this post. :)


These are the Totoro buns I made. :)


Aren't they cute? Ok, I'm bias, I love Totoro, lol. :)


I served them for our breakfast the following day.


Before I share the recipe, I want to share these super cute Totoro cream puffs we had in Japan.


The bakery that sells this is Shiro-Hige's Cream Puff Factory. The bakery is located in a cosy neighbourhood, in a lovely two-storey house. There is a cafe upstairs that serves pasta too.


The cream puffs are so cute, can't bear to eat them.


I love their signboard!


Back to my Totoro bread bun, recipe below. :)

TOTORO BREAD BUN RECIPE

Ingredients:

Bread Dough:
150g bread flour
70ml warm water
15g sugar
15g egg
15g butter, at room temperature
3g yeast
3g salt

Cookie Dough:
50g plain flour
20g butter, at room temperature
15g sugar
10g egg

Method:

1. Prepare cookie dough first, beat butter with sugar. Slowly add in egg and continue beating. Finally mix in the flour till a dough is formed. Cling wrap dough and leave in the fridge.
2. Mix all ingredients for bread dough in a bowl. Knead until dough is soft and springy, this takes about 10 minutes. If you have a bread maker, you can just use the dough function for this step. 

3. Cover the dough with cling wrap and keep in a warm place for it to rise. This takes around an hour and the dough should double in size. 

4. Dust your work table with some flour, place dough on it. Punch out the air from the dough with your fist. Divide the dough into 6 portions.

5. Cut out two small ears from each portion, roll them out and shaped into balls. Cover with cling wrap and let the dough rest for 15 minutes.

6. Take out the cookie dough, roll out between 2 pieces of parchment paper and cut out circles for Totoro's tummy. 

7. Roll out bread dough and shape them again, place them on a baking tray lined with parchment paper, and add on the cookie dough cut out.

8. Cover with cling wrap and let dough rise for 40 minutes.
9. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius. Bake for around 15 minutes.
10.  Draw in the details using chocolate.

Vacation Bento

I'll be flying off for my vacation on Wednesday morning. I have scheduled some blog posts to auto publish while I'm away, so there will be updates on the blog unless there are some hiccups with the auto posts. :P


I made this vacation bento last week. That is me in the bento, going on a holiday with my luggage and camera, except I do not look that cute. :P I do however own a similar coat, in mustard yellow.


The sides for this bento were prawn paste wings, broccoli, lettuce, grapes and strawberries. The girl is made from rice, egg sheet and nori.


My boys have been counting down to the trip everyday. I need to continue with my packing, still halfway done. -_-

Where to get same or similar item used in today's post:

Totoro Bento & Ghibli Museum

It's my favourite Totoro for today's bentos. Just a simple seaweed cut-out for both my boys' lunch and snacks.


Totoro's side view for their lunch.


Bento is filled with rice, teriyaki meatballs, broccoli and strawberries.


Spam sandwiches and strawberries for their snacks.


I layed the seaweed on cheese, and just put it on top of the sandwiches.

I've always wanted to visit Ghibli Museum. When we went to Japan in both 2009 and 2010, we tried to get the tickets at Lawsons upon arrival but they were sold out for the days we were available in Japan. :( This time. I asked someone staying in Japan to help me to purchase the tickets in advance, I don't want to take the risk again.


The bus that takes us to the museum.


Susuwatari! :)


You get to exchange your Lawsons ticket for this very cool entrance ticket. :)


Totoro!!! :)


Laputa's robot. There's no shots of the interior as photography is not allowed, but this place is a must visit for Miyazaki's fan , you will love it. Apart from all the wonderful exhibits, we also get to watch a very short anime written by Miyazaki called 'Mighty Mouse'. It's very cute, the boys loved it. :)


Straw hat cafe, located inside the museum's compound.


Very long queue at lunch time at the cafe, we decided to grab a snack at a kiosk outside first.


They only sell hot dog buns, but it was very nice. :)


The menu book.


The menu board.


The boys and I ordered 2 plates of curry rice to share, food was very yummy!


Daddy had this bread, it was delicious.


Strawberry cheese was very good too, pardon my limited vocabulary, I think I don't do justice to the food, lol. We could bring home these little flags which they put on top of the food, but the paper flags tore when I reached back home. Sob. :(


And when you wash your hands, you see Jiji on the tap. :)


The museum is located just beside a very lovely park. :)


We spent the rest of our day there. :)

Where to get same or similar items seen in today's post: