Osmanthus & Apple Loaf Cake

Have been thinking of using the osmanthus flowers my sister brought me from Taiwan.

I love apple, when using it in bakery, it always comes with cinnamon.

So, when I first saw the recipe of osmanthus apple cake months ago, I quickly kept it & had been excited to try it out.

I could smell the cinnamon & osmanthus, the cinnamon doesn't overtake osmanthus but blends nicely to create a subtle, delicate & floral scent.

The cake is light, soft & moist with a crispy surface.

I love it!

It will be a new addition to my breakfast menu.

Old Journey, New Discoveries

To make the full use of my new GF1 camera, I've been exploring on how to take good photographs.

Certainly, the only way is to shoot & learn.

So, what I did last Friday was took the camera to to the college in the morning.

 After the college, I walked around & shoot on my way back home.

I enjoyed the little journey & observed from a new angle.

Japanese Wagashi ~和菓子~

After going to Holland Park, I felt like making some Japanse wagashi.
Wagashi is traditional Japanese confectionary, many made of glutinous rice & azuki bean paste. 
Earlier in April, I salt-pickled some cherry blossoms & I haven't been using them yet. 
I did try making cherry blossom tea, I think the taste was somehow disappointing, not as elegant as I thought. 
But it was a pleasure to see the flower blossoming in the water. 
Also, the flowers will be great for cake decorating.

Holland Park

Looking out from the window, the weather was nice & sunny.

I decided to go for a walk in Holland Park & test out my new camera GF1.

I'd waited a month to get this camera, the services of the shop I purchased from were terrific but the camera is satisfactory.

It's lightweight, much lighter than my brother's Canon SLR.

I'm not great in photography, I just shoot as I like.

It's a lovely park with all the greens & lights.

There is a Japanese garden called Kyoto Garden.

The centre is a waterfall & there are Koi (Japanese carps) in the pond.

Osmanthus & Asian Pear Sweet Soup

My sister has brought me 2 bags of dried osmanthus flowers from Taiwan, plus other sweeties.

I'm thinking what I can use it for, too many desserts on top of my heads.

It's traditionally used with green tea like jasmine or for Chinese traditional desserts.

It's perfect with Asian pear, so top of my list is osmanthus & Asian pear sweet soup.

Of course, if you can't find osmanthus, you can omit it, the sweet soup tastes great alone.

Chocolate & Blackberry Mousse

The weather in London is awful.

It has been raining & windy for 2 weeks but it couldn't stop me from going to Portobello Market.

You can see it's the season of berries in the market, I bought a box of blueberry, strawberry & blackberry.

I was thinking making a 3-layer berry mousse cake, inspired by the blog (Chinese).

But there're no yogurts in my fridge, so I made something else at the end.

Blueberry for muffins, strawberry for jam, blackberry for mousse.

I didn't include the recipes of blueberry muffins & strawberry jam, lots of recipes you can find online.

Chocolate is great with everything! Or maybe it's because I love chocolate :)