Plum and Pear Crumble

I made a crumble this week. A good one.

Plum and Pear Crumble2

It was so good, I did not manage taking pictures of the half-eaten object, but have just these few beauties.

Plum and Pear Crumble1

I am proud of it, because it is my very own recipe and it turned out so easy and delicious. Well, if you have some spare time and a few ingredients, you should not wait but convince yourself. End of the text.

Plum and Pear Crumble3

Plum and Pear Crumble

500 g plums
1 pear

75 g sugar
75 g butter
150 g flour

1/2 tbsp cinnamon
3 tbsp honey
3 tbsp oatmeal
1 tbsp orange zest
1 tbsp lemon zest

Cut the fruit into small cubes. Preheat oven to 175°C (350°F)
Combine butter, sugar and flour until they form a crumbly dough. Press it together with your hands until it forms a ball. Let chill it in the fridge until needed.

Combine the cut fruit with honey and oatmeal, then add cinnamon and zests. Now place this mixture into pans (use small or big ones) and crumble the dough on top. Bake for about 40 minutes until the dough is slightly browned.

Food in Thailand

I do not really want to call it ‘Thai food’, because I am not sure whether it was really Thai or just Thai style. But nevertheless, the following pictures and lines will give you information about my food adventure in Asia.

DSC_0019

First of all: there is a lot to eat. Food stalls are an important part in markets and you have a big choice of sweet and savoury stuff. We tried a lot of things and I will tell you about them all in a second. Please excuse I did not take pictures of the food buffet we got in the camp, I can give you a short description about that. We always had boiled rice as a main component, some dishes contained noodles. There were always several dishes with stir-fried vegetables, such as cabbage, carrots and corn. There were different kinds of tofu or fried protein stuff used (the people did not know enough English to explain to us, what exactly it was) and also fried eggs. As a dessert, we always had fresh fruit, which was great, because thai pineapple and melon was reaaaaallllyyyyyyyy gooood. I miss that here. For real. Breakfast mostly contained fried stuff like bread or bananas, sometimes we had pancakes. Not bad for a sweet lover like me :).

And now some pictures, okay? Here we go.

DSC_0372
DSC_0364

I had exotic fruit in Thailand, such as mangosteen, papaya, pitahaya or lychee. Their taste is quite different, if you buy them in Europe. They are much sweeter and softer. My favourite was definitely mangosteen, this very soft and juicy fruit is just awesome.

DSC_0076

This is a coconut pancake. It was yummy, the texture was quite similar to the one of American pacakes, only a little more sticky and with a coconut taste. Yum.

DSC_0077

And here we have a fried banana. It was crispy like chips and interesting, too. But I liked the fried bananas wrapped in dough better. DSC_0249

It was very hot on our trip to Ayutthaya. So I had some coconut juice to hydrate and cool down. Very refreshing.

DSC_0333

Thai sweets. Cool, eh? These are a kind of yeast muffins, very light and fluffy. They are served with a cream, which tastes like vanilla pudding, whatever it is made of.

DSC_0184

Now this is one dish we got during our work in the orphanage. We had a menu of 9 dishes, which were prepared by women living near the orphanage. They cooked everything right before your eyes and I guess you can’t get a dish more Thai than the one made by a Thai granny? Thise one was a little spicy, with small tangly noodles and lots of you sauce.

DSC_0185

Another dish you could choose was this one: stir fried rice with vegetables. I really liked the way the rice and the vegetables were balanced. It was pretty much my favourite one.

DSC_0186

This one you could order extra. One day, when I was sick of rice, I just ordered vegetables and got a plate full of fresh, lightly fried ones in a really yummy sauce (tasted like soy cauce with tomatos, maybe).

And finally, I have a step-by-step instruction for you. We made stir fried noodles in our ecohouse, and although I do not have exact measurements, I can still show you how it works.

DSC_0343

DSC_0344

 

This is what you need: Oil for the pan, garlic, salt, sugar, tofu, cabbage, baby corn, carrots, eggs and boiled rice noodles.

DSC_0350

First sauté 1 tsp garlic.

DSC_0351

Add 1 egg and stir-fry it. Add tofu.

DSC_0352

Throw in some carrots and corn.

DSC_0354

Add cabbage leaves and rice noodles. Pour over some soy sauce, 1 tbsp sugar and a little salt.

DSC_0357

Et voilà!

I really hope you enjoyed some of my Thailand reports here and on my other blog. This is the very last one, I promise. But if you are interested, I can give you more information, just ask.

Vegan Pumpkin Cake Pops

Vegan cake pops, heck I did it. you know, I have been creating this recipe in my head for more than half a year now, always looking for substitutions for cake pop ingredients and a good vegan cake. Finally got it.

Vegan Pumpkin Cake Pops3

The recipe is based on a carrot cake recipe I got from a vegan friend, but I used hokkaido pumpkin instead. After baking the cake, I shredded it and mixed it with… guess what? At this point, the cake pop recipe requires cream cheese and butter, but I found a good alternative for this: melted vegan marshmallows with a little margarine.

Vegan Pumpkin Cake Pops2

All in all, this recipe is pretty easy and I am sure a non-vegan version of in (use butter instead of margarine, eggs and normal marshmallows) will be just as fine. And it is perfect for the beginning of autumn, so give it a try, if you want to give your senses a kick.

Vegan Pumpkin Cake Pops1

Vegan Pumpkin Cake Pops
(makes about 40 darling pops)

cake:

5oo g shredded pumpkin
1 peeled and shredded apple
150 g sugar
3 tsp egg replacer + 6 tbsp water
250 g flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
75 g grated coconut
125 g margarine

frosting:

160 g vegan marshmallows
4 tbsp margarine

glaze:

200 g vegan white chocolate

Combine the apple and pumpkin with the sugar and let sit for about 15 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°F).
Then add the remaining ingredients and mix well.
Bake the mass in a pan for about 50 minutes, then let it cool.

Crumble the cake in a bowl or shred it. Then melt the marshmallows and margarine in a small saucepan until the mass is homogenous (it looks like light yellow cream). Then immediately add it to the cake crumbs and stir in (use a spoon at the beginning, the stuff is pretty hot!). Form little balls and place them in the freezer for about 15 minutes.

Now melt your chocolate, place a lollipop stick into each ball and cover them.