This is a very american Thanksgiving dessert, and sometimes not that popular with the rest .Partly i giess due the texture and the colour.But properly made it can be very satisfying and nice, alomst with a cheesecake type consistency.

so for this we need

1. Flour 120 g
2. butter-60 g
3. sugar – 30 g
4. Egg – 1/2

This wil give you enough pastry to make one pie and have a bit to spare.Crumble the butter sugar and flour with your fingertips .Add the egg and knead very lightly to form the dough. /line your pie tin with the pastry evenly and rest for atleast 15-30 minutes before par baking .Par bake at 170 C for 15 minutes.

For the filling we will use.

1. Pumkin puree – 250 g
2. eggs -1.5+ use up the half leftover from the pastry.- no waste
3. brown sugar-150 g
4. cinnamon- pinch
5. dry ground ginger – large pinch
6. allspice- pinch
7. melted butter- 20g
8. evaporated milk -240 ml

to make the filling whisk eggs with sugar and then add the rest of the ingredients.use a stick blender to blend all of it smooth.

Pour it into your par baked pie crust and cook for 10 mins at 1170 c, and then lower temperature to 130 C for a further 30-35 minutes.the filling should be barely set.

allow to cool down and then refrigerate and serve.

There is a kind of pull apart bread we eat in Mumbai / Bombay called pav .this recipe doesn’t taste anything like that.

What the$#@&-++, you must be thinking , why bother mentioning it then . because the Hokkaido milk bun hmb for short looks like pav ladi we get in India but tastes far better and is akin to a pav wearing foundation and make up sitting in a fancy car.

So the way to make it is also diffferent slightly more complex. We take a small amount of flour and milk and cook it to a paste. What this does is allow the rest of the dough when finished to get more soft and fluffy.( Because of complex chemical reactions..,you dont want to know all the details.

• Flour 450+50 g
• Milk 225+100 ml
• Sugar 10 g
• Salt-10 g
• Yeast active dry-10 g

so now once we have weighed our stuff ,we measure out flour and take 50 g separate and cook it with 100 ml milk till it gets to be like a gel and gluey. This is called Yudane in Japan and tangzhong in china.we are not going to sit and examine which one came first or why they even work. Suffice it to say that they do.

Then you add the rest of the liquid ( milk ) in this case to the gluey mix and whisk it up .cool it till gets blood warm then add the sugar salt flour and yeast in that order.dont change the order otherwise you could kill the yeast.Also don’t put in yeast in hot dough which also is the way of the seppuku( honorable suicide ), because yeast will die above 50 odd degree and you will be left with a stone to pelt at your enemies .Bam blam..whiz..

Add 20 g of butter and 20 ml oil to dough and knead it in

Ok so we have arrived at that happy moment where the dough has been amalgamated and yeast is ready to multiply and make CO2 to make holes and allow your dough to rise. For this at home what I do is heat up water in the microwave and keep the dough next to it .( In a bowl).

Then preheat your oven to 190 deg C…the USA guys have to do a google search to find out what temp they need to achieve. Ok sorry it’s about 425 F.

Then the big piece of dough you knock back or de gas and divide into 20 pieces ..

Shape them into round balls and elongate them slightly.

Put back in the microwave with water till they get nicely proofed.

Then brush with milk and melted butter  and bake for approximately 15-18 mins

I can safely say that this will make you one medium sized cake about 8 inch round cooking time about 45-50 mins , preparation around 15 , depends on how organised you are.100%guaranteed to satisfy or your money back

• Flour-90g
• Almond powder 10 g( I’ve said 10 but you could go higher and reduce the flour a bit )
• cornflour-10 g
• cinnamon powder- 2g
• dry ground ginger- 2 g
• Allspice- 1 g
• Nutmeg- pinch
• Baking soda- 4 g
• salt- 1 g
• mixed nuts- 125 g(Almond, walnuts, cashews)

Ive separated the dry from the wet ingredients. so as to create a demarcation and make it as simple as it can be to make a delish cake for little effort.

• water-90 ml
• mixed dry fruit(raisins, dates, apricots, dont buy a ready mix)-200 g
• brown/ raw sugar- 110 g
• oil- 45 g( yes by weight)
• butter -45 g
• eggs -2
• vanilla extract- a little
• brandy or dark rum- 45 ml+ a bit more to brush on or baste after baking