Rudolph and Santa Bento

The bento I'm sharing today was done yesterday. I did not have time to post about it yesterday. I also made Christmas themed lunch and snacks for today, I'll post them next week instead. :P

A simple Christmas lunch for LT. :) Santa and Rudolph are both moulded out of short grained brown rice. Tomatoes for their noses, crabstick for Santa's hat and sausage for Rudolph's antlers. I also packed the box with broccoli, teriyaki chicken and strawberries.


There's only one Christmas bento today because IT had a back to School bento instead. I can't share it at the moment, will share next year when I can do so. :)


I made snowmen for their snacks. The buns were baked on Wednesday, I made them together with the Moomin buns. Then, I dipped them in white chocolate yesterday. The boys scrapped off some chocolate from the snowman on the right before I could take a photo. -_-


Packed myself a Christmas bento too, just by using these picks from BentoUSA. :) I've char siew in my box, kept them from last night's dinner. :)

Items used or seen in today's bentos:

Moomin Bread Bun

I baked some buns again and this time, I shaped them into Moomins. The buns were a little too round and fat though, should have shaped them longer. Sharing the recipe at the end of the post, my doggy and Rudolph sausage buns last week were also done using this recipe.


The buns were stuffed with luncheon meat (SPAM).


I just used a sausage bun recipe, and my dough was done with a bread machine, so it's quite fuss free doing these.

LUNCHEON MEAT BUN

Ingredients:
300g bread flour
5g instant dried yeast
10g sugar
6g salt
30g unsalted butter, room temperature
1 egg
160ml milk
Around 8 sausages or slices of luncheon meat (depends on how big you shape your buns)

Method:

1. Pour in wet ingredients into bread maker, and then dried ingredients on top.
2. Choose the dough function on breadmaker.
3. After dough is done, take it out, deflate it by punching lightly.
4. Cut the dough into 8 pieces or more, roll into a ball, cover with damp cloth and let them rest for 10 minutes.
5. Use a rolling pin to roll out dough, wrap ingredients and shape them. 
6. Place rolls on a tray lined with parchment paper. Cover the rolls and allow them to rise till double their size, around 40 minutes.
7. Bake at 170 degrees for 15 minutes.

Cranberry Pound Cake

It was my birthday last Saturday, the boys told me on Friday night that they wanted to bake me a cake. I did not have much ingredients at home, so I settled for a very simple cranberry pound cake recipe, after looking at what I have.


It supposed to be baked in a loaf tin, but I let them use these cupcake cups instead.


The boys did all the work on their own, I only had to give them verbal instructions.


But I was the one who did all the washing up though, lol, maybe I should get them to do it next year if they want to bake me a cake again.


Gifts from the boys. I don't know why my card looks like Angry Bird Space catalog, lol.


They shared the cost of the roses this year and I got five stalks, lol. Love everything I've got. :)


The cakes were decorated by them too, using my birthday toppers. I'm sharing the recipe of the cake below, it's really easy and fast to do. :)

CRANBERRY POUND CAKE

Ingredients:
120g cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
100g butter (room temperature)
80g caster sugar
2 eggs
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
100g dried cranberry, roughly chopped
1 tbsp lemon juice

Method:

1. Preheat oven at 170 degrees celsius. Line base of 8 by 3 inch loaf tin.
2. Sift together flour and baking powder, set aside.
3. Mix chopped cranberry with lemon juice in a microwavable bowl. Cover and microwave on high for 1  minute. Set aside to cool.
4. Cream butter and sugar till pale and fluffy.
5. Add in eggs, one at a time, beat well after each addition.
6. Stir in lemon zest to cranberry mixture.
7. Fold in cranberry mixture and flour.
8. Pour into tin and bake for around 40 minutes or till inserted skewer comes out clean.

Note:

• I did not have lemon at home, so I omitted that, taste great too.
• If you are baking in small cupcake cups like me, it takes about 15 minutes to bake them.

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

Christmas Snowman and Penguin

My original plan when I was doing my groceries on Wednesday, was to make a duck onigiri swimming on a bowl of cream chicken stew. But I changed my mind last night, and thought I should do a Christmas themed lunch instead, the duck can wait till another time. :P I still went ahead and cook the stew, but I presented the rest of the food on a tray instead.


Penguins building a snowman. :) The boys shared the food on the tray.


They had a bowl of cream chicken stew each.


The food used in making these are rice, broccoli, crabstick, seaweed, strawberries, cheese, peas and carrot.

Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who celebrates the occasion.

Where to get same or similar items used in today's bentos:

Christmas Duffy and Shellie May Bento

My first Christmas bento for this year, I still have quite a few designs I want to try, but not sure if I've time to make them. :( For today, I made Duffy and Shellie May decked in Christmas gear. :)


The bears are multi-grained brown rice coated with bonito flakes. I also packed the boxes with cheese chicken, broccoli and strawberries.


All the picks you see are from BentoUSA.


I managed to make some snacks for the boys too. :) They shared the snacks.


There's jam filled sandwiches, grapes, apples and strawberries.
There was not enough chicken left for me, so I stir fried some garlic prawns for lunch. Decorated my box with some snowflakes. :)

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

Doggy and Rudolph Bread Bun

I did not make charabens today. I am posting bread buns I baked yesterday instead. I first saw these doggy buns from a photo shared in a bento group I joined. Finally had some time to try them out yesterday. :)


Doggy and sausage buns. I used black beans for their eyes and nose. :)


Awwww, love how they turned out. :)


This was a last minute design, decided to try shaping 2 Rudolph.


Feels like Christmas just looking at them, lol. :)