I love Fall, I love its warm colors, they make me happy. As I open the curtains of my room in the morning, I enjoy drinking my cup of tea watching the show of the leaves turning in the wind. I feel lucky that even though I live in town, trees surround our apartment. Nantes is a great city: it is full of parks and green places. There are trees and bushes and flowers everywhere.

I baked these buns last weekend. I was tired after spending 8 hours working on the same law topic. I felt like I needed a break and when it happens, I have two options: going out jogging or baking. It was raining cats and dogs last Saturday so I chose to bake. Baking has the power of calming me down. My mind is totally focused on the recipe, on proportions, on timing, on creation. Baking has the power of making me forget my troubles.

I baked these buns because I wanted something with an apple and chocolate filling. Also, almonds give a nice taste to a Fall treat and are full of proteins, which is important in a vegetarian or vegan diet.

 

Makes about 15 buns

-        300 g flour

-        5 g desiccated yeast or 25 g fresh yeast

-        100 mL plant milk (if vegan) or regular cow milk

-        2 TbS muscovado sugar

-        50 g butter (or vegan shortening)

-        1 small apple

-        1 TbS cacao powder (unsweetened chocolate)

-        50 g almond flour

-        1 TbS agave syrup

-        10 dates, soaked in water

Steps:

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I think this family has a banana addiction. For newbies here, I live with my Uncle and Aunt for my studies. We buy bananas all the time. One of my cousins is totally in love with them and the two others share the addiction too. And my Aunt… If it weren’t for her diet (she follows the chrono nutrition rules), she would be eating bananas everyday as well. On weekends however, no one is on a diet. Weekends are cheat days and everyone eats whatever they fancy eating. It’s also on weekends that I bake.

A few weeks ago, we had extra overripe bananas. No one would eat them and I didn’t want to throw them away. So I decided to bake. But not anything, I wanted banana bread. I wanted to bake something that would feel comforting but since I have troubles eating unhealthy foods, I wanted my banana bread to be healthy. I had some sourdough in my fridge. Then I knew exactly what I would be baking. A banana sourdough bread.

 

This sourdough bread is really sweet, with a nice banana taste, of course, but also well balanced because it has very few sugar. It was gone within the weekend here. I just had the time to shoot it and eaten it was!

Makes one big loaf.

Sourdough starter:

-        5 g desiccated yeast or 25 g fresh yeast

-        100 g flour

-        100 mL water

Tip: you can make more sourdough and keep it in your fridge for up to a month even though I heard of people keeping it up to a year.

Banana sourdough:

-        400 g flour

-        200 g sourdough starter

-        3 large overripe bananas (or about 350g)

-        1 TbS agave syrup (or any other syrup)

-        1 TbS coconut sugar (or brown sugar)

-        1 TbS Rum (optional)

-        50 g desiccated coconut flakes

-        50 mL plant or nut milk (you can use regular milk if you don’t bake any vegan sourdough)

-        1 vanilla pod

-        The juice of one lemon

Steps:

I’m going to give you a few ideas of DIY Christmas presents in the upcoming posts. I particularly love this homemade scrub. It smells so good that you’d almost eat it instead of scrubbing yourself with it. Also, the smell has the power to bring you on a trip on an island. I love to use it after a long day when I’m tired and in need of comfort. I usually like to apply a bit of coconut oil on the scrubbed parts of my skin after that. Coconut oil has a lot of great properties:

Using coconut oil in an exfoliant product will help scrape off excess dead skin and clean out whatever substances have blocked the pores without leaving the skin irritated. So why wait? I hope that, as me, coconut oil will be your best friend this winter!

 

Also, lemon is awesome for your skin:

This coconut and lemon scrub is definitely a must have for this winter. Scrubbing your skin is really important if you want to maintain it healthy and beautiful. Sometimes, it can be expensive to buy super sophisticated scrubs. But the best scrubs are the one you’ll make at home. This scrub is inexpensive, super easy to do and lasts for 3 month so if you plan on making your gifts ahead or simply need to pamper yourself, just rush to your kitchen. Because this is the place where the magic happens. No need for weird objects chemists use. All you’ll need is a spoon, a bowl, a container and ingredients.

You can find coconut oil in many stores nowadays or online at amazon.com. Viva Labs Organic Extra Virgin Coconut Oil is pretty good to use: As for lemon essential oil, you can also find it online. I like using this Lemon 100% Pure Therapeutic Essential Oil. These ingredients may look expensive at first, but you’ll need so very few of them that they will last forever.

Recipe for Coconut and lemon scrub:

-        1 TbS coconut oil

-        5 drops lemon oil

-        100 g granulated sugar

-        Zest of half of a lemon