"Raya Manis" with California Raisins @ The Cooking House

How time flies! Hari Raya is just around the corner. Have you come up with sweet recipes to celebrate the occasion? Let's make this Raya more 'manis'(sweet) by adding in California raisins to your cooking or baking recipes. These tiny, sweet and delicious raisins are perfect to add flavours to any recipe, be it sweet or savoury. Raisins are primarily produced in the San Joaquin Valley in California due to its long hot growing season and abundant water supplies. With more than 3000 raisin grape growers and over 20 packers based in the San Joaquin Valley, did you know many of them are recognised as some of the world's most experienced raisin growers. The oxidation and caramelization of sugars that take place during the natural, sun-drying process result in the light to dark brown exterior of the natural raisins with grapes picked at the very peak of their ripeness hence they are extremely sweet. Rest assured, there are no artificial food colourants or additives are used in the production of the natural raisins.

We were honoured to be invited to California Raisins "Raya Manis" cooking demonstration by Chef Rohani held at The Cooking House recently. Here are some of the creative raisin inspired creations whip out by the talented chef.

 

Jazz up savoury dishes with a bit of sweetness by adding in California raisins to sambal. 

 

Sambal with California Raisins and Bunga Kantan.

 

Savoury Nasi Kunyit Cake with California Raisins.

 

Bubur Cha Cha with California Raisins.

 

Cream Caramel with California Raisins.

 

Kuih Lopes with California Raisins.

 

We also take up the bloggers cooking challenge. The one hour cooking challenge had us, the bloggers in teams of four come up with our own California Raisin recipes.

 

Ta daaa.... our humble California Raisins bread pudding with California Raisins jam.

 

Can you guess which is the winning creation? :p

Even though our team did not win the challenge, but we had so much fun. Congratulations to the winning team and good job everyone. Thanks for having us, California Raisins. XOXO