Saturday, June 30, 2012

Some variations to my bread recipe

With reference to my 1st 'owned' Bread recipe, I made some amendments to have more whole-grain flour than bread flour so that it is healthier. Just realised that the cheaper plain flour from NTUC contains more fats than Prima, and those Organic ones are even better quality than Prima. So I got a pack of Wholemeal & Plain Unbleached Flour to try out. Shall finish up the 'unhealthy' flour first. =)

Had a crave for Otah Bread so made some assorted breads, got my fav otah from 85 Market and yes, I have my otah bread crave satisfied!! Yummy... And this is the amendments i made, still soft and yummy even thought the proportion of Whole-grain flour is more this round.
I mix the flour in ratio of 1:1:1 for Plain Flour, Bread Flour, Whole-grain Flour. Less the amt of Milk powder to 30g. Try it if you have time.

Banana and Chocolate Chips Muffins

Decided to make some banana muffins from a recipe shared by a fellow blogger mummy who also shared the same cooking and baking interest. She intro this yummy recipe which I also loved it. Cos Hubby going into a more fruits and vegetables diet, we have bananas at home. To settle the almost 'aging' bananas, i made muffins for snacks and breakfast.


Please don't mind the quality of the photos, I am really trying very hard to work on it. Anyway the end results yields me 7 big muffins and 12 mini muffins. I didn't add the mashed banana as I am not a banana lover. I cut into slices and added to the muffins instead and made some chocolate chips flavour for myself. So here is the recipe that I made amendments to.
Muffins (Can add your own variation, source from Dequeen)
Ingredients
225g plain flour
150g sugar **Amend to 100g
170g butter,softened **I use Canola Olive Margarine
2 eggs
50ml milk
3 medium size bananas **Chopped and added to batter
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1) Sift flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda, set aside.
2) Cream butter and sugar till pale and creamy
3) Add eggs,one at a time.
4) Add milk, bananas and vanilla essence.
5) Fold in the flour in 3 batches,do not overmix.
6) Fill to 3/4 full.
7) Bake in a preheated oven at 170°C for 25-30 minutes or till cooked. **It took me about 45-50mins**



Monday, June 25, 2012

My 1st own recipe for Bread!



Made a few attempts of Tangzhong method for bread and came up with my own recipe this time round. I decided to make my own recipe for Whole-grain bread and mix with Bread Flour & Plain Flour. Reason: Fear of too much protein for the older Bread Lovers at home. Above recipe yields 6 Heart-shaped Strawberry Puree Bread & 6 Hotdogs Rolls and a Mini Loaf of bread.
Ingredients
Tangzhong - 25ml Bread Flour + 125ml Milk (approx 100-120g TZ, i use all)

150g Bread Flour
100g Plain Flour
50g Whole-grain Flour
80g Milk Powder
30g Sugar
3/4tsp Yeast
1/8tsp Salt
100ml Milk
1 1/2Tbsp Butter

1) Make Tangzhong ahead and leave to cool a bit. (I use it warm)
2) Mix all dry ingredients, then slowly add in milk til dough starts to form
3) Add in butter last and mix til a soft elastic and non-sticky dough
4) Proof for 1 hour or double in size
5) Shape dough and wrap with your filling of choice, or make into loaf
6) Proof another 1 hour or doubled
7) Bake at 30mins at 190deg. (For both my assorted buns and mini loaf)

Happy baking!!

Egg Tarts (Pastry from scratch VS BC Premix)

Attempt to make some egg tarts over the weekend for our mahjong session as plan to have a try but haven got down to work. Chanced upon this recipe that says it is soft and melt-in-the-mouth, I decided to give it a try. I made them into small tarts, halve the recipe but then the filling was more than enuf for another 12 small tarts so I open up my Betty Crocker Pie Mix and see what's the impact it wil have on the Egg Tarts.
End verdict, i still prefer the made from scratch tartlets compared to the premix pie mix, kinda saltish for my liking. But the filling, it's gonna be a recipe that I am going to keep for good. It is yummy and taste like those from outside. MMMmmmm...
Flaky Crust Egg Tarts (adapted from Bisousatoi)
**halve recipe**
Ingredients
Pastry
125g plain flour
1 tbsp castor sugar
1/2 egg yolk
75g cold butter, cubed

Filling
75g castor sugar
75ml hot water
125ml milk
Pinch of salt
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/2 large eggs
1/2 egg white (From the same egg where the yolk was used in the crust)


Method
Cream the butter with the egg yolk and sugar.
Add in flour. Mix well. (If the dough is sticky for you , well maybe your yolks are larger than mine, add in extra flour by the teaspoon until it no longer feels sticky, but got a slight flour feel to it, but not too much though, as it will toughen the crust. the borderline of stickiness and dry feel is very thin.. so, add extra flour with caution)
Roll out pastry in between two sheets of plastic into thickness of about 4mm. Stamp out 9–10cm circles of pastry with a pastry cutter.
Lightly press the pastry circles into foil tart cases or tart tins.
Refrigerate the lined foil cases for 2 hours or u can leave them overnight
Melt the sugar in hot water, add milk, salt, vanilla essence. Beat all the eggs lightly and mix in all together.
Sieve egg mixture and pour into the cold tart crust.
Bake at 175C for 25 minutes

Monday, June 18, 2012

My 1st Father's Day Cake

Yesterday was Father's Day, and I have been pondering for the past few weeks on what should I bake?? *scratch head* I was thinking of a devilish Chocolate Cake so I could submit to my friend's blog for the Aspiring Baker thingy but ended up didnt as could be too chocolately for Hubby. Or perhaps a Fondant Cake with shirt and tie but also ended up didnt. So I decided on a Chocolate Sponge top with Chocolate Ganache and decorated with Fondant Hearts, small tie for the deco.
Hubby and all says it was yummy and it really makes me feel the effort was all worth it. And I have made a mental note to beautifully decorate the rest of all my cakes. In a way to also practise practise for my piping, and decorating abilities..



As i combined a lot of recipes for this time round, I wont be posting any recipes link cos very messy. I use the Spongemix for the Choc Sponge, uses the ganache from another link etc. And since I had some time, I made the Oreo Butter cake again for my mum & sis again. =)

Sunday, June 10, 2012

New flavour bread & my virgin attempt at......

Had a few attempts with bread in varying the flavour, I tried making them into Burger buns, Mini Ham roll, Ham & Cheese Loaf and another recipe for Double Choc Chips bread & also Golden Oreo bread. I would say quite fun and it all turns out yummy. Here is the recipes:
I used Christine's Recipes for Hokkaido Milk Bread for the burger buns, mini ham loaf and ham & cheese loaf. Nvr amend anything from the recipe except that I only added milk, and replacing the whipped cream with milk as well. And an extra 2Tbsp of Whole-grain flour.
using Hokkaido Milk Bread Recipe - Variation 1

using Hokkaido Milk Bread Recipe - Variation 2

I made my own burger bun to go with home-made patty. Here is the recipe for the patty:
Meat Patty (makes 8 medium size patties)
1 plate minced beef
1/2 plate minced pork
1 egg
1 stalk chopped spring onions
1Tbsp Lt Soy Sauce
1Tbsp Sesame Oil
1tsp mixed herbs
Dash of pepper

Just mix all ingredients well and make into 8 round balls.
Flatten when u put into
 frying pan with spoon
Pan fried til both side browned, about 5mins each side.

I tried another recipe without Tangzhong as I was in a lazy mode when I chanced upon Angela's recipe of Cottony Soft bread. So I tried, result was good and I made my own version out of her original recipe.

Golden Oreo Choc Bread
Double Choc Chips Bread (i adapted from Angela's and made modifications)
Ingredients:
150g bread flour
150g plain flour
2Tbsp Coco Powder**
1Tsp Choc Essence**
2Tbsp Custard Powder**
2 tbsp milk powder
2 tbsp sugar**
½ tsp salt
1 ½ tbsp olive oil
1 tsp instant yeast
1 egg + cold water = 200g (lightly beaten)

Method:
1) Mix all dry ingredients in mixing bowl, add wet ingredients, mix into a dough.
2) Knead until the dough becomes smooth and elastic.
3) Cover with cling wrap, let it ferment for 60 mins.
4) Take out the dough and punch out the gas. Divide the dough into 3 equal portions and roll into ball. Let the dough rest for 20 mins.
5) On a lightly floured surface, flatten dough and roll out into longish shape. Roll up the dough like making a swiss-roll. Place the dough in a greased loaf pan, seams side down, let it proof for another 50 mins.
6) Bake in a preheated oven at 180C for about 25 mins. Remove bread from pan immediately and cool on wire rack.
**my modification to her recipe**
Kueh Lapis (From DeQueen)

(A)
210g sugar
150g water
6 pieces pandan leaves,tied into a knot
(B)
50g rice flour
180g tapioca flour
480g coconut milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon vanilla oil (i used canola oil)

The Preparation & The Cooking:
Put dry ingredients in B in a mixing bowl and mix well. Slowly add coconut milk and oil, stirring at the same time to mix well,set aside.
  1. Put ingredients in A in a saucepan and bring to a boil over moderate heat.
  2. Pour 200ml of the hot sugar syrup into mixtur above and stir well to mix into a thin batter.
  3. Start boiling water in a steamer and place the prepared tin inside the steamer to heat up (remember to grease lightly with cooking oil.)
  4. Measure out 3 equal portions. Colour them with green,yellow and red.
  5. When the steamer is at boiling point, turn down to moderately low.
  6. Pour the green batter into the hot pan just enough to cover the pan and steam for 5 minutes, or until set. Repeat with yellow and red batter respectively. Repeat the whole process until the last layer,steam for 10 minutes.
  7. Turn off heat and wait 5 minutes before removing lid of the steamer.(This is to let water droplets have time to slide off along down the inside of the lid and prevent water droplets falling onto the kuih when lid is removed.)
  8. Remove tin from steamer and let cool completely before removing from the tin.
  9. Cut into desired size and serve.
Steamed Moist Chocolate Cake (From BlessedHomemaker)
Try it as it is really moist and yummy but i extend steaming time for another 10mins.




Monday, June 4, 2012

My 1st cake after the long 'break'

It was a long break for me, almost a month since I really bake, and also cook. I stopped baking a week before my trip and started baking & cooking after a week I came back from the trip as I came down with flu, nausea, cough and fever..
I tried making satay at home with my variation to marinate the chicken meat, used ready pre-mix satay pack. And then tried making Pandan Kaya Cake for my Grandma's birthday. I was thinking hard on what should I bake for her as she didnt really want some thing too sweet, and I remembered that she always will have a Pandan Kaya Cake for her birthdays when I was still young. So to recap, I did my own version, reduce a bit of sugar and made it for her.
Deco-wise, it was still not good enuf, in my view. Tastewise, I think I did great as she had 2 slices on the actual celebration and kept on pinching the pandan kaya that was leftover from covering the cake on both attempts.
I marinate the satay to my variation and hubby liked it as it wasnt too dry and flavourful. Here it goes:
Satay (Chicken) - makes approx 30 sticks
1 plate of Chix Breast
1 plate of Chix boneless drumstick
1tsp Cornflour
1Tbsp Oyster Sauce
1Tbsp Lt Soy Sauce
1Tbsp Sesame Oil
Pinch of pepper and grounded tumeric

1st Attempt of cake - Sideview

1st Attempt - Simple deco of cake

2nd Attempt - actual cake

2nd Attempt - Seideview
The 1st attempt resulted in a harder and dense cake as I couldnt figure out how to make the cake batter. But luckily for me, I had some kakis in FB who managed to helped me figure out how to 'beat' the batter and this time round, it grows. I adapted the recipe from Aunty Yochana's blog & I did my own variation. Here is what I amended:
Pandan Kaya Cake - source from Aunty Yochana
Ingredients for cake:
250 gm. Optima flour or sponge cake mix flour
4 eggs
3 Tbsp. Pandan juice **i used milk**
a little green pandan paste or green colouring **i used pandan paste & pandan flavour**
3 Tbsp. Thick coconut milk **i used milk**
1 1/2 Tbsp. cornoil **i used olive oil**
Pandan Kaya:
900 ml. Coconut milk ( squeeze from 1 1/2 coconuts - add water) **i used 500ml Coconut milk + 400ml water**
9 Tbsp. Hoen kwee flour / green pea flour **i used custard powder**
1 Tbsp. Instant Jelly Powder
1/2 tsp. salt
a little green colouring
a little pandan paste **i used 1Tbsp Paste + Extract**
180 gm. sugar **i used 140g sugar**

60 gm. Dessicated coconut for covering cake

Method for cake:

(1) Whisk optima flour and eggs till light. **Beat til light and runny**
(2) Add pandan juice and continue to beat till fluffy. **Beat til soft peak**
(3) Add green colouring and pandan paste.
(4) Fold in coconut milk and corn oil and mix till combined. **Fold in without deflate the batter**
(5) Pour into a 9" round cake tin and bake at 175C for about 40 to 45 mins. or till skewer inserted comes out dry.
(6) Slice on wire rack to cool before slicing into 3 or 4 slices , your preference.

Method for pandan Kaya:

(1) Put all the ingredients into a pot and stir till evenly mixed.
(2) Cook over medium heat till mixture thickens and smooth.
(3) Place a slice of sponge cake into a cake ring, pour in some kaya and continue the same process till the last layer is covered with pandan kaya.
(4) Leave aside to cool and set before chilling in the fridge.
(5) Remove cake from cake ring and cover the whole cake with dessicated coconut.
(6) Slice and serve chilled.