Another go at wholemeal bread

Following my earlier trial on wholemeal bread, i had another go of the same recipe today. Dodol & Mochi is very kind enough to drop a note on trouble-shooting, and bearing in mind a few 'errors' which i did earlier, i'm more mindful of:

1. Not overcooking the water roux (tangzhong)
2. If proofing in the fridge, i ought to bring the dough to room temperature before baking
3. The dough should be abt 1/3rd of the height of loaf tin if i want a square loaf
4. Since i'm using BM to knead the dough, i left it in the BM for the first proofing. It was almost 'spilling' over after an hour or so + weather is extremely hot today!

I did the whole portion of recipe and ended up with a 7x4x4" loaf, and 2 approximately 10cm long twin-bread, and 2 approximately 8cm long baguette-like bread. I gave the loaf to my aunt ivy, 2 twin-bread to aunty cat, and left 2 for T & my tomorrow's breakfast. They simply smell wonderful!

Shall update on the taste and texture of the bread after i try them out for my breakfast tomorrow.

Update on 26 Oct 09: The smell of this bread is heaven, and the texture is soft. Taste good even on its own. A keeper for anyone who wants a healthy bread!

Ondeh Ondeh

My saturdays' routine has changed recently, that's because my little zak is attending music class in the late morning, and the centre is near my pa's place. So i'll end up idling at my pa's place the whole day. There goes my (almost) only day to do any baking ;-( Do i call this a little sacrifice for my little darling? Not the least!! Haha!!

Thinking through, i can still do something without using the oven, although if i want, i think i can still use the broiler. Anyway, before i got married and have my own house with a built-in oven, i had always used the broiler for baking of cookies, tarts. What i have done today is not using the broiler, just simple wrapping and boiling -- ondeh ondeh. When i was doing it today at my pa's place, i remembered how i was doing the same thing years back, in the same place, but with a very lonely feeling now. Shall stop writing or else get too emotional again :-(

Ingredients/ Method:

(Adapted from Florence's Do What I Like, with modification)

200g sweet potato

200g glutinous rice flour

13 tbsp water or more

1.5 tsp con oil

chopped pieces of gula melaka

freshly grated coconut

1. Steam sweet potato till soft.

2. In a bowl, mash sweet potato and add in glutinous flour, water and oil.

3. Knead till smooth dough is formed. Add more water if dough is dry.

4. Chop gula melaka to bite size.

5. Divide dough and wrap in the gula melaka.

6. Put wrapped balls into big pot of boiling water. (Boil the balls for about 20 mins to ensure gula melaka is melted.)

7. Toss on plate filled with grated coconut.

8. Ready to be served.

This recipe yields very soft and 'chewy' ondeh ondeh. However, the amount of gula melaka put in each ball is not consistent, and resulted in some balls with either too little or just enough fillings. Other than that, i have some balls that still have crystallized gula melaka and some nicely melted ones..... hahaha.... it's the inherent vice of hand-made products?!

Notes:
1. Boil the balls for about 20 mins to ensure gula melaka is melted.

2. Put as much gula melaka as possible, otherwise the ball would be too bland and you don't get the ooze-sensation.

3. Steam the grated coconut for about 5 - 10 mins. When ready, sprinkle a little salt over grated coconut. This will prevent the grated coconut from turning bad.

Healthy wholemeal bread

I bought a packet of wholemeal flour few months ago thinking of baking a loaf of wholemeal bread, but didn't get to find recipes until I realised that the flour is going to expire next month! Didn't know that wholemeal flour has such short 'life-span', and wonder if it is ok to still use if it is over the expiry date? Anyway, i will try to use them up asap, instead of feeding the trash bin again.

Was following dodol & mochi's blog and just so coincident that she did a 65 deg C Tangzhong Wholemeal Bread Loaf. The last i tried bread making using tangzhong, the result of sandwich bun turned out very good! This is it, I'm going to use her recipe to make my first wholemeal bread ;-)

As i hasn't been successful to manual knead the bread dough, and partly because i'm lazy, i used the BM to help me do the kneading job! As the original recipe yields two 22cm(L) x 10.5cm(W) x 10cm(H) loaves, i halved the recipe since it's like a test trial and also because i only have 1 bread tin.

Despite that my dough didn't rise properly, the smell and taste of bread is wonderful! After 2 days, i put the bread in the microwave for half a minute to warm it and it turns out still as soft.

The bread has nice brown crust

Ingredients/ Method:

Water Roux (65 deg C tangzhong)

250g water

50g bread flour

1. Cook 250g water with 50g bread flour at medium low heat, keep stirring until becomes thicken and no lumps left. Cook until 65 deg C, or if you do not have a thermometer, cook until mixture resembles baby porridge.

2. Transfer to clean bowl and cover with cling wrap to prevent skin forming.

3. Water roux can be stored for 2 days, and if colour turn dark grey, to discard.

65 deg C Tangzhong Wholemeal Bread Loaf

(make 22cm x 10.5cm x 1ocm loaf)

1. Put all ingredients, except butter, in sequence as per bread machine, and use dough function and knead for 30 mins. Add butter after dough is formed, about 10 mins. The BM pre-set kneading time is 20 mins, re-start the dough function and knead for a further 10 mins.

2. Round up dough and place it in a greased bowl and cover with cling wrap. Proof until double double in size about an hour. (Next time will try proofing the dough in the BM.)

3. Divide dough into 4 portions and shape it into smooth ball shape. Rest for 15 min.

4. Flatten dough and roll into longish shape. Roll it up to a sausage shape and seal tightly.

5. Place dough in loaf tin and cover with cling wrap. Proof till dough reach 80% of tin.

6. Bake at 180 deg C for 30 mins or until golden brown.

7. Remove from oven and immediately unmould bread onto wire rack to cool completely.

Fruity cheesecake

For the first time, T requested me to bake a cake and that's for his mum/ my mil. Something using fruits, and can't be sweet. I kept thinking of what to bake, doesn't want to repeat what I have done before, flipped through couple of recipe books, and finally found 1 that seems interesting.

Interesting it may seem, but alas it didn't taste what i expected it to be. I don't think i will try this recipe again so won't be posting the recipe here. Better luck in trying out other recipes then ;-)

The making of bumble bee

Got to know Grace and Jane at the blogger's party in May this year. Grace's bakes are always amazing and interesting; whereas Jane seems to have 24 hours more than anyone else with her constant baking and cooking and recently her new venture in conducting baking workshops. Both have been very encouraging through their little notes left in my little blog-space and i'm grateful for that ;-) As requested by them, here's the step-by-step of making a bumble bee. Hopefully the below illustrations are helpful and clear.

Happy fiddling with fondant!!

Bumble bee cupcakes

One of my closest friends recently shifted house and the group of girlfriends decided to do a bbq at her place... not a housewarming (just a gathering), otherwise I would get her a chopper as she said her apartment lack of one...hahaha. Anyway each of us brought something for the bbq, so it's not that tiring for the host. Think she would be a dead-meat if she's doing it alone. It was a fun gathering but the night ended early as my little boy started to get grouchy when it's near his sleeping time. Something unusual happen when he reached home - he kept crying and can't really get to sleep and insisted i carry him. Either he was playing too much earlier or some kinda of unexplained presence **eerie**. Alas it didn't last very long, just about 2 hours before he's into deep slumber again.

I also made a few bumble bee cupcakes for the little children. Wanted to prepare the fondant bees earlier in the week, but this week was simply too busy at work and tiring. Only managed to mould them yesterday morning, and let dry in air-conditioned room for an hour plus. Just in time for bbq and hope to have another one soon ;-)

Ingredients/ Method:
(makes 6 standard-size cupcakes)

60g unsalted butter, softened
70g caster ugar
95g self-raising flour
65ml milk
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

1. Preheat oven at 180 deg C.
2. Beat all ingredients, except flour, until well combined.
3. Add in flour and beat until batter is pale and smooth.
4. Pour batter into lined cupcake tin and bake for 30 mins or until cooked and golden.
5. Transfer to wire rack to cool.

Updated 25/4/2011: You may click on this link for step-by-step of making these cute Bumble Bees.

Chocolate swirl cheesecake

Ever since i baked a brownie cheesecake months back, i was looking out for other brownie cheesecake recipes which would yield creamy and fudgey texture. There are a few brownie recipes which i have found but yet to try, but this one caught my eye with its fabulous pictures and description of the cake! Although it is not exactly a brownie, but it did taste like one!

The outcome of cake is close to what I was looking for, except that i did not do a very good job with the swirls which resulted in a not-so-even mixed of chocolate and cheese. Furthermore, the butter used in the recipe seems way too much, hence it is not so healthy for a regular treat! However, i would want to give this recipe another try, except maybe to replace the chocolate portion with another chocolate recipe. Wonder how it would turn out?

Ingredients/ Method

(A)

250g cream cheese, softened

80g castor sugar

1 tsp lemon juice

1 egg

(B)

120g plain flour

20g unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4tsp baking powder

(C)

250g unsalted butter, softened

120g castor sugar (reduced from 160g)

1/8 tsp salt

2 eggs

1 egg yolk

1. Preheat oven at 180 deg C.

2. Sift (B) and set aside.

3. Mix (C) till well incorporated. Set aside and use as the cream cheese batter.

4. Mix butter, sugar and salt of (A) till creamy. Add in eggs gradually till well-mixed. Fold in (B) till just blended. Set aside and use as chocolate batter.

5. Spoon both cream cheese and chocolate batter alternately onto lined 20x20cm cake tin, until both batters are used up. Swirl around the batter with knife or chopstick to create marble effect. Swirl enough to have a good mix of cheese and chocolate batter.

6. Make sure surface of batter is even before putting into oven and bake for 45 mins or till cooked through.

7. Remove cake from oven and let it rest in tin for 10mins before unmoulding. Let the cake cool completely on the cooling rack.

8. Store in airtight container once it's cooled or serve chilled.

Durian snowskin moonies

Following my earlier post on mooncakes, I did manage to try out some durian mooncakes and brought them to my aunty wendy's house for the mid-autumn celebration. Actually this is the 1st time we are celebrating the festival with my relatives. We had very sumptuous dinner cooked by my aunt's MIL, very delicious spread!

The snowskin is using the same recipe with no durian essence added, and the filling is 100% pure durians. I'd got 1 box of 'mao san wang' and 3 boxes of 'segamat' from Fairprice @ AMKHub, and the quality is good!! To get a good bargain, go to the supermarket at around 9pm as they usually try to clear everything before the store closed for the day.

I have not tried durian snowskin mooncakes before, so i'm not quite sure how it should taste like? Do we have to add cream, gelatine, or anything to the filling?? Does anyone know?