A little late for World Bread Day

World Bread Day was yesterday, 16 October.  I was planning to bake this potato bread for that purpose.  Despite being a day late, I am glad I did it.

Recipe is adapted from a blog post from 厨房找快乐。

250g   Bread Flour
50g     Potato, mashed
50g     Egg
50g     Sugar
80 ml  Milk
1 tbsp  Milk powder
1/2 tsp Salt
1 tsp    Instant Yeast
20g     Butter

I have added 20g water after feeling the dough.

Bulk ferment for 60 mins, cut and pre shape, each about 52g.
Final shape and proof for 45 mins.
Bake @180 25 mins

spicy tuna buns

Tried a spicy tuna ciabatta sandwich from Sun Moulin and really liked it.  I am sure if I were to make Ciabatta, the boys will surely grumble.  Combining the filling with their favourite sweet buns, they make good afternoon tea break.

Pain de mie in variation - orange

The advantage of going through the Artisan Bread Baking Class is the ability to design bread recipes.  With the usage of preferment, I am now confident of recalculating hydration as well as to handle a wetter dough.  This is a very versatile recipe, one which I can change the ingredient/s to suit my taste.  The leftover of the mashed pumpkin was added to make this loaf and the colour turned out well.  

Definitely easier to get the boys to eat this!  They did not even know that it was made from pumpkin.

葡萄甜土司

I am still indulging in this method of bread making.  It is so easy to churn out soft breads in the house as long as the levain is available.  With so many interesting recipes to try out from the book, I'm thankful for the bread lovers in the family!

Time is the essence

The bread remained soft throughout the three days.  This process is more time consuming, yet, the texture of the bread is worth it.  Some breads, though soft, stick to the teeth and lose that chewy feeling.  

This recipe is taken from a book ' 5C 冰种的美味‘  The author/baker uses either levain or old dough to incorporate into the main dough to create soft and aromatic breads.  In this recipe, levain was used.  Wheatgerm was added but strangely, they seemed concealed.  Probably my Okinawa black sugar is so pure and strong in colour that they became invisible.  However, the aroma from the baked bread is great.

Hot Cross Buns

Had a sudden urge to do this to break my obsession on making the perfect cheesecake.  It just seemed fitting to have this done on a Easter Holiday though not for religious purpose.  Like how one associates Fruit cake to Christmas and Pineapple tarts to Lunar New Year. Honestly, I have no idea what is the significance of these buns.

Having this done on impulse, I used the gelatinized starch before the suggested resting time.  It came out fine, fortunately.  However,  both the topping for the cross and the glazing was from another recipe which was taught by a teacher from Culinary Hobby Class about thirteen years ago.  The main dough followed the recipe taught by Valerie with some adjustment on water and dried fruit.

Holiday baking for Easter

For my younger sister SL, of course. She loves the smell and taste of cinnamon and the forthcoming holiday holds religious significance for her.  As for me, it has been some time since my previous bake.  A new recipe from Valerie, which she said she is very proud of.  It definitely is, a really tasty bread.  However, Wendy's suggestion of making into coffee loaf is brilliant and I'm going to try it out.

No skill needed

Bought a box of Korean Mochi Bun Mix from City Super in Taipei three weeks ago. I remembered Happy Homebaking had a post on this and the buns looked so cute in the picture. Since the instruction was printed in Korean, I had to rely on Happy Homebaking's guidance in her blog post. For future reference, I shall just include it here:

1 pack of mochi bun mix ( there are two packs in a box)

1 egg

70 ml water ( I used milk)

Mix well into a dough, which was rather dry and difficult to mix initially. Continue kneading till a dough is formed. Divide into 9 to 10 portion, round them into balls on a lined tray and rest for 15 mins. Pre heat oven at 180 deg C. Spray water over the mochi balls before baking.

Cradling the dogs

Sausage Bread is one of the recipe taught in the hands-on class at Creative Culinaire. Shaping breads is always a challenge without constant practice. As with rolling the dough evenly around the sausage, snipping the blanketed sausage dough at an even angle to create uniform cradles for the dogs definitely calls for good eye-hand coordination.

Roll in the chips

Published in a Malaysian magazine 'Famous Cuisine', baker Alan Ooi's recipes for this issue centers on Coffee, which suits me well.

This bread employs the direct method and enhances its flavour with coffee powder and extract.

The combination of coffee and chocolate chips is a complementary match. It was nice to go with a cup of Godiva hot cocoa drink for an afternoon tea.

Discovery

A soft and cheesy loaf, with garlic and butter topping, irresistible!

This bread employs the overnight fermentation method and thus yields better texture and is more fragrant.

I have recently found another baking venue through this 'Artisan Bread' class organized by the PA.

Judy Koh, the owner of Creative Culinaire Cooking and Baking School. Heard her name mentioned very often among baking enthusiasts but just hesitant in trying out. This class changed my mind, this school will likely be my new haunt.

I wished there were more pockets!

In the two recent magazines which I had gotten, both featured the French Breads which are made by Bakerzin. They are really Artisan breads! Naturally, it is beyond my capability to reproduce bread with such qualities. Yet, with limited resources, I do aspire to have my home baked products achieving at least a seventy percent grade. This is made from the recipe which was taught at Shermay's. As with the very basic requirement of the Ciabatta, I had hoped to see plenty of large air pockets.

Insufficient and rather tiny pockets! It was wet dough and really challenging in handling. They are made with Type 55 flour and hence, appearance of the breads looks good.

Perhaps I need to work with wetter dough more often.

Bacon rounds

A breakfast item for the children. To complete a change from their usual filling of eggs and/or ham, shaping of the bread is thus significant. No guessing is needed, clear and precise.

To kill two birds with one stone

I wanted to make '排包' and I wanted to make coffee buns too. So I marry the two and became this Mexican Coffee Bread.

There's no pineapple in these buns

During the recent trips to Hong Kong, I brought the boys to the local tea restaurants for their meals. One item which Nicholas would have for his breakfast was 'Pineapple Bun' with butter or 'Bolo Yao 菠萝油'.

I found it troublesome so I didn't shape the pastry dough like a pineapple. These are great for breakfast or tea. Serves warm to feel the crispness.

Obsession

My obsession with pots began with this Le Creuset Antique Rose Series. The colour just strike me and I began searching frantically for them in local shopping outlets as well as online. This was understood to be introduced to the Japanese market last year as a limited season special series. I couldn't believe my eyes when I chanced upon this in Takashimaya last Sunday and the great thing was that they were on sale! Given that the availability for the range is limited, I chose this sauce pan and another oval french oven.

So, I thought of a way to initiate its use.

A no knead bread was baked in this pan. Truly no kneading was done, only initial mixing and the rest of the fourteen hours were purely resting the dough for fermentation. This recipe is a simple French bread which consists of flour, yeast, salt and water. I saw how it was done on Asian Food Channel and followed the method though not its recipe. The dough is extremely wet and sticky so dusting the worktop and the dough generously with flour to shape it is necessary. After a final thirty minutes of proofing, the dough was transferred to the preheated saucepan for baking.

The air pockets in the bread were large, typical of a no knead bread. The interior is chewy and surprisingly soft while the outside is crusty. In comparison, the breads made by the lengthy conventional method are richer in taste. However, aptly put by Nicholas, great to eat with a a bowl of Cream of mushroom.

Old school flat breads

A recipe from Valerie's bread class, in which she taught the classic cream cheese flattened bread. The texture of the dough is softer, as she engaged the addition of hot water into part of the flour to create a gelatinized starch before adding into the main dough. Valerie introduced this as the Yukone method. This is rather similar in the concept of adding sponge dough.

Cream cheese filling was used for this bread but really, the dough is a basic for any creation on one's liking. As usual, I followed hers and was again a hit with the children.

A very versatile basic bread dough which she had also used for wrapping tuna as well as spreading shredded cheese and sugar. I did that the day after her class and the bread was snapped up before I could take pictures.

A Timely Reminder

Visited Wen's blog sometime ago and saw her post on the Teriyaki Chicken Burger. That reminded me that I had not done this for quite a while. Since I did not plan any menu for lunch for the children, making Teriyaki burgers would be just right.