Chiam tao Luo Ti

I loved bread, there's alot of things, I want to do... Baguette is one of them.
Bought the baguette tray a few years ago, did not use it until now,when I saw Nasi Lemak Lover's blogspot and she happen to have the same tray and the bread looks beautiful, just like store bought. Decide to follow her using the tray and recipe.

I use one and half recipe to do 3 baguettes, For her she used bread flour, I run out of bread flour and I do half bread flour and half plain flour. The baguette turns out beautifully and we loved it.



We eat the baguette with muar otah and chilli crab.

Recipe

Easy French Bread
(recipe source: adapted from dailydelicious )


300g bread flour / high protein flour
1tsp honey
1 and 1/2tsp instant yeast
1tbsp Olive oil
200ml water
1 and 1/2tsp coarse sea salt


Some yellow cornmeal, for dusting and sprinkle over the pan
2 cups boiling water, for baking


Method
1. Mix olive oil, honey and water together in a bowl.
2. Put flour, instant yeast and salt in the mixing bowl, whisk to combine.
3. Slowly add in water mixture (No 1) into flour mixture(No 2), knead till elastic dough. Keep aside to rise until double size.
4. Place a baking paper or silicone baking mat over a sheet pan, or use a French bread pan (I use this one), sprinkle with the yellow cornmeal.
5. Divide the dough into 3 pieces.
6. Roll into balls and let the dough rest for 10 minutes.
7. Press the ball lightly and shape into a long oval, do the same with another ball.( I dusting the worktop with yellow cornmeal too)
8. Use the side of your hand press the center of the dough, and roll again (do it 2-3 times until you get a desired length )
9. Place the shaped dough over a prepared pan.
10. Let the dough rise until almost double in size, about 30 minutes.
11. Preheat the oven 220°C and place a roasting pan in the lowest shelf of the oven.
12. With a very sharp knife, make 3 or 4 diagonal cuts about 1/4 inch deep across top of each loaf. Put the bread into the oven and pour the boiling water into the roasting pan, bake for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and cool on wire rack.

Luminous waffle !!!!

Whenever, I pass by any shops selling waffle, mostly I would order one for myself. One of my favourites.

Today, I tried one of the recipe from the website "house of Annie", seems like quite a number of bloggers have a favourable reviews on her pandan waffle, it tempted me.

I use self raising flour and a small packet of Heng Guan coconut milk and pandan extract that gives a luminous colour as well as the fragant. The only setback is that I went to use coarse sea salt and it was not dissolve, certain part of the waffle is salty. Other than that, my husband loved it, say taste like kaya.

Below is the recipe from the blog

Recipe from House of Annie
Pandan Waffles
1 cup bleached, all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1-1/2 tsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda + 1/2 tsp cream of tartar (OR 1 tsp baking powder + 1/4 tsp baking soda)
1 egg, whites separated from the yolk
1 cup coconut milk (or substitute with milk)
2 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted (I prefer to omit this step, the waffle just isn't as buttery. Can substitute with oil)
1/2 tsp pandan extract / pandan paste
Notes:
*If you double the recipe, most cans of coconut milk will be less than 2 cups, just add water to get correct liquid amount.
*Sugar can be halved for less sweet waffles.
*Self-raising flour can be used in place of flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda.
1. Put dry ingredients into mixing bowl.
2. Mix all wet ingredients except egg whites in another bowl.

3. Mix 1 and 2 together, but don't stir too much because the waffles will become hard and chewy (which is partly the reason why I ended up with badly mixed waffles the first time).
3. Beat egg whites in a completely dry bowl until stiff white peaks form. (make sure the bowl's dry or it won't become foamy)

4. Gently fold the egg whites into the mixture.
5. Turn on waffle iron. When hot, grease the waffle iron well.

6. Scoop waffle mixture over waffle iron. Wait till lots of steam appears, and keep checking to see if they're cooked. Takes about 5 minutes for my waffle iron. I like mine less brown, so I tend to undercook them.

You have, I also have but not the same

My baking buddy, Jane from Passionbaker has tickle my "waffles" bug and am itchy to do it. Did once a few years ago and keep the waffle machine until now, think could be more than 3 years already... hmmm that long, could be absolute model now. That time, I was crazy and bought this at Tang's Department Store for the price of $99.00, I think I am crazy about a lot of things, most of my equipment are white elephant and I have given a lot away. Impulse buying....



Went to dig out and hoping that the machine power won't trip, test it first and seems to be working fine. Actually, this machine has two types of plate, one is a waffle and the other is a sandwich plate. Open the box, seems that the sandwich plate is missing.. haiz.. hope it's somewhere.



Follow Jane's recipe and did the waffle,turns out to be okay and fluffy, the next try will do a pandan waffle, my favourite, Thanks Jane, for helping machine to be alive again.. ha! ha!

Bread & Dip

Made foccasia today and made a dip to go with it for lunch.

Today's breadmaking, I did not use machine, I was taught to use throw, stretch and fold method. I found that it's was quite easy and this bread dough is quite forgiving that you do not need to do a window pane test, just get the dough smoother and doesn't stick to the table. It's done.


Made a bell pepper dip to go with it. yummy delicious.. hmmm

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Balance Butter

I am glad that I have finished the butter that my friend has given me. Egg tarts ia the item random pick today and when I saw how beautiful the tarts is in this blog, I just want to have a try, never did this before.

No regrets, despite of the crust is pale in colour and crumbly, I just loved the taste. Yay! just like the blogger, this is a keeper for me.

Her recipe uses melted butter, for me I use rub in method.

Below is the recipe from the blog

Egg Tarts~~ Weee~
Found this recipe from Ching and Mikko


This recipes yields around 21 - 22 tarts (standard size)

Ingredients for fillings:
140 g sugar (i used 120g which is ideal for my family cause they don't like sweet)
288g water
4 eggs
80g evaporated milk

Method:
1. Boil the water and stir in the sugar until melted
2. Let cool for about 5 minutes or so then add in beaten eggs and evaporated milk
3. Sieve the mixture for 3 times.
4. Set aside

Ingredients for dough:-
300g plain flour
8g custard powder
8g milk powder
8g sugar
1 egg
200g butter

Methods:-
1. Melt butter in double boiler. Let it cool for a while
2. Mix flour, custard powder, milk powder and sugar together in a bowl until combined
3. Add in beaten eggs and melted butter. Mix until just combined only (with a spoon)
* Do not overmix them
4. Divide dough into balls of 26g each
5. Press dough into tart moulds
6. fill the moulds with egg fillings
7. Bake in preheated oven of 160 degree celcius for about 20 mins or till egg custards are cooked.
8. Let the tarts cool for a while, turn over the tart and lightly knock them out of the mould.

Tips:
1. Baked tarts in lower tray to avoid overbaking the egg custards
2. If the egg custards started to puff up, open the oven door a few inches because the temperature may be a bit too high.

Round 2

Bake pizza again, this time round using delay dough fermentation method, where you let the dough in frig overnight.

I have not buy a pizza peel or spade yet, my friend was telling me to use parchment paper to bake and halfway pull out the paper and continue baking, I was quite skeptical about it. She was sure can do it upon advise from another friend, surf the website and found out that there is a case,

Well, no harm trying, put rolled dough on parchment paper, topped with toppings and in the oven with pizza stone. After a few mins, I use a cake lifter to lift the dough and remove the paper, it works. Even though the parchment paper was in the oven for less than five minutes, it got slightly burnt.

Distribute to my neighbours, they like it.

Pizza Time

I now crazy about italian food, first pasta, now pizza but I am not crazy over risotto. All along, I was quite impressed with a small pizza oven, name G3 Ferrari Napoli Oven that sells at Tangs Department store for S$299.

Went with hubby over there, he was not impressed with the oven, so did one of my friend, she did advise me not jump into it too fast. Okay lah! i bought a pizza stone from there to try it first.



I remember my oven has a pizza funccion, I decide to use this function and also use ieatishootipost's pizza recipe to do it.

I use food processor to do the dough as what the blog says, I did not like the idea, I found that the motor gets heated up too easily and the soft dough got stuck in the shaft, the next time, I do, I will use my mixer.

Although, I do not have canned tomatoes, but I use tomato ketchup to do as a base for a starter and I do not have a perfect round for the cooked pizza but I loved the crust of the pizza.

Next shopping, I need to buy a wood pizza peel, it a must when you do pizza.

Below is the recipe cut and paste from the blog
1 1/2 cup Bread Flour
1 1/2 cup All purpose Flour
1 teaspoon yeast
3/4 tablespoon salt
1 1/4 cups cold water
3 tablespoons olive oil
Half cup semolina flour
Basically, you add all the dry ingredients into the food processor, then start by pulsing the dry ingredients first, then add the water and olive oil. Once all the flour and the water is just combined, stop the machine and let it rest for 20 mins. This resting period is important. This is when autolysis occurs and it makes it much easier to get that nice smooth and stretchable dough. After the 20 mins, turn the food processor on for around one to two minutes and you will end up with a smooth gooey, slime-like mess. All you have to do next is to dust it with flour and knead a couple of times by hand and you will get a dough ball as seen above.

Just leave this dough to rise in a warm humid area for an hour or so then punch it down and divide into four dough balls and leave it to rise in a container brushed with a thin layer of olive oil. You can rise it overnight in the fridge or for about 1.5 hours in an oven with a bowl of hot water.

In the meantime, you can start making the tomato sauce.

What you need is 2 cans of whole tomatoes, garlic, onions and olive oil. Now, the Italians don't even bother to cook their sauce beforehand. However, I personally prefer sauteeing the garlic, onions and adding the chopped tomatoes, oregano, salt and pepper and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes.

Not to waste

Still have a block of 500 gm butter left that is going to expire this month, not to wasted it, butter cake is one that uses a lot of butter and further more, hubby likes to eat butter cake. Why not? do it and I am doing justice to the butter .. ha! ha! that is a present from a friend.

The previous time, I add to much cocoa to my butter cake and this time round, I put lesser and dare not even stir it too much or not it will become chocolate cake... a mistake, never mind, there's always a lot of time to practice my swirl.

For this butter cake, I use egg seperation method,and I like the texture.

Below is the recipe, actually this recipe has been with me for over 15 years.

250 gm butter
5 eggs
200 gm flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vaniila essence
180 gm sugar
2 tsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp condensed milk

What I did....

Beat the butter with condensed milk, 3/4 portion of sugar and vaniila essence together till light and fluffy.
Add in egg yolk one by one.
Sieve the flour and baking powder together and fold in butter egg yolk mixture.
Whisk egg white with the rest of sugar till firm.
Fold beaten egg white into butter eggyolk flour mixture.
Take 1/3 of the mixture and fold in the cocoa powder.
Bake in 7" sq tin at 170 degrees for 45 mins.

Hooked On....

Still in the mood of doing pasta, tell hubby, I tried to do Aglio Oglio today, he immediately agreed. Sad to say, that today's cooking is lack of taste, a bit flat and no oomph, maybe got no chilli padi and less salt or the way I do. For this small failure, I won't be given up so easily and the other consolation is that hubby say the texture of noodle very nice. 100gm flour to 1 egg, no water to make the dough.



The pasta machine has 2 cutters, one like "mee pok" and one like "mee kia". I don't know the terms for the name of pasta, looks the same, difference in length and size, different name. I think I'll stick to "mee kia" or mee pok".ha! ha! layman term.