In Search of 绵绵土司

After several bread-making sessions, I realised that loaves made with a bread machine will not yield very soft texture. The bread machine doesn't seems to be able to knead the dough till it pass the stretch test...which is the basic requirement to produce a soft and light texture. However, I still find that using the bread machine is such a time-saving way to make a daily loaf. Hence, I have been trying out various bread recipes, with the aim of finding one that will produce a loaf of 绵绵土司 (绵绵 = soft as cotton, 土司 = toast or a loaf bread)...one that will yield light, tender texture and yet uses the very basic ingredients and can be made easily with a bread machine. It's quite a tall order actually!


I chanced upon this recipe while blog-hopping. I like the fact that the ingredients are relatively basic...no eggs, whipping cream are required, and milk powder is used instead of fresh milk...with two growing kids, milk powder is something that will never run out in my kitchen.

After reading reviews and comments from various blogs, I learnt that in order to get the cottony texture of this loaf, I'll have to shape it by hand (using the correct shaping technique) and bake it in a normal oven. Nevertheless, I still went ahead to experiment it with my bread machine. To over come the problem of not enough kneading...I stopped the machine right after the first kneading cycle (10 mins of kneading). Then, I re-started the Basic programme again. This way, the dough was subject to 30mins of kneading instead of 20mins. I added in a pack of left over raisins immediately when the bread machine beeps...only to find out that the raisins were all mashed up by the paddle during mixing :( Next time, I'll know better to add in dried fruits only towards the end of the second kneading cycle.


Here's the verdict:

As the heating element of my bread machine is located a the bottom, a thick crust was formed at the bottom of the loaf. The overall loaf was dark brown...something which I don't really like. The crust on the top was alright though. I find the texture of the bread soft and light especially when freshly baked...although it is still a far-cry from this. It's quite a tasty loaf actually...just a light hint of sweetness from the extra raisins. The best part is, the bread remained soft the next day! I didn't even have to toast it and I could eat it plain, without any butter or jam.

When I find some time next week, I'm gonna do this same recipe by hand...

Ingredients:
Original recipe from here.

168g water
24g butter
5g salt
45g sugar
300g bread flour
18g milk powder
5g instant yeast
some raisins (optional)

Method:

1. Pour water into the pan of the bread machine, followed by butter, sugar and salt. Cover with flour, milk powder and make a small indent with your finger on the flour. Place yeast inside the small indent. (Or place all ingredients according to the sequence stated in the instruction manual of your bread machine.)
2. Fit the pan into the bread machine and set to BASIC white programme. Select 1 lb or 1.5lb loaf size and set to light or medium crust setting (depend on your preference).
3. Add the raisins towards the end of the second kneading cycle.
4. Once baked, remove the loaf from the pan and let cool on a wire rack for at least an hour before slicing.

Green Tea Buns

I finally made these green tea buns this morning. I bought a small bottle of green tea powder from Phoon Huat some time ago, without knowing what to do with it. Subsequently, I came across this pack of azuki bean paste during my regular visit to Daiso. Without any hesitation, I bought it right away...with my mind conjuring up the idea of green tea buns with the red bean paste as fillings. Both items where left untouched for quite some time as I was merrily baking other stuff from my long list of "to do" bakes ;)

I found a green tea bun recipe from the cookbook "Bread Magic". However, the bread is a little too time consuming to make...u'll need to make the bread dough, and then another smaller portion of bread dough as topping, i.e. to be wrapped around the main dough. As I couldn't afford to spend too much time on this, I simply followed the basic sweet dough recipe from the same book and added in 1 tablespoon of green tea powder. I didn't know whether this would affect the outcome of the bread, but since the ingredients to be used are relatively cheap and available, I felt I could take the risk without much regret!


I left the bread machine to do the kneading and let the dough rise at room temperature. Shaping the dough was quite easy, as I made most of them into round buns. I also tried adding sesame seeds on a few buns just to have some variation.

Then, I attempted to make a few twisted buns. The effect was not very nice though...this is the best out of the 3 that I did ;)

The buns turned out to be rather soft...although I couldn't taste the green tea flavour; and the red bean paste was slightly too sweet for my liking.

This is one of the better photos I have taken so far. I like the effect of the rounded bun and how it stand out from those buns at the background =)

Note: The buns didn't taste good after leaving them overnight. Had to warm them before serving...otherwise the bread tasted a little dense and "doughy". Not sure whether it was due to the green tea powder or the red bean paste?? Will remove the recipe which I had posted here yesterday.

I received a few requests for this green tea buns recipe be posted, despite the fact that I wasn't sure why the bread didn't keep well. I have now posted the recipe below so as not to disappoint those who are keen to give it a try.


Ingredient
(makes about 9 buns)

330g bread flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tablespoon milk powder
60g caster sugar
120ml water
10g instant yeast
1 egg
40g butter
1 tablespoon green tea powder
some red bean paste for filling
some white sesame seeds

Method:

1. Place water, egg, butter, followed by caster sugar, salt, bread flour, milk powder, green tea powder and yeast into the pan of the bread machine. Set to Dough function.
2. When the machine completes the kneading cycle (20mins) remove dough from the bread pan, let it proof in room temperature in a mixing bowl, covered with cling wrap. Allow the dough to proof for 60 mins or until double in bulk. Alternatively, you can leave the machine to complete the full Dough cycle (knead and proofing) which takes 1hr 30mins.
3. Take out the dough and punch out the gas produced. Divide the dough into 50g portions. Shape into rounds and let rest for about 10 mins.
4. Flatten rounds and add fillings as desired. Shape into rounds or as desired. Arrange dough in a greased or lined pan or use paper liners. Let rest for about another 30 mins. If desired, top doughs with sesame seeds. Bake for about 15 minutes in a preheated oven at 180 degC.

Strawberry Mango Cake

Made this birthday cake for one of my extended family members. It's her birthday today. It's gonna be a very special day, since it's 07-07-07 today!

Well, this is only the 3rd birthday cake I've made since I started my baking journey last August, and it's the very first time I made this for someone outside my immediate family. I didn't inform the birthday girl that I'll be making her a cake until the very last minute...just before the cake was ready to pack and go...as I wasn't very confident how the cake would turn out, I thought, if it's not too presentable, I will have to keep it for our own consumption ;)


This is actually a simple 3-layer sponge cake. I used whipped cream and fresh mango as fillings, and decorated the cake top with strawberries. Don't ask me how could strawberries go well with mango?? The true is, I don't know how to decorate a cake with mango slices, haha! Since I am also not good at frosting a cake, the best way is to use the strawberries to cover up the entire cake top and those ready-made sponge fingers (or ladies fingers) are great to hide the uneven frosting at the sides ;)

Here's how the cake came about:

I used the same sponge cake recipe which I have been using where 4 eggs are beaten with sugar & some salt. It is important to leave the eggs at room temperature before beating. I'm not sure why, but I think the eggs are easier to whip at room temperature. By the way, this photo was taken with my left hand holding the mixer and the right hand holding the camera.

Beat the egg mixture at the highest speed of your electric mixer...and it'll probably take about 8 ~ 10 mins to reach the ribbon-like stage. Can you see the "ribbon" formed on the batter?


Fold-in the sieved flour gently...do this by lifting the batter with a spatula from the bottom of the bowl and turning the bowl at the same time...it's kind of hard to describe this part...just make sure not to deflate the batter too much. The batter will look a little lumpy at this stage.


Pour out about a third of the batter and mix it in a separate bowl with the salad oil. Then combine the mixture with the remaining batter. This method helps to prevent the batter from being deflated too much when you mix a denser liquid like oil with the batter. This is how the batter looks like when the salad oil and then milk are added. The mixture should look smooth now.

Pour batter into an 8-inch prepared pan (lined with parchment paper) and it should be about 70% full. Slightly lift up the pan and gently give it a few "bangs" on the table. This will help to release some of the air bubbles trapped in the batter.

It's so interesting to see how the cake bakes in the oven. If you stand in front of the oven long enough, you will notice that there are actually 3 distinct stages of the baking cycle. During the initial baking time, the batter will appear to sink in the middle of the cake pan. Subsequently, it will inflate and rise up above the baking pan (as shown in this photo). Eventually, when the cake is almost done, it will shrink back to the height of the cake pan. Interesting, isn't it??

Here's the sponge cake that was baked to a nice golden brown.







I read from somewhere that the cake should be cooled inverted. This way, the top of the cake will be very even.





It's so satisfying to look at a nice, evenly baked sponge cake. I thought it looks good enough to be eaten plain.






Here's how I filled up the layers with non-dairy whipping cream and fresh mango slices. This was done quite haphazardly...as I knew I could cover up whatever mess with the sponge fingers ;p



Finally, after lining-up the ring of sponge fingers, I covered the top with strawberries. These strawberries are quite huge...as a result, the cake was a little too tall for the cake box I bought...I couldn't even close it properly :( I got to secure the sponge fingers with a ribbon as I was quite sure they would fall apart during the delivery. Fortunately, the cake was delivered to the birthday gal in good condition.



As I won't get a chance to have a piece of this cake, it sets me wondering how this 'strange' combination will taste like?! I just hope it will not taste too odd to have strawberries, mango, sponge layer and the ladies fingers all in one slice of cake =)

Milo Doggies Cookies

When my friend told me she has experimented baking a Milo version of the Horlicks Doggies Cookies, I was real curious to know how the Milo ones would taste like.

Naturally, the first thing I did once I got back to my normal routine, was to bake a batch of these cute morsels. I followed the original recipe closely, the only change I made was to replace the horlicks with equal amount of Milo powder. The dough was as soft as the original recipe. I could shape the cookies easily, and was able to complete the batch at a much shorter time as compared to my first few attempts :)


Taste wise, the Milo cookies are equally crunchy as the horlicks version, in fact, I find them richer in taste. My boys were very eager to try them as I've used the new Koko Krunch duo for the ears.


This new range of Koko Krunch has got both dark chocolate (the usual ones) and white chocolate flavours in a pack. However, the effect was not very good for those doggies with white ears...they looked rather strange, don't you think so?

Just having some fun

No, I didn't bake this,



and I certainly don't have the skills to produce this ;)



I am sure you by now you would have guessed what these are...yes, they are erasers! Don't you think they look cute? I got them from Daiso recently...and meet the full spread here:



If you are interested, you can visit the manufacturer's site for the full range of erasers available. Since I don't use erasers, even if I do, I won't want to use them, I will probably turn them into fridge magnets instead :)



I also bought this set of cookie cutters...hmmm, mainly for the bear-shape cutter...as I already own the star and heart-shape cutters.


Another cheap and good deal from Daiso...a set of egg moulds! I am gonna stuff the kids with hard-boil eggs real soon ;D