2011

We had just passed Christmas 2010 and I want to say Merry belated Christmas for my Christian friends out there. 

I am back from Australia with a bunch of cookbooks I can't wait to raid and explore through my small kitchen.

I haven't cooked or baked anything since I got back because when we left for Australia, my mom had someone look out for our house. Thus, she cleaned everything in the kitchen... now I can't find some of my baking equipments -.-

I'll bake soon!

A Little Recipe For You

I'm going off for a 10 day family vacation to the Kangaroo-land down under!
I shall come back with tons... tons of cookbooks! (hopefully!)

Anyhow... I made buns last week, but I totally forgot to snap good looking pictures as by the time they were ready, it was already late at night!

Those buns were very delightful because, taste-wise, it was the best buns I've made so far. Shape-wise, I need more practice of course....

The recipe had me produce four loaves of sweet bread.
I varied the filling between cheese, rice chocolate, and chocolate-cheese.

During the process of bread proofing, I was a bit anxious about the result. I've waited for quite a while and the dough didn't proof as much as when I made bread with other recipes. But they became so huge during baking, thus being the perfect size for loaf bread.


Roti Sobek (Tear-Off Buns?)
from Primarasa Femina

Ingredients:
750 g bread flour
250 g all purpose flour
15 g instant yeast
250 g granulated sugar
100 g powdered milk
15 g salt
200 g unsalted butter
5 egg yolks
500 ml water

1. Mix bread flour, all purpose flour, yeast, sugar, milk, and salt. Mix in butter and keep mixing with hands until they become small crusts.

2. Insert egg yolks. Add in water little by little while kneading, until the dough become mixed properly and not sticking in your hands.

3. Turn dough into a big ball, cover with plastic and humid cloth until it becomes twice its original size, for around 60 minutes.
Gently punch the dough down and divide them into small balls (50 gr each) and leave it again for second proofing, around 20-30 minutes.

4. Grease loaf pans with butter and flour. Press the doughs and roll them one by one. Place them next to each other in the loaf pans.
For me, because I put fillings in my doughs, After I pressed the dough I added in my desired fillings before rolling and placing them in the loaf pans.
Sit the doughs once more for 60 mins.

5. Preheat oven to 350ºF / 180ºC and bake for around 45 minutes.

Cuppycakes

One of my cousins from my dad's line of family is getting hitched end of this week. He tied the knot in Canada few months before, but the whole Chinese wedding and wedding party are scheduled to be done this week.

Our family aren't able to attend his wedding cos we're jetting off to visit my brother in the Kangaroo-land down under tomorrow, so when we visited them two days ago, I baked cupcakes for them.

Baked a batch of vanilla cupcakes with chocolate buttercream and sprinkles.
I think cupcakes are the best homemade gift one can make.

It's petite, cute, and pretty at the same time.
I really want to join a cake decorating class so I can start playing with marzipan or fondant.

This is actually my second attempt of making cupcakes (after the marble cupcakes few days ago -- after a day my mum said that the marble cupcakes tasted like muffins), and the first attempt on cupcakes decorating.

Vanilla Cupcakes
from Joanna Farrow's Cupcakes book by Bounty Books
makes 12

Ingredients:
150 g unsalted butter or margarine, softened
150 g caster sugar (I used 100 g granulated sugar)
175 g self-raising flour (I used cake flour)
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Line a 12 section bun tray with paper cake cases. Put all the cake ingredients in a mixing bowl and beat with hand-held electronic whisk for 1-2 minutes until light and creamy. Divide the mixture evenly among cake cases.

2. Bake in a preheated oven 180º C (350º F) or gas mark 4 for 18-20 minutes until risen and just firm to touch. Cool on a wire rack.


Chocolate Buttercream

Ingredients:
150 g unsalted butter, softened
250 g icing sugar
Mixture of 2 tbsp cocoa powder and 2 tbsp boiling water

Beat butter and icing sugar well until smooth and creamy. Add the chocolate paste mixture and beat again until smooth.

Marble Cake: Revisited

My mom, a huge marble cake fan, asked me to bake some for her.
I baked marble cake two weeks ago using a recipe by Yasa Boga, and this time I'm trying the recipe from Martha Stewart. I was lazy to measure with the scale -- baking Martha's version seemed hassle-free because the measurements were in cups -- and I also want to know what's the difference taste and texture-wise. Martha's recipe lists buttermilk as one of the ingredients.

I used half of the batter for cupcakes and another half for the old fashioned loaf cake.

Using this recipe, the texture is less buttery than the Yasa Boga version, making it lighter for tea time snack.

I also love the fact that it's not too sweet.
I basically don't fancy sweet things, especially overly sweet American cupcakes. That makes me almost always substitute granulated sugar with caster sugar, sometimes less from the amount shown in the ingredients.

Marble Cake
from Martha Stewart

Makes one 9-by-5-inch loaf

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pan
• 1 3/4 cups cake flour (not self-rising)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 large eggs, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2/3 cup buttermilk, room temperature
• 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon Dutch-process cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously butter a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan; set aside. Whisk together the cake flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until combined after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Mix in vanilla. Add flour mixture in 2 batches, alternating with the buttermilk and beginning and ending with the flour. Set aside 1/3 of the batter.

In a bowl, mix cocoa and 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons boiling water with a rubber spatula until smooth. Add the cocoa mixture to the reserved cake batter; stir until well combined.

Spoon batters into the prepared pan in 2 layers, alternating spoonfuls of vanilla and chocolate to simulate a checkerboard. To create marbling, run a table knife (or wooden skewer) through the batters in a swirling motion.

Bake, rotating the pan halfway through, until a cake tester comes out clean, 40 to 50 minutes. Transfer pan to a rack to cool 10 minutes. Turn out cake from pan and cool completely on the rack. Cake can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature up to 3 days.

Buns

Decided to be adventurous and experimented with the cinnamon rolls recipe I made last week.

Instead if making them into cinnamon rolls, I made buns for my parents.
My parents love buns for breakfast. My mom loves cheese buns and my dad loves chocolate buns.

I used the same recipe as this cinnamon roll recipe I used from Smitten Kitchen, but instead of shaping them into cinnamon rolls, I just stuffed them with cheese or chocolate and formed them into tiny buns.

The result was actually great.
My mom loves thick textured bread, so she loved these buns a lot.
Fresh out of the oven the crust was tad crispy, but when she steamed them the morning after for breakfast, they turned fluffy.

So happy that I could bake bread that they like. Actually am now very curious about baking the perfect batch of bread, so I'm gonna try other recipes soon.