BACK!! with a chocolate vengeance.....

just bought a chocolate fondue fountain last sunday and tried it out today. it was so cool minus all the terrible experience melting the choc in the microwave and over the stove with a non-pyrex bowl. in the end, we had to go back to the tested and trusted method. using a metal bowl over a double boiler hahaha. anyway the chocolate fondue was great. IMO the flowing of chocolate just make the chocolate silkier.

it was a great experience, got several genius ideas. one of it is Twix dipped in chocolate (patent pending hahaha). Also, you have to have a straw on standby when having fondue.

i will be back baking soon once i get hold of a camera. aight peace out high on chocolate.

strapped for time?

wow its been a while since i made something. mostly due to uni assignments and now its exams period.
i made something quick and reallly good. if you only have 5 minutes to prepare and eat your meals this is it.



All you need is smoked salmon, creamed cheese, capers, and some crackers of ur choice. In my version i added slices of cucumber to lighten it. this is how you assemble it.

first put some creamed cheese on the cracker and top with cucumber and smoked salmon. then finally put 2-3 capers on top. there you have it a piece of heaven in your kitchen. abit tangy, creamy and salty snack. i suppose it goes will with a glass or white or beer.

Hidden pizza crouching kaya

Great cumin lamb pizza for dinner tonight, wonderful crust thanx to my oven stone. The pizza vanish during dinner time, an amazing magic performed by me and my bro.
I made kaya bun too, but was still in the experimenting phase. it was hard to wrap the kaya in the dough. It is probably too wet (suggested by bunas after showing her the 'other photos'). i tried different wrapping pattern, but none turn out well. still need to improve on the sweet filling buns. My savoury buns seems good but the sweet stuff just dun obey me. anyway will keep striving to perfection.

another weekend's baking spree

It started really slowly this time, i have no idea why my bread rises so slowly. It might be that i tried to reduce half the amount of yeast used. But anyway, all ends well when it start to rise.
I tried a bit of variation today, the seaweed topping is a surprising addition. My intention was to please the eye but the taste of the seaweed came through, it will be better if i add more (my bro's very good suggestion). I also made the hotdog bun, it looks almost like the shops, but i need to practice more. Hope it looks good enough that someone will buy hehehe.









Next i will trying out something inspired by Bunas, Blackberry Swissroll croissant. Could not find blueberry now, so blackberry will do. There's no fresh berry available in the supermarket, they only have frozen ones and it is quite expensive, so did not bother to buy it. hope it will turn out good tomorrow. cheers

One step closer? Maybe..

My Polo buns (polo bau) and my tuna buns this week. For the polo buns i used the basic sweet dough recipe from last week and divide into 15 round portion and allow to rest it for 15 minutes.
For the Polo skin, beat 50g of butter, 50g of margarine ( you can just use butter or margarine i think, it does not make a difference to me) and 100g icing sugar. beat it til smooth and creamy then slowly add a lightly beaten large egg. when smooth, fold in 200g of plain flour using a folding motion (remember not to work the flour too much because we don't want gluten to form). Let the mixture chill for a bit in the freezer so that the fat hardens and become easier to shape into a sheet.

Moisten the top of the buns and put a sheet of the skin over the top of the buns. I did this by rolling a small ball (about 25-30g) of the skin and flatten it with a rolling pin. Remember to work quickly as the skin misture melts quite fast. Allow a final rest and if the skin does not crack due to the buns rising, make some slashes over the skin with a sharp knife or the edge of a bowl scrapper. Egg glaze the top of the skin and bake it at 200C for 15-20 minutes or until the skin turns golden brown.

My tuna buns this time was abit dissapointing, i make the tuna filling with a generic brand of tuna which does not have any taste of tuna at all. Yes it was cheaper, but sarificing the taste is not worth it in this case. But the bread component itself is consistent with the one last week. which i am glad for it. To be consistent.

Also i tried two types of flour this time, a strong ( high protein) flour i bought from an organic store at $2.50/kg and Defiance Baker's flours from the supermarket ( it comes in a bag of 5kg, it is about $1.60/kg). To be dead honest the quality of the bread is the same, Both soft and light. It is a matter of preference, which type of flour you want to use. Organic flour is good beacuse you know it is organic and the non-organic flour might have been processed by many different chemicals. Being a dirt broke uni student, i will opt for the cheaper one in the future.
Til' next time, happy baking.

Based on a true story..

I killed my croissants by folding it too many times.

Lol.

Butter squirted out all over. I mourned over the loss of my croissant dough for a while. Think I was over-excited that day. The recipe called for 4 folds, and silly ol' me went on and on and on and on..... *whistles ... Life goes on. I blame my itchy hands.

I managed to fold 1 properly out of the supposedly 8 croissants...

Made soooft-fluffy rolls yesterday! It was good although, it was only halfway through baking.. then I noticed someone changed the oven setting to Upper heat. GAH! However, my situation isn't as humorous as biofish's.. Question was ... "Has your bread dough risen? Issit still the same size?" after 2 hours of chat. Haha.

Laughter, indeed, is the best medicine; I'm over the moon; I have to say I really like fish' previous blog-entry.. It cracks me up everytime.

Signing off,
an-pan Lover.

This might happen to you one day

I was making the basic loaf i was talking about with the new technique. i spent quite a few hours proofing it. Since it is winter here, i thought the dough need more time to rise, hours gone by and it is still the same size. I was chatting with Bunas, tell her how come the dough is not rising and it suddenly striked me. I FORGOT TO ADD YEAST TO MY DOUGH(embarassed....). hahaha joke of the year.

I went back to the dough and added yeast and let it finally rise. The loaf came out this morning, it feels so soft and the holes inside is good but it is quite far from perfect holes. But one day i'll get there.