Simple Whole Meal Loaf

This may not be my first blogging of whole meal loaf/bread. For those who prefer to have something healthy, this should be the bread to go for. I won't say it's a fantastic taste, but it's sure a good choice for a loaf of whole meal. It's pretty soft consider it has a higher ratio of whole meal flour than the usual one I've made. This is a heavier loaf, yet comes with a soft sponge. I expected it to be something hard and dense.

During the making of the dough, I have to say, this is an 'Unfriendly' dough to handle. I had to really knead it by hands for good 20 minutes before it comes together to have that none sticky and springy dough. So for those who wants to have a good workout, this is the dough to go for!!

.

Ingredients:

.

Whole Meal Flour (coarse milled) 100g

Bread Flour 150g

Instant Yeast 3g

Salt 5g

Sugar 10g

Warm Water 200ml

Butter 5g

.

Method:

.

1. With a Stand mixer, mix all dried ingredients with water and knead to a rough dough, followed by butter.

2. When butter is well blended into the dough, bring dough to work top and continue to knead by hands for 20 minutes till dough becomes none sticky and springy. Cover the dough and let it rise for 1 hour or reach double the volume.

3. Bring dough on to work top and give it a gentle kneading then form it to a ball shape and let it rest for about 15 minutes. (cover with wet cloth)

4. Roll the dough flat and roll it up like Swiss roll and put in the bread tin for the final rise. It'll take another hour or the dough rise up to 80% high of the bread tin. Bake the bread at 200'c for 30 minutes. Bring bread out to cool on wire rack after it's baked.

Cherry Blossom Agar-agar

It's full blossom of Sakura in Japanese since last week. The celebrations have started. How I wish I could be there to witness the bloom....

Bought some pickled Sakura from Tokyo, and just nice I could make some pretty and delicious cold dessert for our hot hot weather. I created my own Singapore and Japanese agar-agar adding Pandan leaves during the cooking process and I love that sweet aroma of Pandan. Making that floating sakura flowers in the agar-agar, I used grated strawberry and mixed with some milk to get that pink then add into a small portion of agar-agar liquid to let it set quickly then cut out the sakura shape using cookie cutter.

I made them into two layers, the bottom layer I filled with the clear agar-agar and the cut out sakura, and let it set, for the top I tinted the agar-agar with little red to make the pink followed by the pickled sakura. Refrigerate the agar-agar till all set. Done!

Somen

A quick fix for our lunch is often cold soba or hot udon soup. Hubby always prefer the hot one, and I go for the cold. It's very satisfying to have something quick, healthy and taste good.

I bought some udon like noodle called somen in pink. It's a kind of colouring from a flower. In fact I couldn't taste any difference from the usual white somen. But it's just as good. I boiled my own soup base using Konbu and bonito flakes, then add in low sodium soy sauce for the hot udon soup. As for the cold soup, I add some mirin to the soup and chilled it. Isn't that fast and easy??

Hoikoro (Hui Guo Rou)

Was doing some marketing at Meidi-ya last week and my friend spotted a packet of Japanese cooking sauce next to the Japanese cabbage. And I thought I should give it a try, since I was getting half a head of the cabbage.

And it turned out to be a very delicious sauce for cooking Hoikoro (Hui Guo Rou) which is suppose to be a Chinese dish. But I saw the ingredients was mainly miso, soy sauce, and many others Japanese seasonings. I seldom buy premixed sauce for cooking. I must say this is really good for a quick fix.

All I did was just cut some lean pork accompanied with Japanese cabbage, green pepper, carrot and leek! There we were enjoying a simple yet a complete lunch.

Egg and Ham Mayo Filling

Ingredients:
.

Hard Boil Eggs 3

Shaved Honey Baked Ham 100g

Japaneses Yellow Onion 1/4

Egg less Japanese Mayo 5 tbsp

Salt and Black pepper to taste

.

Method:

1. Cut all ingredients into small pieces and blend well with mayo.

* Can use this filling for sandwich or top of biscuits. Enjoy!

Egg and Ham Mayo Pockets

. Place the pocket cutter on the centre to cut out the pocket.

. Fill some egg mayo in the centre of the bread slice.

Made a loaf of English Bread this morning, and I intend to make my son his favourite Egg and Ham Mayo pockets. I like to make this, simply because he will be able to eat the bread without dropping any of the sandwich filling, as the pocket is being sealed when using the pocket cutter to cut out the sandwich. A simple equipment yet so useful. Think only the Japanese can think of.

Purple Sweet Potato Chiffon

I am not sure how many people would actually appreciate chiffon that's made of sweet potato. I tried it using the pumpkin chiffon recipe and it turned out pretty well. The recipe called for cinnamon powder to bring up the taste, so I did. Somehow I find the colour of the cake is rather weird.

The taste of the cake is very much of Singapore. Though there's no coconut milk in the cake, but somehow it has that tint of coconut taste. Think the older folks will find it nice.... But I must say, the texture is what a chiffon cake should be. It's absolutely light and soft.
.


Ingredients:

.

Mashed pumpkin (Steamed) 100g
Milk 1-2 tbsp
Sugar 70g
Yolk 3
Veg Oil 50ml
Water 40ml
Top Flour 80g
Cinnamon 1/2 tsp
Egg white 4
.


Method:

1. Mix mashed pumpkin with milk in a mixing bowl to get a smooth consistency. Add in half the portion sugar, yolks and mix with a hand whisk till sugar dissolved.

2. Add in oil, water, lastly flour and cinnamon powder to form a thick batter.

4. Beat the egg white till foamy and slowly add in the other half of the sugar and whisk to soft peak.

5. Mix 1/3 of the beaten egg white to the pumpkin batter till well blended, then mix in the rest by fold them carefully.

6. When the batter is done, pour into a 17cm chiffon cake tin and bake in a pre heat oven for 30 minutes at 180'c. When the cake is baked, invert the tin and cool on a wire rack completely.

Home Grilled Char Siew

One of my son's favourite dish is Char Siew. He'd finish his meal really quickly whenever I cook him char siew. A simple home cook dish that involves very little cleaning, as it's cooked in the oven. Got this recipe from a food blog which my hubby frequent.

.

Ingredients: (original recipe)

.

Pork Shoulder/ Collar 1Kg

Sugar 500g (I used malt sugar (Mai Ya Tang) )

Oyster Sauce 300g

Fine Bean Paste ( Dou Jiang) 300g

Soy Sauce 200ml

Rice Wine 3 tsp ( I used Brandy)

Black Soy Sauce 2tsp

Red Colouring (optional) I omitted it.

.

Method:

1. Mix all ingredients to make a marinade.

2. Marinade the meat over night in the fridge.

3. Roast/ Grill meat at 180'c for 30 minutes to 1 hour. Turn and basting the meat till it's cooked and slightly charred.

Easter Cup Cakes

Easter is around the corner. I made some of these cup cakes for my little one to bring to school and share among his classmates. They enjoyed it! I used my banana cake recipe for the cups, and spread a little nutella on to hold the chocolate Easter eggs then sprinkle some baby oat around the eggs to make the nest effect.

Corn Bread

On the day we were making the fondant cake, I made this sweet little corn bread for our tea break. We didn't really have our lunch nor proper dinner and survived on things like bread, cheese and crackers. My friend and her hubby loved the bread and I was very glad to share my home made bread with them. In fact, this is the first time I made corn bread. I bought the cream corn by mistake, so I thought I should give the recipe a try. Of course it turned out very well! There are still half a packet of cream corn sitting the the fridge, and I will definitely make this bread again.

Fondant Cake

My very first fondant cake ever! I job shared between me and a girl friend of mine. She was asked to make this cake for a cosmetic company's 75th anniversary celebration, and I couldn't believe that we actually took up the job! Looking back, I think we were very brave. We almost gave up the job as we had problem with the wordings required on the cake. As it was a rather short notice order, we didn't have enough time to source for the precise letters that the client requested. But we were so so lucky that her hubby has a pair of fantastic hands that managed to help up to deliver the request. Phew!!!! I must say ''Thank you Eggy!!'' ( her hubby's nickname)

I am very very happy with the final result consider I have absolutely no experience for making fondant cakes. However, my girl friend who's very keen in fondant cake making, and here we are.... I think there will be more fondant cake making for me in time to come. :)

Simple French Bread

This should be a prettier looking french bread, which I have yet to master the skill and also, the recipe called for french bread flour. It's something I do not have in my pantry and I have no idea where to get it. Wonder what kind of result I can achieve if I use the french bread flour. Hubby is now in Germany, and I gave him a shopping list to hunt for me this french bread flour. Shall wish me luck! Or may be I did not hunt hard enough in Singapore? I'm sure there should be a place that sells it. Anyway, I was pretty pleased with the result, consider the taste and texture of the bread was aromatic, soft and chewy inside. The best is to go with fermented butter. It's REALLY good. I saw both Meidi-ya and Isetan supermarket are selling the Japanese fermented butter, but at a very high price. I'm sure there are many people who enjoy good bread and butter, they wouldn't mind paying....

.

Ingredients:

French Bread Flour 250g

Salt 5g

Lemon Juice 2g

Malt Sugar 1g

Yeast 2g

Warm Water 160g

.

Method:

1. Simple combine everything using a stand mixer or by hands.

2. Knead the dough to smooth and springy state, return the dough to the mixing bowl ,cover the dough and let it rise in a warm place (35'c ).

3. When the dough has reach double the volume, punch out the air and form the dough into ball shape. Let the dough have a second rise, for about 30 minutes.

4. Cut the dough into 2 portions (or you may make few smaller french rolls), let them relax for 15 minutes, and shape them into Batards. (or any other shape you prefer). Place the shaped loaf on baking tray and let it have the final rise for one hour or reach double the volume.

5. Spray some water on the ready bake dough and give the dough a slit or two (do these before the dough going in the oven). Bake it in pre heat oven 220'c for 30 minutes.

6. Cool the bread on wire rack.

Cinnamon Roll

. A very light touch of icing.

. Ready to bake.

Final shaping.

Never really been a cinnamon roll fan, even I find the smell of it is wonderful every time I past by those cinnamon roll shops. I gave the recipe a try last night, and I get to adjust the amount of cinnamon to my liking. I find it really not bad after all.

The bread is actually a butter roll bun recipe, and all I need was just transform it to cinnamon roll by adding others to make it one. Instead of making the cinnamon sugar according to the recipe, I used the cinnoman toast sugar my hubby brought from William Sonoma's. And I have tried making the butter rolls with this recipe, and I must say it's gorgeous result too. I didn't make a heavy icing for the topping as I am not much of a sweet tooth. I guess my cinnamon roll doesn't really look like a cinnamon roll.

.

Ingredients: (make 6 small rolls)

.

Bread Flour 150g

Sugar 15g

Salt 2g

Yeast 3g

Egg 15g

Butter 15g

Warm Water 75g

.

Topping:

Butter 5g (melted)

Sugar 15g

Cinnamon powder (your own liking)

Sugar Icing : Icing sugar 100g + Water 20g , mix to form a sticky thick icing.

.

Method:

1. Mix all ingredients to form a rough dough, and bring out to work top and knead by hands till it's smooth and springy. Let dough rise till double the volume.

2. Bring dough on work top and give it a gentle knead and fold in the sides to form a rectangular shape, then let it rest for 15 minutes. (cover the dough, to prevent dry)

3. Roll the dough flat and get the rectangular shape of 18cm x 23cm. Brush on the melted butter and sprinkle both cinnamon and sugar. Roll up the dough like a Swiss roll, and cut 6 rolls out and shape them in 3's (like the pictures) , or you may put them in individual cups lined with cup cake papers. Let them rise on a lined and oiled baking sheet, for 30-40 minuted.

4. Brush on egg wash and bake rolls in 180'c pre heated oven for 15 minutes. Cool the baked rolls on wire rack and drizzle with icing.

Cocoa Chiffon

I have this really soft and jello texture cocoa chiffon recipe from one of my chiffon recipe books. Saw the post of Sweet & Love of her chocolate chiffon, that makes me wanna make one and blog it to share this great recipe with with everybody.

.

Wish I could take better pictures of this cake. But...... I hope if anyone try out this recipe, do give me a feed back.

.

Ingredients:

.

Egg yolk 3

Sugar 80g

Veggie Oil 40ml

Water 60ml

Flour 45g

Cocoa Powder (unsweetened) 30g

Baking powder 1/2 tsp

Egg white 5

.

Method:

1. Mix yolks, half of the sugar(40g), water and oil till sugar is dissolved. Sieve in the rest of the dry ingredients and mix well to form a batter.

2. Beat egg white till foamy, add in sugar(40g) in 3 additions, till it's stiff.

3. Mix 1/4 of the egg white to cocoa batter and blend in well. Gently mix in the rest of the egg white to the batter and fold them really well. Pour batter into a 17cm chiffon tin. Bake at 180'c for 30 minutes.

4. Invert the cake to cool on wire rack. Cut the cake when it's totally cooled.

Floral Cream Cake

While I was clearing my fridge, I found this precious flowers still sitting in the fridge,that I bought from Tsukiji market more than one week ago. My heart sank when I saw only a few of them are still fresh and bright. So I know it's time to do something. So happen that, one of my latest additions (recipe books) has this cake deco with the same edible flowers. I whipped up the sponge and......

.

I'm pretty pleased with the result though my skill of icing and deco the cake still far from what the book is shown. Well, at least I did not let the pretty flowers go to waste.