Happy Easter! Today's Bakes

Yes, after the frenzy of baking CNY cookies, I haven't baked as much as today. I started weighing ingredients at 7.10 am and within 10 minutes the breadmaker started working. I decided to follow Cocoa's Hokkaido Milk Loaf recipe (using Meiji Fresh Milk and Bulla Thickened Cream). I had consulted Rei yesterday on how to incoporate the last of my TZ (starter dough). The recipe worked beautifully and the bread was soft and tasty even on its own. I had also added 50g of butter as Cocoa had commented that the loaf lacked the taste of butter. Thank God I didn't spoil the recipe...

For the first batch, I took some dough out, hoping to wrap the remaining chocolate paste from yesterday. The dough was the softest I've encountered so far! I gingerly rolled the chocolate in the dough and placed each into a muffin pan. Then I realised that I had shaped the first one too big, so I went on to make the rest much smaller (to allow them to raise to fill 80% of the cavity). When hubbs tasted it, he said that it tasted like something fried. I had that impression when I took the first bite too! Could have been the butter, the crust was very crispy! It tasted yummy too, wonder how it would taste tomorrow. I rolled the remaining dough and placed it in a loaf pan to bake. As I unmoulded it, I dented the bottom, the loaf was that soft! I will leave you to savour the pictures.


See how I disfigured the bottom of the loaf? And the bun is oooh so soft and tasty.

I was so happy with this recipe that I decided to bake another loaf. Besides, I had more than half a bottle of thickened cream in the fridge. I have been looking through my collection of recipes for something which calls for cream, but haven't found anything suitable. The 2 likeliest candidates are the Banana Cake or Cocoa Puff Cream Cake but I don't have the necessary ingredients ready. Perhaps someone can share some ideas? But I'm glad I tried the same recipe again, this time I used the breadmaker to bake. The loaf eventually was given to the owner of the breadmaker...

While the loaf was in process, my girl kept bugging me to make Fairy Cakes from a children's cookbook of hers. In the morning, I had soaked some raisins in rum and thought it would be quite interesting to bake a little more of this fairy cakes and incoporate the rum and raisins. I'm glad I did that, the cupcakes are delicious!

Many who know me are surprised that I am so domesticated lately. They cannot imagine how much I've changed and it's true, I'm surprised myself. I've lost interest for shopping, except for baking related stuff :D I had all the time to bake today as hubbs had to go for his company football tournament all morning. We didn't go for mass until evening...

Chocolate er... Swirl Bread?

The smell of chocolate fills the air, lovely… however I’m praying that the bread will turn out alright. I’m not just referring to the taste as I know it will taste fine, it’s the texture I’m referring to. See the photos below and you’ll see why and where I'd gone wrong …



Alright, it was supposed to be Florence's chocolate wassant, I had followed the recipe exactly... except that I had under-cooked the chocolate paste. I know now it's supposed to be dry or lumpy. Mine was thick but rather runny. I thought it would harden in the fridge, well, it didn't. I have some more paste left, wonder what I'll do with it, hmmm. Back to my harrowing experience with the chocolate paste.

Thanks to rei, she gave me a lot of tips via msn. I should have changed strategy when I found that the paste was still runny even after spending 30 mins in the freezer. Should have switched to buns but I had already rolled the dough into one fairly large square. Besides, the chocolate paste was already all over the dough.

As I was rolling the dough initially, I remembered what rei had told me earlier about it not being necessary to “punch” the dough – there were lots of air pockets! When I rolled over them, I could hear (and feel) them bursting, so interesting. Anyway, I tried to wrap the chocolate paste inside the dough, it was still ok until I started to roll to flatten the dough. It broke and chocolate oozed out! It was then that I knew it was a gone case. I quickly went on to msn to see if rei was online and she was! After briefly telling her, she told me that since I had done second proofing I had not much choice but to bake it.

So, I put it into the oven and it rose to a monstrous loaf! But it didn't look half as bad as I had imagined, thank God! Can you imagine, I had started out with Florence’s chocolate wassant recipe, then got lazy and changed my mind? I decided to make a chocolate swirl bread like HHB’s and this is the result. Disaster or success, you be the judge… gosh, the smell was heavenly! (when I was typing this post). This was how the loaf looked when I unmoulded it.



I went out after removing the loaf from the pan. When I came back some 3 hours later, I cut the loaf. I was amazed at my own patience actually. This was what I saw, and it tasted quite good really :) I think I will give it another try *thumbs up*

My Own 65 deg C Loaf

It seems that Tang Zhong (or water roux method) is the craze lately in the baking blog community. I was mesmerised by Florence's post, and decided to use this same recipe to start my adventure.

As it was Maundy Thursday and I had to rush out to church, I quickly did the starter dough and cooled it in the fridge. I used this time to meaure the ingredients for the loaf, and when the starter dough was cool enough, I dumped everything into the breadmaker - wet ingredients in first, followed by the dry ones. Last in, yeast of course.

When I got back at 10 pm, there was still 1.5 hours to go! That meant it would be almost midnight before the bread could be ready. I should have set the timer instead. That way, we would have freshly baked bread on the morning of Good Friday.

Not long after baking started, I thought something was amiss... a thin layer had formed. Instinctively, I wanted to open the cover and burst that (huge) bubble. Then I stopped myself, may be the rest would rise eventually. Of course, it didn't. When I unmoulded the bread, the thin crust broke. There was a depression at the top of the loaf. I left it in my room to cool as it was still too warm to close the container's cover.

When I cut the loaf the next morning, I was disappointed yet again. Instead of a fluffy and spongy texture, I thought it was soft (no doubt) but elastic or felt plastic-ky. I knew it would be rejected by my picky eaters, so I had it steamed. Along with it, I also steamed a few of the chocolate milk buns. Steaming helped to soften the bread, but must be consumed as soon as it is removed from the steamer. After cooling, it's back to the rubbery texture. My boy loved the white loaf very much, as he had dipped it in half-boiled egg.

This left me thinking, the entire process was done in the breadmaker. So far, the only real success I can credit myself with, is the yogurt bread. Those were absolutely perfect buns and earned praises from everyone who tasted them. I began to wonder if that success was not to be repeated. Perhaps, practice makes perfect still rings true...

Passionfruit or Lemon?

Ok, these are supposedly Lemon Cream Cheese Cupcakes. I saw them from My Culinary Journal and remembered that there was still a tub of cream cheese bread in the fridge. As I am tired from baking bread, (also not sure how we are going to finish the chocolate milk buns) I wanted to bake cake. Not that I am very good at it, but it is something so familiar to me. I started baking cakes as a teenager, although not very often then. That's why I can pick up a recipe and just bake.

While taking the butter and cream cheese out of the fridge, I saw that there were still 2 passionfruits left. I told myself to try adding some of the pulp to the cupcakes just to try. I like the result, very much. The tartness of the passionfruit balanced out the sweetness of the cupcakes. And boy, was the cupcake soft and fluffy! Guess with so much egg in so little flour, that somehow guarantees softness.

I am so grateful that I attended Gina's baking class last month. At that lesson, the butter cuddled when eggs were added. This happened for ALL the different mixing bowls. We just added flour and the cakes turned out well. The good thing about that happening in class was that when cuddling happens to me, I can still stay calm. I would simply add flour and mix, remembering not to overmix. The mixture, and the cake eventually, turned out alright tonight, like they did previously.

It's another recipe worthy of repeated attempts. It's really much faster baking cakes -- from the time I started till the time I kept the cupcakes, it took a little less than 2 hours!

Oh, only put passionfruit on 3 cupcakes. The rest are original flavoured Lemon Cream Cheese Cupcakes. This is how they look, the cake dropped a little when they were removed from the oven. While in the oven, they were as tall as the cup.

Chocolate Milk Buns

I was toying with an idea, and after some consultation with Rei, the idea for a chocolate milk bun was conceived. She had suggested that I add cocoa powder to plain milk instead of using chocolate flavoured milk. I have always wanted to try the Hokkaido Milk Loaf since I first read about it on Happy Home Baking. I dashed off after work to get Bulla Thickened Cream just for this. There is still so much cream left, looks like we'll be having lots of this loaf, plus the cream cheese bread too.

As I don't like the thick crust created by the breadmaker, I decided to bake the bread in the oven. Part of the reason was also due to time constraint. By the time the dough was ready for baking, it was almost 10 pm. I had miscalculated earlier while trying to hurry. I had wanted to let the breadmaker run 20 minutes of the dough cycle, add butter and run the whole 1.5 hours of the dough cycle. If I had done that, I would have started to bake probably around 9.30 pm. I thought after a while that it would be much faster if I just let the machine ran the white bread cycle and bake as well. So I stopped the machine, change to function 1 and started. But it just wouldn't start, as the temperature inside was too high! OMG, I had to wait for almost 10 minutes before it could start again. I was worried that the dough would start to ferment. I guess for bread, there isn't much harm in over-kneading? Or is there? I won't know till someone tries the bread.

After I took the dough out, I rolled and pressed it to get rid of air, as suggested by Rei. After putting them into the pan, I didn't want to take the chance to proof it in room temperature. It was already past 9 pm then. So I set the oven at 40 deg C, placed a bowl of water inside beside the loaf pan. Thank God the dough rose to almost 80% of the loaf pan's height. I almost gave up waiting as I was worried that the dough would bake in there! Unfounded fear anyway, as I thought the temperature inside the breadmaker felt higher than that inside the oven.

I quickly removed the loaf pan and water, brushed the top with some milk and sprinkled some sugar while the oven was preheating. Then I baked it for 25 minutes at 180 deg C. While it was baking, I could smell the aroma, probably of the chocolate and milk. Finally, the baking was done and I removed it from the oven and then the pan. I was worried, as the top of the bread felt really hard. I thought perhaps the dough was over-kneaded or over-baked. To hasten the cooling, I broke the buns up. I could not resist and tore off some "membrane" to taste. There was no hint of chocolate at all, but the bread was fluffy and soft! No wonder it's a favourite among so many.

I had originally intended to add some chocolate chips when I shaped them into smaller balls. It was in the oven proofing before I remembered about the chocolate chips. Next time may be. Rei also told me that she tried making chocolate flavoured SWEET buns. I shall look up some sweet bun recipes to see how to improve on my chocolate flavoured bread, it's a request of my boy. Hope he would eat this bread tomorrow morning...

The verdict (19 Mar): Bread is not soft at all! Must have overdone the dough ...
Taste Test (21 Mar, Good Friday): I steamed the bread this morning and they were soft again. Guess steaming (or maybe toasting) will always help. Once cool, not that good again :(

Cocoa Puff Cream Cake

This is not the first time I made the Cocoa Puff Cream Cake, it's such an easy cake to put together, with no additional sugar. It is an amazing gift for anyone. Also one impressive desert to serve your guests. Best of all, there is no need to bake! Someone even thought that it was an ice-cream cake!

I did this as I had so much whipping cream left. That's right, I replaced the cream portion with non-diary whipping cream. Fortunately, when I bought the non-diary whipping cream from the supermarket, it was partially frozen! Had I not found it frozen, I might have put the balance in the freezer!

I made 3 portions of this and gave one to my sister-in-law. I received a message from her that her little dd was feasting on the cake tonight. I gave another away to my group of regular tasters and haven't heard from them yet. Oh, another thing, I changed cocoa puff to coconut puff. I think that cocoa puff tastes better. Give it a try. Florence has photos of all the important ingredients on her blog. Have fun impressing your friends and guests. They will never know the humble origins of this wonderful cake.

Cute or What?

So, what do you think? I thought it looks so cute.

Ok, I cheated. Only the presentation fits the big project description. Considering this is my third attempt at baking bread, taking the dough out of the breadmaker and transferring it to another pan in so many parts, that took some guts. I really "killed two birds with one stone" with this. It is actually yogurt bread and for convenience, I followed the recipe on sweet-tooth haven's blog.

I think her idea of setting the machine to dough function for 10 minutes, add butter, and then continue with white bread function really rocks. I was amazed to see the machine "knocking" and "slamming" the dough about! When I added the butter, I had a shock. The butter was all over the pan BUT on/in the dough. I kept scraping the butter and trying to make it stick to the dough. After a while, the butter was incorporated in the dough. What followed was pure estimation and checking back and forth -- breadmaker manual, recipe collection and my one and only book on breadmaking :P

When do I take the dough out? How should I punch the dough? How to cut the dough? How long to bake it? Omg, so many things to figure out. But I just went ahead based on instinct anyway. When my girl saw me having fun, she came to join in as well. We both thought it was very cute and she said she wished to eat it then. Already during that stage, the fragrance of the yogurt was in the air. I highly recommend Swiss Premium yogurt, it is not overly sweet and it works well with all recipe. The other brands of yogurt tend to have a strong smell.

Needles to say, while it was baking it was simply aromatic. Of course, I was worried about the temperature, baking time, and what have you. I decided to add another 5 minutes as the top was not brown enough. And then, the moment of truth, taste test! It was still too hot to hold, but boy, was the bread soft, and tasty too. I think I may just use the machine (if I get one of my own eventually) ro knead the dough and I will bake it in the oven. That way, I won't end up with a hole at on some part of the loaf, hard crust (even though I chose Light) and best of all, no cutting required. Of course, I need to learn/experiment a little more then.

I was so encouraged, I decided to make ANOTHER loaf using the same recipe. I used swiss premium berry flavoured yogurt with raisins for the first loaf and Marigold low-fat peach flavoured yogurt with raisins and apicot for the second loaf. I may try kwf's orange bread next. About the size of the second loaf, it's my girl's request, she wanted the buns to be bigger. I thought the small ones are so easy to eat, actually it can get out of control quite easily.

Cream Cheese Bread

First, let me thank everyone who has shared your experience and even helped to troubleshoot. As kwf pointed out, the bitter taste of the crunchy peanut butter loaf could be caused by the peanut butter. Thanks also to HHB and sweet-tooth for their encouragement and sharing too.

I went ahead to bake another loaf this evening. The cream cheese bread is another popular recipe on Kitchen Capers as well. As kwf uses the super duper Vita-Mix to knead the dough, I searched around for one that relies on the breadmaker. I found a few but used cocoa's recipe in the end. As I have a tub of cream cheese spread in the fridge, I used this instead. In my haste, I forgot to reduce salt. Fortunately, that didn't affect the overall taste much. I am surprised that after so many ingredients have been added, the bread tastes quite plain. I cannot imagine how much more have been added to commercial loaves! Fortunately, I haven't been eating a lot of bread lately (have to watch food intake after a certain age, sigh).

This loaf will be given to my parents, and I shall try to bake them a loaf every week, hopefully. My sister-in-law has also commissioned me to bake for her as well. I don't mind doing so really, the more practice I have, the better my skills will be. In any case, the work's done by the breadmaker anyway :P Do watch this space, I have in mind a rather interesting project for my current skills level...

Feedback from mom (21 Mar, Good Friday): Bread was very good, especially after toasting :)