Cheese Potato Bread 乳酪洋芋香草面包

Made a batch of these bread buns for breakfast a few days ago.

Recipe as follows:

(Make 12 pieces)

Ingredients A:Bread Flour 300g
Castor Sugar 15g
Instant Yeast 6g
Water 165cc
Egg 30cc

Ingredients B:
Salt 5.4g
Milk powder 6g
小茴香 3g (I omitted this.)

Ingredient C:
Unsalted Butter 15g


Ingredient D:
Shredded Cheese 150g


Fillings:Mashed potato 200g
Bacon 60g
Onion 10g
Salt - some
Pepper - some
Parsley flakes - some


Others:Egg - for glazing
Shredded cheese - for topping


Method:

1. Use your basic kneading of dough: Add ingredients A,B,C & D to form a dough.

2. After the first fermentation, punch out the gas, weigh the dough and cut into 12 equal pieces.

3. Round each dough into balls with seams side down. Cover with a damp cloth and let it proof for 20 minutes.

4. For filling:
a) Sweat out the oil in the bacon in a frying pan till crispy. Chop into small pieces
b) Cut and chop onion into small pieces.
c) Fry the onion till fragrant. Add the bacon pieces till combined with onion. Dish up.
d) Add in the mashed potato. Stir till well combined with the onion bacon pieces.
e) Add salt, pepper and parsley till well combined. Set aside to cool.

5. After 20 minutes of proofing, take out one dough. Using your hand, flatten the sides of the dough. With the centre of the dough protruding up, lightly press out the gas.

6. Add in about 25g of the fillings, seal and wrap up into a ball.

7. With the sealed side down, put the shaped doughs onto a baking tray. Slightly press to flatten them a little. Final proofing: 20 to 30 minutes (with humidity: 85%)

8. After the final proofing, use a scissor to cut a small cross in the centre of the dough.

9. Glaze with egg wash and top them with some shredded cheese.

10. Bake in a preheated oven @ 180 deg C for 15 minutes.

These buns smell very nice when fresh from the oven. However, we found it a tad too salties.......:( But the next day, it wasn't that salties, strange! I passed a few of them to my sisters, niece and nephews. They tried and commented that they were very nice and not salties at all!! One of my nephew thought it was a store-bought one! :D If you're trying, may be you want to reduce the shredded cheese quantity which is incorporated in the dough.



Recipe source: <曾美子教你第一次做面包>

Homemade Chwee Kueh (水粿)

This is one of the many chinese snacks I like, Chwee Kueh. Made of rice flour and part of corn flour. The texture of this snack should be soft and "Q". Most important part of this snack is the topping: preserved raddish. The raddish must be crunchy! The soft & Q chwee kueh with the crunchiness of raddish make this snack taste heavenly.

Recipe is taken from Fenying's Blog. But I'm very puzzled why the recipe called for the preserved raddish (菜脯) to be cooked in 500g of water till tender!?

However, I did not follow her method of cooking the 菜脯. Being born as a hakka, I know how this 菜脯 should be cooked. Afterall, 菜脯 is one of our dish in 擂茶. :)

By the way, I bought the 菜脯 in strips and chopped them into small pieces before frying them. Find that those ready-minced type does not have the crunch and bites. If you intend to buy, choose those that are "sweet". I can assure you your 菜脯 will taste delicious. This 菜脯 can also fry with eggs and goes very well with your plain porridge.

Ham & Cheese Buns

Our breakfast this morning.

Original recipe yield 19 pcs. I half the quantity to suit my family.

Recipe as follows: (yield about 10 pcs)

Ingredients A:
Bread flour 250g
Castor sugar 50g
Salt 3g
Instant Yeast 5g
Butter 25g (I use corn oil)
Egg 25g
Water 125g

Ingredients B:
Ham (Shredded)
Cheese slice 5 pcs (cut into half: triangle)
Some almond slices (for decoration)
Some mayonnaise (for piping)
Egg (for glazing)

Method:

1. Use your basic kneading process.
2. Once dough double, punch out the gas, divide into 50g each.
3. Round them up to form a ball. Rest for 5 mins. (I let them rest for 10-15 mins)
4. Slightly flatten the dough and wrap some shredded ham.
5. Round them up again. Using a rolling pin, roll them into a round shape.
6. Send them for proofing. (About 45 mins)
7. After the proofing, glaze with egg wash, place a piece of cheese on top.
8. Piped some mayonnaise across. Sprinkle some almond slices on top.
9. Bake in a preheated oven @ 200 deg C for about 15 mins. (I think about 12 mins is enough.)
I think because of my oven temperature, my buns always turn out to be a little on the brown side. :( But anyway, these buns were very yummy! My little son wanted me to make again! :D


Recipe source <简易家庭面包制作> by 王志雄/游纯雄.

Minced Meat with Long Beans 长豆肉末

A simple dish that goes very well with plain porridge or multi-grain porridge (杂粮粥). A dish that my kids finish in no times! Even my little son who usually doesn't like to eat porridge finished his meal in record times. :D

Recipe as follows:

Ingredients:
Minced Meat 80g
Long Beans 300g
Garlic 2 pcs (minced)
Red chillies 1 pc (minced)

Seasonings A:
Corn starch 1/2 tsp,
Water 1 tbsp

Seasonings B:
Dark Soy Sauce 1 tbsp
Salt 1/2 tsp
Sugar 1/4 tsp


Method:

1. Remove the head and tail of long beans before washing. Blanch the long beans in hot water for a while before dishing up. Cut into bite size.

2. Minced the garlic; Remove the stalk of the red chilli and chop into small pieces.

3. Standby Seasoning A: mix corn starch with water.

4. In a wok heat up 3 tbsp of oil, saute garlic, add minced meat and fry for a while.

5. Add in long beans, fry for a while. Add 2 tablespoon of water and braise for 3 minutes.

6. Add Seasoning B and red chilli and continue frying. Pour in Seasoning A to thicken. Dish up and serve.



Recipe source: 美味粥配小菜


You can omit the red chilli if you wish. But actually the red chilli add more "kick" to this dish.
Frankly speaking, the red chilli wasn't that hot as I'd removed most of the seeds.



One more delicious side dish anyone can cook: Szechuan vegetable fried with meat.

Tuna & Ham Buns

Made this as our breakfast.

This recipe is quite interesting: the flattened dough was first filled with ham, roll up swiss roll style, fold up one end to the other and cut up from the centre, after that pull out the cut side. With the cut side up, the dough was sent for final proofing. Thereafter, glazed with egg wash and filled the centre with tuna mayonnaise.




Of course my "gongfu" for shaping dough was not up to standard as compared to the two expert baker lah!

Once the buns were out from the oven, I tried piping some tomato sauce on top. Look more appetizing with the tomato sauce, right?

My three testers at home gave thumb-up for these buns. :)

Original recipe yields 19 pieces. (I half the quantity which yield 9 pcs, just nice for the four of us.)

Ingredients:

Bread flour 500g

Caster sugar 80g

Salt 6g

Dry yeast 10g (I used instant yeast)

butter 30g

Egg 50g

Water 250g

Filling A : Ham, glazed egg wash

Filling B:

Tuna 100g [I use 1 whole can of tuna flake (in water)]

Celery 20g (I omitted)

Mayonnaise 40g

Onion 20g

Black pepper 3g

Note: I find that the quantity given for filling B is too little. So I made more or "agar agar". I'm sure you can use store bought one if you think is too much work to make your own tuna mayo. I like to try making my own as I find that store-bought one tends to have more mayo.:(

I use my normal kneading method as the basic dough kneading method in the book is quite long!

Method:

1. Use your basic kneading process.

2. Once dough double, punch out the gas, divide into 50g each.

3. Round them up to form a ball. Rest for 5 mins. (I let them rest for 10-15 mins)

4. Flatten the shaped dough and place a piece of ham on top.

5. Roll up swiss roll style. Fold up one end to the other.

6. Using a cutter, cut the centre of the fold up dough.

7. Open up the cut dough with the cut side up.

8. Send for proofing. (about 45 mins to 1 hour)

9. After proofing, glaze with egg wash and spread a layer of tuna mayonnaise on top.

10. Baked in a preheated oven @ 200 deg C for about 15 mins.

11. Once out of the oven, piped some tomato sauce on top.

One thing I like about this book is: most of the recipes are shown step-by-step. It even showed the length & width of the shaped dough before and after proofing. For example this tuna ham buns, before the 2nd proofing, the length is about 8cm, the width is about 6 cm. After proofing, the length is about 10cm with the width 8 cm. This allows me to gauge whether my shaped dough is proofing correctly or not.

Recipe source <简易家庭面包制作> by 王志雄/游纯雄.

Steam Banana Cake

Ever since I came across this "Steam Banana Cake" from Amanda, it went straight into my top to-do list for banana cake. The reason being: its healthier and will be ready within minutes.

I made this yesterday morning to supplement part of our lunch. Like Amanda, I also made this into muffin cups. And they all turn out very well: soft, light and fluffy and not too sweet! My elder son brought one piece to school as his snack. :) As for my husband, he gave a thumb-up: very nice!

Think because I used pure olive oil that's why the appearanec so creamy!

This will be our regular steam cake from now on.... :)

Pandan Red Beans Cupcake Bread

This was our breakfast a couple of days ago. Made this using a sweet buns recipe from "Bread Magic".

The original recipe is called "Sesame Seeds Pandan Scroll". Since I do not have any ring mould to hold the shape, I decided to replace it with paper cupcake just like my peanut butter cupcake bread. This time round I used a better cupcake to hold the dough. And the bread turned out very nice: taller with full body! :))

However, I did some modifications to the recipe:
1. For the sweet buns:
- I used half bread flour and half cake flour.
- I added a teaspoon of pandan paste to the dough during kneading.
- I used a coffee red beans paste

Recipe as follows: (Make 11 pieces)
Ingredient:
1 quantity "basic sweet bun dough

For Filling:
250g pandan bean paste
Some white sesame seeds

For glazing: 1 egg (beaten)
Method:
1. Leave dough in a big bowl, covered with a damp cloth. Proof for 30 minutes in a warm place till it double in size.
2. Scale dough at 55g portions each. Shape into a small balls, rest for 10 minutes.
3. Flatten and roll out each ball of dough. Put in some bean paste filling. Seal and wrap. Then roll it flat once more. Cut an opening in the middle and invert dough to the exterior, glaze with egg wash, coat with sesame seeds.
4. Place on a greased tray, enclose each portion with a 2.5" greased ring mould. Leave to proof for 45 minutes. (You don't have to grease the tray if you're using paper cupcake.)
5. Bake in the middle layer of a preheated oven at 180 deg C for 12-15 minutes. Remove moulds. Cool bread on a wire rack. (For using paper cupcake: remove the paper cupcake and cool well on wire rack. If you like, put the bread back to the cupcake once the bread has cooled well.)
My elder son liked it very much that he brought it as his snack during his school recess. He remarked that the coffee red beans tasted like chocolate!
Unlike those store-bought buns which are light and airy (and I mean really light and airy!) , these bread buns are solid “ 扎实” and moist. The sweetness from the red beans paste is just right to our liking.
Recipe source: Bread Magic by Alan Ooi