Sesame Seeds & Garlic Buns

Sigh! What shall we have for breakfast tomorrow? After browsing my recipes files, decided to bake these buns as I've all the ingredients on hand. I'd used corn oil in place of the butter called for in the "basic sweet bun dough".

My house was filled with the delicious aroma from the garlic bread...

Sesame Seeds & Garlic Buns (Make 8 buns)

Ingredient:

1 qty "basic sweet bun dough"

For garlic mixture:

100g butter (softened), 5 pips garlic (finely chopped)

1/2 tbsp parsley (chopped), 1/2 tsp salt (I used spring onion i/o parsley)

For Topping:

100g white sesame seeds

For glazing:

1 egg (beaten)

Method:

1. To make garlic mixture: Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend well.

2. Leave the dough in a big bowl, covered with a damp cloth. Let it proof in a warm place for 30 minutes until double in size. Scale dough at 80g portions and shape into balls.

3. Leave them to rest for 10 minutes. Flatten and roll out each ball of dough into a long shape. Glaze with egg and coat surface with white sesame seeds.

4. Place them on a greased baking tray. Cover and proof for the 3rd rising, taking about 45 minutes. Slit top and spread in garlic mixture. Baked in a preheated oven at 180 deg C for 15-20 minutes till golden. Cool well on wire rack.

Enjoy!

Recipe source: Bread Magic

Look at how my younger son enjoying his bread :))

Another Hot Dog Buns

This is my family's favourite bun. Made this countless times! :) Wanted to share with others that you can actually use corn oil in place of butter for bread (much healthier). This is my findings after trying with loaves and buns. I see no different in texture of the bread if corn oil is used.

Recipe as follows:

(Make 16 buns)

Ingredient A:

300g bread flour (I add abt 2 tbs more - add 1 tbs at a time)

1/2 tsp salt

1+1/2 tbsp milk powder

50g caster sugar

Ingredient B:

125ml water

1+1/2 tsp instant yeast

1 egg

Ingredient C:

40g butter (I use 40g corn oil)

For glazing:

1 egg (Beaten)

For filling

8 pieces chicken sausages/frankfurters (halved)

Some chilli sauce, some dried Rosemary (bottled) (I use tomato sauce)

Method:

1. To make bread dough: Combine ingredient A in a mixer and mix well. Add in ingredient B and beat till a dough is formed. Add in ingredient C and beat till dough is smooth and elastic to the touch.

2. Leave dough in a big bowl, covered with a damp cloth. Let it rise in a warm place for 35 minutes until double its original size. Divide dough into 35g portions. Flatten and roll out each portion dough into a longish shape. Place a halved sausage roll in the centre, roll up and seal. Arrange on a greased tray, well spaced apart. Cover and rest for the next 40 minutes until buns double in size once again.

3. Glaze with beaten egg wash and decorate with a spread of chilli sauce. Sprinkle some dried Rosemary on top. Bake buns in a preheated oven @ 180 deg C for 15 minutes. Cool well on a wire rack.

Recipe source: Bread Magic

While waiting for the buns to cool off, my sons asked for the buns. :)

My first cookies

My very first cookies in my whole life! I'm not a cookie lover, but my family members are, especially my husband. These cookies are my "trial" preparation for our chinese new year ;)

After blog hopping here and there, decided to use this recipe from Florence-Do what I like. Was very sure my husband will like the feeling of "melt in your mouth" :) True enough, he liked it except that..... the coarse peanut was not crunchy enough!!! :( Next time round, I'll just omit this ingredient.

As it was my first time baking cookies, I didn't find it easy to use the bottlecap method. I simply round it and flatten them a bit, that's why they are of different shapes! haha ;)

Wonder why the cookies cracked like that? Was it consider overbaked? Was it the oven temp? or the oil wasn't enough? How to make them uniform shapes ? :(

Banana Cake

Had been very busy for the past few days as my eldest son just started his primary school education. I basically ran up an down: sending him to school, went to the school again to observe the buddy system and fetching him home. Very tiring :(



He's in the afternoon session. For the first 3 days: all P1 students begin their lessons at 2.00 pm and end at 5.00 pm; during their recess, parents are allowed in the school to observe the buddy system. The buddy system works in such a way whereby all P1 students are paired with a P2 student during the recess to help them to buy food, showing them around, and "stick" to them at all times! Luckily, my boy's buddy was very responsible, according to my observation :)




Trying to clear my leftover bananas in my fridge and decided to bake a banana cake. After browsing my recipes file, I decided to use this recipe from here as I have all the ingredients on hand. Furthermore, it uses fresh milk instead of my normal bake using yogurt. Another good reason is: just whisk and stir, no need to use mixer :)



However, I added more mashed bananas than required (abt 375 gm total: including slices on top). I also add a teaspoon of vanilla powder as I simply love the smell of vanilla in my cake :)

My husband and sons love it! My eldest son even asked,"Mummy, can I bring this on Monday as my snack?" ;) I believe adding the "extras" mashed bananas help! The cake is moist and the sweetness is just right.

The next time I want to make banana cake this will be the recipe I'll turn to! :)

Wholemeal Buns

Sigh! Just noticed that the fresh milk I bought last week is expiring today!!! (Now, why didn't I check properly in the first place???)


Another recipe taken from "Bread Magic" : Wholemeal Bread. However, I replaced the iced water with fresh milk and shortening for butter. Instead of the egg glazing, I used a cooking oil with blend of carrot, that's why the orange coating on the buns.




May be because of the milk and butter, these buns tasted exceptional even on its own! I think my oven temperature is quite erratic, because the outercrust is slightly on the hard side. But, my younger son liked it very much. Next time will use less oil for coating because it's kind of oily...! :-( Overall, this is a good wholemeal bread to make again :) But I may not bake it often because my husband's tummy can't take "wholewheat".... and I can't much either!

Hot dog buns

Made these buns on Wednesday for our next morning breakfast and lunch! These are my kids' all time favourite. Think most kids love hot dog buns, though I would steer clear most of the time. :) I used a combination of chicken hot dog and some german sausages bought from ntuc.


I follow the recipe from "Bread Magic" except that I used a frozen sweet bun dough which I'd kneaded and kept in the freezer for close to 2 weeks. Well, after searching in the web I discovered that you can actually freeze the dough. The dough will rise in the fridge. And as it thaws, it will go through its first rise.





Sometimes, I just feel a bit lazy to let the mixer knead the dough everyday. So I would just double the quantity of the recipe. However, if you consider all the washing and clearing, this is one way of killing one bird with two stones. Haha! Lazy lazy me!

Low-fat Orange Almond Yogurt Cake

Bought a tub of yogurt not long ago. As the expiry date is getting nearer, have to find ways to use it fast...

I had tried this recipe from Happy Home Baker quite a few times. Each time the cake was well-received by my family (my kids simply love it!) and others.

For your info, I'm not adventurous in cake baking. The cakes I usually baked are either Yogurt cake or Chiffon cake, quite boring... :( And I'm still struggling with beating egg whites.... :(

Anyway, made this cake today. However, made some modification to the original recipe.

Ingredients:

250g cake flour

1 tsp vanilla powder (I added this cos' I love vanilla!)

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

70g butter (soften @ room temp)

zest of 1 orange

160g caster sugar (original recipe calls for 200g of sugar)

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup plain, non-fat yogurt

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 tbs orange juice

Some Almond slices - I toasted the almond slices. Thought that may bring out the flavour

better

Method:

1. Preheat oven @ 180 deg C. Grease a 20 cm (8 inch) round pan.

2. Sift: cake flour, vanilla powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

3. In a bowl, mix together: yogurt, vanilla essence and orange juice.

4. With an electric mixer, beat butter and orange zest for 1 min.

Add in sugar and beat on high speed for about 3 mins.

5. Add in eggs gradually, abt 1 tbs at a time, beating constantly for about 2 mins .

6. On low speed, beat in 1/3 of the flour mixture;

On medium high speed, beat in 1/2 of the yogurt mixture;

On low speed, beat in half of the remaining flour mixture;

On high speed, beat in the remaining yogurt mixture;

On low speed, beat the rest of the flour mixture.

7. Scrape into prepared pan and bake for 45 mins or until a toothpick inserted into the centre

comes out clean.

PS: I almost forgot about the almond slices until I'd poured the batter into the pan. Anyway,

put the almond slices into the pan and gave it a stir.

The cake took another 10 mins to bake partly becos' I place an aluminium foil on top

to prevent it from browning too quickly. Did you notice? my cake is not brown on top.

I let the cake cool in the pan for about 20 mins. Thereafter, umould and let it cool on a

wire rack.

The cake tasted soft and light hmm.... My younger son requested for a piece during the cooling period....

However, husband remarked that it wasn't that sweet and the sweetness was uneven (centre sweet, side not that sweet!!) as compared with the previous cake! :( I used lemon instead of orange the last few times., exactly 160g sugar leh...) What a picky eater..... :(

Nonetheless, my kids said YUM,YUM,YUM! :))