Basic Bread Dough for variety of Sweet Buns

31.12.2014 - This is one of very useful Basic Bread Dough with a large quantity that can use for variety of sweet buns.  Recipe adapted from Kenneth Goh basic-bread-dough-recipe-and-plum-blossom-sausage-buns-  please click link for recipe.

I used Basic Bread Dough Recipe to make "Buttermilk Buns", "Mini Sausage Buns" and "Coconut Sweet Buns".  For buttermilk filling, please refers to butter-milk-buns recipe.   I bake at 180c Pre-heated oven for 25mins or until golden brown.

This dough can make any sweet buns you desire like pizza, redbean buns, hamburger, sausage buns, any sweet bread, doughnuts or hot dog buns etc... as  mentioned on Kenneth's blog.

For Mini Sausage Buns
4 sausages ( cut into half )
1 egg ( egg wash )
Sesame Seeds
Basic Bread dough

Use the same dough to roll up the sausage in any shape you desire, brush egg wash, sprinkle sesame seeds.  let it rest for 15mins and bake at  Pre-heated oven 190c for 35 minutes or until bread turn golden brown.


For Coconut Filling ( for 8 pcs ) 
125g freshly grated coconut
70g caster sugar
30g butter,softened
30g egg, lightly beaten

1. Mix everything together. Divide into 8 equal portions and keep in the fridge to use when needed.
2. Roll out dough in to disc shape, take one portion of filling and seal tightly and flatten it with the rolling pin and shape the buns using any method you desire.
4. Let rise for 15mins, lightly covered, until double in size on a lightly greased tray. When ready, brush with egg wash.
5. Bake in preheated 190°C oven for about 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Almond Peach Tart

Hi to all readers!! Im back to update my humble blog as i have too many recipes pilling up in my brain..hehe...and im running out of space!! got to share it with y'all.   I will starts from where i stopped last year December and will continue until today.  So i hope you all enjoy my blog and recipe.  Take Care and thank you for reading.

07.12.2014 - ( date is for my own record of cooking ).  Here i prepared a beautiful and delicious Almond Peach Tart, it was my 2nd time making this yummy tart.  Its simply delicious.

My Tart pastry recipe adapted from "The Complete Book of Baking" and for the Almond filling adapted from "Something Sweet - Food Lovers " cookbook.

FOR PASTRY / CRUST INGREDIENTS:-
190g All Purpose Flour
4ml salt
90g Cold Unsalted Butter, cut into pieces
1 egg yolk
40-45ml / 2 1/2 - 3tbsp ice water ( i used only 1tbsp ice water ) 

* For the pastry, sift flour and salt into a bowl.
* Add in cold butter and cut in with a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.  Stir in egg yolk and just enough water to bind the pastry.  Gather into a ball, wrap in baking parchment and chill for at least 20 minutes.
* On a floured surface, roll out the pastry to 3mm thick.  Transfer to a 24cm pie dish.
* Trim the edge, prick base and chill until need. Not needed blind bake.


FILLING INGREDIENTS:-
3 Eggs
150g Sugar ( i reduced to 120g ) 
150g heavy cream
2tbsp lemon juice
1tsp lemon zest
75g butter
150g Ground Almond
3-4 peaches ( i used 1/2 half canned of sweet peaches )
Almond Flakes, sprinkle - topping, optional
Dash of cinnamon powder, optional

* Meanwhile, put the eggs and sugar in a bowl and beat together until thick and foamy.  Stir in the cream, lemon juice and lemon zest and add the butter in small pieces.  Stand the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and beat with an mixer until thick and creamy.  Stir in the ground almonds.

* Drop the peaches into boiling water for a few seconds, then skin, halve, remove the pits ( stones ) and slice thinly.  If u canned peach, drain syrup and slice peaces into desire shape and size.

* Pre-heat the oven to 200c.

* Roll out pastry on floured work table and use to line 9-10" / 24- 26cm tart pan / tin, cut off the excess by rolling over the top of the pan with your rolling pan.  Line with a sheet of baking parchment and weight down with dried beans.  Bake in the oven for 20 minutes.  Remove the baking parchment and dried beans, set aside.  Spread the almond filling smoothly into the hot pastry shell and arrange peach slices attractively on top and * sprinkle with almond flakes and dash of cinnamon powder ( optional ).

* Bake at 180c for 1 hour and 30 minutes until the filling is set andlightly browned, but cover with foil if it browns too quickly.   Removed tart from oven, brush peach syrup on tart and leave to cool before serving with vanilla ice cream.

"Famous Amos" Chocolate Chips & Almond Cookies

27.10.2014 - Batam, This is the most taste alike Famous Amos Chocolate Chips Cookies so far.  I added almond and added chocolate powder to make the cookies taste more chocolaty. It taste great! you can add any nuts you want

'Famous Amos' Chocolate Chips & Almonds Cookies

Ingredients:
A)
Castor sugar 50g (I reduced to 30g)
Brown sugar 150g (120g)
Salt 1/4 tsp
Butter 120g
Shortening 30g (butter can substitute for shortening)

B)
Egg -1
Vanilla extract - 1/2 tsp

C)
Plain flour - 220g
Baking powder- 1/2tsp
Baking soda - 1/2tsp
(I added 10g cocoa powder)

D)
Choc chips- 250g
(  I added Almond chopped 52g )

Method:
1) Whisk together the flour,baking powder and baking soda. Soft and set dry ingredients aside.
2) Using hand mixer, beat (A) butter, shortening,castor sugar, brown sugar, and salt together. Add (B) and stir until smooth.
3) Add sifter (C) and mix well
4) Stir in (D).
5) Drop cookie dough by rounded teaspoons onto prepared baking sheet. shape into a bite size dome and dont press or flatten it. it will melt itself into a nice shape.
6) Bake at 170C for 15 minutes or until cookies are cooked.  i preheated and bake at 170c for 25minutes, for 6 batches of cookies.  out from oven, let it sits for 5 minutes and use a bread knife to scrub up the cookies, turn the cookies upside down to cool and once all cool, keep in air tight container or jar.

Pancakes quick Breakfast!

25.10.2014 - Batam.  Delicious morning breakfast quick pancakes for son.  Recipe fluffy-pancake

Japanese Cotton Cheesecake

Continue updating my blog, has been away from blogging for so long, busy cooking and baking away left my blog far behind.  im going to continue uploading all my cooking from where i stopped last year october 2014. :) i know its where..but i have to keep them all posted for my cooking record. Cheers to all and Happy New Year 2015.

16.10.2014 - Batam.  Bake a lovely Japanese cotton cheesecake for my mom and sisters came all the way from Msia-Spore-Batam for a short visit. Im using the same Japanese-cotton-cheesecake recipe on my blog few months ago.  You will find this recipe bake at 180c reduce temperature to 170c 17mins before finish.

I use such high temperature because my oven is not going to cook my cheesecake at 160c duration 1hr 30mins ( which i've ever tried and end up a half cooked cheesecake and very bad ) you may adjust your own oven temperature to gets a perfect japanese cheesecake baking.

Here are some pictures of the baking process.

Baked BBQ Meat Buns ( Seremban Siew Pau )

03.10.2014 - Nongsa, Batam.  Seeing so many post of Siew Pau, So i also wanna try, see if i could handle the challenging part.  It seems complicated at first, but when i was making it, it wasn't really that hard.  Just need a little patience and time to do everything from scratch, i have to grilled the chicken char siew earlier for the fillings and time consuming is the dough double folding.

I used two recipes for this whole BBQ buns making,  For ingredients, i picked Kenneth Goh baked-barbecue-pork-buns-or-sio-bao i did some modification with the filling instead of pork, i used chicken meat and for the mixing dough and folding method, i used My Kitchen Snippet crispy-bbq-bunssiew-bao recipe.

I know my buns are not perfect, but i hope this is the nearest look to the real Seremban siew pau! :) what do you think??

BAKED BBQ MEAT BUNS / SEREMBAN SIEW PAO  
Skin Recipe adapted from: 酥皮叉烧包
Servings: Prepare about 15 Sio Baos ( i managed to make 14pcs only )


Water Skin
200 grams of Plain flour
60 grams of vegetable shortening/Lard/cooking oil/butter
30 grams of castor sugar
1/4 teaspoons of salt
100 ml or grams of water
Oil Skin
150 grams of plain flour
100 grams of vegetable shortening/Lard/cooking oil/butter

Fillings
300 grams of diced barbecue pork （叉烧）( chicken )
200 grams of green peas (青豆）
1 big onion – diced （大葱）
2 tablespoons of sesame oil （麻油）
3 tablespoons of castor sugar （细砂糖）
3 tablespoons of Chinese cooking wine （烹饪酒）( omit )
5 tablespoons of oyster sauce （耗油）( no measurement )
2 tablespoons of dark soya sauce (not in picture) （酱油）
About 5 tablespoons of corn starch/potato starch with 5 tablespoons of water （5勺生粉或玉米粉加5勺的水）( only 2 1/2tbsp corn starch )
Others
1 egg mixed with 1 tablespoon of golden syrup ( replace golden syrup with 1tbsp honey )
some sesame seeds


STEPS OF PREPARATION

Preparing Fillings:-
In the frying pan, add 4 tablespoons of cooking oil, sauté the onions until fragrant. Add in the barbecue pork and stir fry until well mixed which took about 1-2 minutes. Add in the green peas, cooking wine, oyster sauce, sesame oil, sugar, oyster sauce and dark soya sauce. Stir fry for another 2 minutes. Add in the starch solution and off the heat when the starch solution turns transparent. If it is not sticky enough, add in more starches.  It is best to take some filling and taste if it suits your taste buds. Note that you have to be rather high handed with your seasonings because the bun skin is rather plain in taste. Once ready, set aside for later assembly.


2 OPTION FOR YOU TO DO YOUR DOUGH

Preparing Water / Oil Dough : by Kenneth Goh
Put all the ingredients for the water skin and use a stand mixer to knead until smooth. Note that this is rather fast and may took 2-3 minutes. Kneading using a stand mixer is optional and it is rather easy to knead by hand. Take out the water skin, set aside and perform the same for the oil skin. If it is too sticky, add plain flour one tablespoon by tablespoon until a pliable dough is form. 1. Mix all the ingredients of oil dough together and knead till you get a soft dough. Set it aside to rest for 30 minutes.

Divide both the water skin and oil skin into 15 equal portions. Take one portion of water skin, flatten it, put a portion of oil skin on top. Seal the water skin. Lightly flatten it and set aside.  For the wrapping, take one portion of the combined skin (oil skin wrapped by water skin) and placed in a lightly floured surface. Use a rolling pin to roll it until about 2 mm thick and in the shape of a circle.

For egg wash, crack 1 egg and add 1 tablespoon of golden syrup, stir until well combined, brush on top of the buns sparingly. Send back to the oven again and bake for another 15-20 minutes until the desired colour tone.

Preparing Water/ Oil Dough: by My Kitchen Snippet ( i used My Kitchen Snippet method ) 
Mix all the ingredients of water dough together and knead till you get a soft dough with a machine hook. Set it aside to rest for 30 minutes. do the same for oil dough.

For My kitchen Snippet types which i follow:-

Divide both dough into 14 equal pieces. Wrap the oil dough into the water dough and flatten it (pix 1)
Roll the dough out into a longish flat piece (refer to pix 2 ). Roll it up like a swiss roll (pix 3)
Turn 90deg (pix 4), and roll out again and roll it up like a swiss roll (pix 5 & 6).
Press dough with palm and lightly roll out into a circle (pix 7)
Place filling in the center (do not put too much filling in), wrap and pleat into a pau shape (pix 8) Place on a greaseproof paper.
Brush pie with egg wash, sprinkle with some sesame seeds and bake at 375 degree F (190c) for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

I bake at 190c, middle rack, brush egg wash and sprinkle sesame seeds on the buns and bake for 20mins and removed brush 2nd time egg wash and bake another 20mins or until golden brown.

Kueh Buah Melaka/ Onde-Onde / Klepon

29.09.2014 -  Nongsa, Batam.  Have so much fresh grated coconut left from Kosui making....so making onde onde i think is the best kueh to use up much of grated coconut.

It was my 2nd time making Onde-Onde/Klepon.  This time i try Nyonya Cooking Recipe Onde-Onde / Buah Melaka.  The reason i choose this recipe because of the amount / quantity is not too much.  Its about 13 pieces of onde-onde only for this recipe.  So just enough and not too much for 2 ( actually alot for 2 person...hahaha..., well what to do, i think this recipe is the best for the less )

The onde onde taste great like from the market, chewy texture and simply easy to prepare. Here's her recipe.

ONDEH ONDEH by Nyonya Cooking
( I make a total of 13pcs. )

Ingredients
60g glutinous flour
30g tapioca flour
25g sugar
60ml pandan leaf extract ( my pandan juice is not so green, so i added pandan paste )
50g desiccated coconut
1/2 tea spoon of salt
added 1/8tsp pandan paste

1 tablespoon of water
Filling: gula melaka or palm sugar


Steps to prepare
Pour the water and salt over the desiccated coconut. Mix it well and steam the mixture for 15-20 minutes.

Then, mix the glutinous rice flour, tapioca flour and sugar evenly before adding the pandan leaf extract to create a dough. If the dough is too soft, add more glutinous rice flour.
Divide the dough into 14 little balls.

In each dough, put the chunks of gula melaka or palm sugar in it. Be careful not to make a thin layer of dough which coats the filling as the skin will expand when boiling. Hence, this may result in a torn dough which allows the filling to flow out.

Put the filled dough into a pot of boiling water. Once it floats, you can dish it out but leave it for another 5-10 minutes if you want the filling to melt even more. This will create a fluid sugar filling as you bite into the Onde-onde.

Coat the Onde-onde with the steamed desiccated coconut.

Leave it to cool and enjoy!

 This is the dough after all mix up. Its very easy to handle, but not too hot in your kitchen.  

The dough can go very soft and sticky.

 After the filling, place each balls on the plate separately far from each other or else they will stick together

oppss..still got small chunk of gula melaka not melted.. :) hehehe....