Local Delights

After 2 weeks of adjusting from jet lag and recovering from illness, I finally feel normal again. My kitchen is fully back in operation as I began to get into the hang of cooking and baking again.




I've been making some of our regular favourites, like pizzas and pastas, and also trying out quite a few new recipes, thanks in part to some new cookbooks, equipment and gadgets purchased from Singapore.





Sweet Buns

Got the recipe from Baking Mum's blog and tried it out for the first time. I made a variety of fillings, mainly strawberry jam (for XX) and chocolate (for KK). I also made some with pork floss, kaya and cheese, just to experiment a bit. It was quite fun trying out different shapes, and the children participated as well, kneading and shaping the dough. KK made a special one with the word "lego", turned out quite cute.










Chwee Kueh
I've been wanting to make these for a long time. Firstly, it's one of Hubby and my favourite hawker fare. We love the ones from Bedok. Secondly, chwee kuehs are not readily available in Melbourne. We found some at Chomp Chomps but they cost $4.50 for 3!! Though we crave for it, no way we will pay such ridiculous price for rice flour and salted tunips.

So this trip back, I made sure I stopped by Phoon Huat and got 12 chwee kueh moulds, in addition to eating my fill of Bedok's chwee kuehs. My first attempt, I didn't quite like the texture of the rice cakes. They were too dense and hard. I added 100ml more hot water and the next round turned out much softer. Still cannot beat those at Bedok's but it will satisfy the next round of cravings.










Muah Chees
I made these together with a friend, following the recipe from my latest cookbook of kuehs. Turns out really easy and just like those we eat at pasar malams! The tip is to place the sticky dough inside a plastic bag when kneading it, then it won't stick all over your fingers.








Pandan Waffles
My sister bought me a 3-in-1 sandwich maker with interchangeable grill and waffle plates. Pandan waffles is also something that I crave for from Singapore. Also waffles make a good breakfast with kaya/chocolate or dessert with ice-cream and fruits. I've been eyeing a sandwich grill and waffle maker for some time so this one really meets my needs.










Sweet Potato Fa-Gao
My friend made these and I found that they tasted good. So since I've bought a few sweet potatoes recently, I too followed the recipe and made a batch today. Yummy, though I was hoping they'll "fa" (rise) more....hee.

Milk Loaf

Homemade Milk Loaf

After my first failed attempt at making bread following an internet recipe (see here), I have mainly stuck to the basic bread mix formula (flour + yeast + water), varying only by adding some chocolate to the core of the bread.

Can see the twirl in the loaf?

Encouraged by Happy Home Baker's milk loaf recipe and tempted by my own weakness for sweet, soft bread, I'd bravely ventured out of my comfort zone to make a milk loaf last week.

The cottony soft texture

As usual, the proofing takes very long, no thanks to the climate here, plus the fact that I made this during the evening when it's colder. I started around 5pm and by the time the bread was ready, it was already 10 plus. Just nice for supper... :-p Towards the end, I'd actually put the dough into the oven and turned on the heat to 'defrost' to proof it, otherwise, I think I'll have to wait till mid-night for my bread!

I was kind of worried that history will repeat itself as I'm using the same bread mix flour and adding all kinds of things (milk, butter, sugar etc) into it instead of sticking to its formula. Phew, the bread turned out really well. I thought the dough was a little small when I first put it into the pan. It couldn't even fill up the base. But thankfully, it expanded and when it was baking, it rises over the top of the pan. I was delighted!

The scale that makes a difference

I must also credit some of the success to my newly acquired digital kitchen weighing scale. Now I can measure very precisely 4 grams of yeast :-). It is so convenient, you can use just one bowl and it just measures that weight of the ingredients as you add it and it can even convert to 'oz' for those U.S. recipes.

Fresh and Soft

The aroma of the fresh bread filled the whole house and my MIL commented that it smelled like a bakery! The texture of the bread was soft and cottony. Even after 2 days, the bread is still soft. My MIL gave a feedback that it will be better with less salt. I agree, then you'll taste the sweetness of the bread better.

Flour + Yeast + Water = Bread?

Is a plain loave so plain simple to make? Add water to flour and yeast and you get bread? Apparantly not.

I have been frustrated these 2 days about my bread making attempts - 3 attempts to be exact. It all started when I saw this "soft like cotton sweet corn bread" recipe in Baking Cottage's blog (http://mybakingcottage.blogspot.com/2008/08/soft-like-cotton-sweet-corn-bread.html. It got me salivating and since I had half a jar of creamed corn frozen in my freezer and I don't know what to do with it, I decided "yeah, let's make some bread!" (Btw, I've never made bread before.)

But this project is frauded with obstacles and doomed to fail right from the start. Here's why:

Firstly, I cannot find 'bread flour', as stated in the recipe. I've seen it in S'pore, but here in Australia, they have plain flour, wholemeal flour, organic wholemeal flour...except straightforward 'bread flour'. I see 'Bakers Flour' and only found out later, if I'm not wrong, that THAT'S what they call bread flour here. But anyway, the flour comes in like 5kg size, and I'm not about to buy that much just for a loaf of corn bread. At least not yet, until I'm confirmed baking on a regular basis.

The closest flour I found was 'bread mix'. Now, I have no idea what's the difference between 'bread mix' and 'bread flour'. In fact, the other reason why my bread is doomed is my lack of knowledge in this science of baking. It was only after reading up later that I realised that there are actually so many different types of flour. Not only that, there's as many different types of yeast too! Now I'm really getting confused. There should be a degree course on this, if you ask me...heheh.

So after multiple trips to Coles and even Safeway, I still haven't found out which flour to buy. I read that I can use plain flour and add gluten to substitute for bread flour, but I can't find any gluten at the supermarkets. The staff there pointed me to the 'gluten-free' aisle when I asked him. I want 'gluten', not 'gluten-free', mate! In the end, I decided to buy a pack of bread mix to try. And that was only because I found they sell it in 600gm size at Safeway. All the other bread mixes comes in 2.4kg packs.

The next day, I eagerly tried out the recipe. The tricky part came when I had to measure 3g worth of yeast. The measuring scale I had is the primitive sort, and every bar represents minimum of 10g. How am I gonna measure 3g with it? Heck, I just simply scoop a little on the teaspoon and hope it's about 3g.

Here comes the next reason why I failed. In baking, you cannot 'anyhow humtum'. Exact measurements and sequencing is very important. Like a science experiment in the laboratory, there are chemical reactions taking place in that piece of dough, so if you put some things first and some things last, or if you put too much or too little, the results could be disasterous! And that is my problem. I'm not someone who is very precise. When I cook, I tend to alter the recipe to suit what I have in my fridge and my larder, taste, then add a bit of this, a bit of that to get the flavour. But in baking, you can't just do this.

Thus my 1st dough, which passes the 'windowpane' test, by the way, did not rise. After a long time, it's still tiny. I baked it nonetheless, hoping it will rise in the oven. It turned out to be a 'heavy prata'.

The 'flat' bread

I tried a 2nd time, this time adding more yeast. I followed the recipe to a T except I still don't have the equipment to measure 3g. Again, it didnt' grow. Why? Is it the yeast that's not working? Or the flour? Not enough liquid? Or the whole combination? Maybe I have to wait longer? All these questions are bugging me. Till now, I still don't have the answers. Anyone can tell me what went wrong?

2nd attempt - slightly better but still not good

Today, I decided, maybe this recipe just don't work for bread mix flour. By right, bread mix is supposed to be a convenient way to make bread and designed for the bread maker machine. Perhaps I'd 'disrupted' the formula by adding stuff like milk, eggs, butter. I'll just use the remainder of flour, add in water and yeast, according to instructions on the pack and throw in some corn kernels at the end. Surely I can't go wrong with this?

Well, my 3rd dough did grow, after a 2nd round of yeast/water and almost 5 hours of proofing. And the result after baking?

The dough after proofing

Finally, the 'soft like cotton' texture!

Success! At last. The texture of the bread is just nice now, with a nice crust. Everyone loves the taste of the freshly baked warm bread. We finished the loave in no time. I was about to give up on baking bread, there's just so much effort and it takes a long time. But now, I think I'll continue to do it. The time and effort was worth it. Maybe I'll invest in a bread machine and make my own warm bread everyday? Before that, definitely an electric weighing scale is my next purchase.

KK loves it!