Banana Cranberry Choc Muffins

A rather easy to bake muffin that is delicious and moist. I used Chef Bo's recipe but instead of using all bread flour, I used a mixture of bread and cake flour. I have no nuts at home so I added dried cranberries and chocolate chips.

I whipped this up in less than 3/4 of an hour for dd's breakfast this morning. Of course I did measured up all the ingredients the night before. Another choice of morning breakfast for the kids?



Ingredients:
(A)
80g melted butter
70g sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 egg lightly beaten
180g mashed banana

(B)
100g bread flour
50g cake
1/2 tsp baking soda

(C)
40g semi-sweet chocolate chips
40g dried cranberries

Method:
1. Combine (A) till well mixed.
2. Sieve (B) into a mixing bowl.
3. Add wet ingredients that is (A) into (B). Stir in (C).
4. Scoop batter into muffin cups and bake at 180C for 25 - 30 minutes or till cooked.

65C Brown Sugar Roll

65C bread or bread made via the TANG ZHONG or water roux method is without doubt one of my favourite way of baking soft bread. This method is rather hassle free and pretty easy to manage.

Made a few brown sugar rolls over the week end and feeling decadent I sliced the roll length-wise and filled it with fattening butter cream. I just beat some butter with sugar and vanilla and added some whipped cream to lighten it. The grainy texture of the butter cream added some dimension to this plain brown sugar roll. Yummy...yummy!

The last piece left for photo shoot!!!

Crispy Walnut Cookies

Craving for crispy stuff, so I baked these crispy walnut cookies. I used this recipe but replace the butter with corn oil. Cookies turned out crispier than the ones with butter.



Ingredients:
(A)
75g corn oil
pinch of salt
65g castor sugar
2 tbsp lightly beaten egg (keep the rest as egg wash)

(B)
150g cake flour
heaped 1/4 tsp baking powder
heaped 1/4 tsp baking soda

(C)
50g Walnut bits

Method:
1. Toast walnuts in oven at 160C for 6-8 minutes. Cut into tiny pieces.
2. Sieve (B) together and add in walnut bits.
3. Mix (A) in a mixing bowl.
4. Add oil mixture to flour mixture. Mix well. Dough should be crumbly.
5. Divide dough into 10g pieces, shape them into flat round disc. Apply egg wash. Put them on a lined baking tray 2cm apart to allow room for expansion.
6. Bake at 180C for 15 - 18 minutes or till golden brown.

Chocolates

Had some fun time making chocolates with dd and her friend.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival

Dear all,

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

Tiramisu

Made Tiramisu for a party full of fun and craze last night.

Cake Serikaya

BK, after meeting up with you I have this spontaneous urge to steam this cake.

Thank you, BK

BK, thank you so much for the gifts. I loved them.
It was so nice to catch up with you and your dd.
Hope you have a fabulous time in Hong Kong.

Green Tea Macaroons

Have not been baking for quite a while due to .... 101 reasons!

Sigh! Sigh! Sigh!

PC got infected and had to be reformatted.
Digital camera not working and had to be repaired.
Oven not working and had to shop for a new one.

Tsk! Tsk! Tsk!

First bake of the month - green tea macaroons.

This is dd's favourite macaroon flavour and she's been requesting for it since her return from Sydney for her term break. So, these are for you!

Banana Cranberry Cake

Doing some stock-take! 3 pieces about to rot bananas, left-over cranberries and walnuts from the previous baking, 70g cake flour left from a 1 kg pack and a small tub of about to expire yogurt. What to do with them? Stock clearance (into our tummies) - whip it all up for a banana cake!

Wonderfully banana and moist.



Ingredients:
100g butter at room temperature
90g -100g sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs + 1 tsp vanilla essence (lightly beaten)
120g plain yogurt
320g mashed bananas + 1 tbsp lemon juice + 1 tbsp rum
50g cranberries (optional)
50g walnut pieces (optional)

150g plain flour
70g cake flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder

Method:
1. Sieve together the flours and baking soda and powder.
2. Cream butter, salt and sugar till creamy and fluffy.
3. Beat in the eggs a third at a time, followed by the yogurt and mashed banana.
4. Fold in the flour mixture, cranberry and walnut and mix till just moistened.
5. Bake at 165C - 170C for 50 - 60 minutes or till cooked.

Personalised Cookie Stamp

Seller's contact: wwwhellomandy@yahoo.com.hk

I've got a new toy and can't wait to try it out. I received it very early this morning. It's a personalised cookie stamp!

Look! This is so cute!!!







Dear readers,

My friend customised this cookie cutter from a seller in the Yahoo Blog, however this blog has been closed down by Yahoo recently (Yahoo closed down all blogs which have items for sale).

The only way you can contact the seller is by email. If you wish to check out the details of this cutter please liase with seller directly.

Disclaimer: I do not know the seller and have no business or whatsoever relationship with seller.

Tiger Stripes Cheesecake

Click HERE for recipe.

Banana Chiffon Cake

Rich Chocolate Chiffon

I have always wanted to make a rich chocolate chiffon which uses a mixture of melted couverture chocolate and cocoa powder instead of only using cocoa powder alone.

I used 66% Valrhona chocolate and cacao barry(rich) cocoa powder for this chiffon. During the baking process I keep getting the aroma of cacao barry. Maybe I couldn't differentiate the aroma of valrhona and cacao barry as they basically come from the same cacao bean.

This is my first attempt and the result is promising. I will attempt another rich chocolate chiffon next week with some modifications to the existing recipe that I am using. Hence I will not post this recipe until I have tested my modified version.

Hakka Kueh

Banana Oreo Muffins

DD's favourite muffin. She loves it with chunks of oreo bits.

Muffins were nice and moist, so I had to post the recipe.



Ingredients:
(A)
135g all purpose flour (sieved)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
30g brown sugar
30g - 40g castor sugar
Oreo biscuits (cream removed, break into pieces)


(B)
1 egg (lightly beaten)
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
40g melted butter
25g corn oil
1 tbsp golden syrup
1 tbsp condensed milk
1/4 cup sour cream
1/2 cup mashed banana

Method:
1. Mix (A) together.
2. Mix (B) together in a mixing bowl.
3. Pour (A) into (B) and mix everything with minimum handling.
4. Spoon batter into muffin tray lined with paper muffin cups up to 80% full.
5. Top with sliced banana and oreo pieces.
6. Bake at 180C for 20 minutes - 30 minutes or till cooked.

Pain De Mie

Pain de mie (PDM), such a fancy name but down to earth it is just a Pullman Loaf!!! It got a equally fancy chinese name too - 龐多米! PDM/龐多米/Pullman Loaf - you know is the white sliced loaf bread which we usually use for making sandwiches.

According to Wikipedia Pain de mie is a type of sliced, packaged bread. "Pain" in French means "bread" or "loaf of bread" and "mie" means "crumb" in the culinary sense (not to be confused with bread crumb).

Anyway, there's been lots of rave going on in the internet baking community about this PDM. Curiosity kills the cat, so I had to have a go at it too.

Delve into the internet then (that was 2 years ago) and learnt that the rave originated from 王傳仁 老師的【天然、無添加的手作麵包】. In order to join the rave, I ordered the book too.

All these happened two years ago and I'm only making this today. 2 years late, well better late than never if this PDM is such good stuff.

The recipe from this book is a rather simple one with no egg or milk, it uses the really basic bread ingredients - you know what they are! The difference are the use of fresh yeast, cold water plus long rest time in between dough handling. I shall not post the recipe as it is from 王傳仁 老師 cook book.

The only thing I did differently was to increase liquid content to 70% (as a challenge) hence my dough is rather sticky.

Yea! The rave is definitely on. See my photos of the baked PDM. The texture of this PDM is so fine, soft and moist. Although the dough is rather sticky during the handling, I love this PDM to the bits.



See the fine texture of this PDM.


Sticky!!!


Manageable with floured hands.


70% full and to be baked.


Use PDM for salmon sandwich on 23/3/2011.
Bread is still nice and soft.


PDM Bread Making Process:
1. Use bread machine's dough cycle (without the proofing) twice. If doing the mixing and kneading manually, make sure your dough pass the windowpane test.
2. Basic proof of 50 minutes @28C.
3. Deflate dough and proof for 20 minutes @28C.
4. Division of dough into 3 portions and rest for 15 minutes @28C.
5. Shaping
6. Final proof for 45 - 55 minutes @32C.
8. Bake at 200C for 35 - 40 minutes (covered pullman loaf) else bake at 190C for 35 minutes.

65C Cinnamon Roll

Cinnamon roll is one of my favourite sweet bread. Love the aroma of cinnamon and the dried fruits in it. The bakeries around where I live do not have this so if I crave for it, I have to bake it myself.

I used the 65C tangzhong method to prepare this roll as I find it the easiest and it produces soft bread.








Ingredients:
210g bread flour
50g cake flour
5g yeast
50g sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 Egg + water = 110g
75g Tangzhong
30g butter

Filling:
15g butter, soften
30g brown sugar + 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
100g mixed dried fruits or raisins

Method:
1. Put all the ingredients except butter into the bread machine and set the dough cycle on.
2. Once the mixing and kneading is finished and before the proofing starts, turn the machine off. Restart the dough cycle again and add in the butter. Turn off the machine once the mixing and kneading is done. Wet your hand to moisten the dough and let it proof in the bread machine till double in size.
3. Remove dough from machine, punch down and shape it round. Rest dough for 15 minutes.
4. Roll dough into a flat sheet of 28cm x 40cm with a rolling pin.
5. Apply the soften butter all over the flat dough sheet, spread the cinnamon sugar evenly and top it with dried raisins or fruits.
6. Roll it up swiss-roll style. Cut into 9 pieces of about 3cm thick.
7. Put them in a 20cm x 20cm baking tray and proof for 45 minutes or till double in size.
8. Bake at 180C for 20 minutes.

Seaweed Crackers

This cracker is full of seaweed flavour. It is aromatic, crisp and a little saltish, just nice with a cup of coffee or tea.

I used off the shelf seaweed flakes from our local Japanese supermarket and some chicken powder to enhance the flavour of this cracker.

I really love simple and easy recipe!

This is one of them, all you need to do is mix and roll into a very thin sheet then bake and you get a crispy cracker in no time. The only technique is to roll it into a fairly thin sheet of 2mm thick.




To be baked!

Cranberry Choc Chips Cookies

More cranberry cookies!

Why?

They are simply too delicious and addictive. I also added chocolate chips to this lot and the girls just love this and they kept asking me to bake them over and over again.

Cranberry Cookies

After shifting through my collection of recipes in my document files, I tried this cookie recipe from Bea's. In Bea's recipe, she added ground almond meal to the cookies dough to achieve a less dense cookie texture and hence a more airy and crispy cookie is achieved.

Yes, the cookie is indeed less dense and crisp - very nice! This recipe is definitely a keeper and you all should give it a try if you have time!!!

I am baking a second batch now, will be adding some chocolate chips as requested by dd and her good friend.

For the second batch we doubled up the recipe and made them into heart shapes for the girls to share with their friends on White Valentine's Day on 14th March.

Second batch with chocolate chips.




Ingredients: (20 pieces)
75g butter (room temperature)
45g sugar
pinch of salt
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg yolk
105 cake flour + 1/4 tsp baking powder
45g ground almond meal
50g dried cranberry

Method:
1. Cream butter, sugar, salt and vanilla till creamy.
2. Add in the yolk and cream till well blended.
3. Sieve in the flour and baking powder mixture. Add in the ground almond meal.
4. Use a spatula to mix till crumbly state, add in the cranberry and mix well.
5. Shape dough into a squarish block of about 3cm x 4cm.
6. Chill dough for an hour.
7. Cut into slices of about 5mm - 8mm thick. Place on lined baking tray with 2cm space between the slices for expansion.
8. Bake at 170C - 180C for about 15 - 20 minutes.

Notes:
1. I bake my cookies at 180C for 18 minutes in the middle rack then shift it to the upper rack to achieve the golden brown color that I wanted.
2. Bea's blog is closed, so I did not post the link.