It's A Brioche Kind Of Day

It was my day off work today and for some strange reason, I've been craving brioche lately so I thought I'd try out some new things.

I did a small batch of dough with seaweed folded into the dough and sprinkled a few on top after I egg-washed it. I was worried that the seaweed would burn in the oven but luckily they didn't. The dough, however, turned a nice glossy brown that just looked so pretty.

I left some of the dough plain because I wanted to test out some Challah. I always see these beautiful Challah that we get at work from Swiss Bakery and I've always wanted to braid bread. I looked up a few things on the internet on the braiding technique but it got a little complicated and confusing so I just sort of made it up after the 3rd attempt. It turned out pretty well though! Not very traditional but not bad either. I was very proud of myself.

I have yet to try out some green tea flavoured ones (as you can tell, I'm a bit of a green tea lover, especially when it comes to baked goods) and fill the inside with some azuki bean filling. There's always next time!

PB&J filled Chocolate Bears

I finally decided to use the chocolate molds I bought at Daiso. Aren't they cute? I was contemplating whether to use dark chocolate or white chocolate but for some strange reason, I couldn't find the white chocolate anywhere!

I went on tempering the dark chocolate and filled up these cute little molds. However, rather than leaving them all chocolate, I decided on doing my take on the Reese's chocolate cups and filled up the molds with peanut butter and blackberry jam. Yum. Just the right amount of sweetness. I think next time, I'll fill some up with dulce de leche and see how that all turns out.

Green Tea Rice Cooker Bread

I was watching this Japanese anime, Yakitate!! Japan, the other day and actually got this recipe from it. Yes, yes, call me crazy for getting a recipe off a cartoon but it never hurts to try. I was a bit skeptical as to whether it would turn out or not but I thought I'd try it out anyways. It is for a white bread that's baked in a rice cooker! Granted their rice cooker was a lot fancier than the one I had at home but mine turned out better than I expected. It also said to add eggs or any other flavour to your liking so I thought I'd try out the matcha tea I had been storing inside my cabinet. Here's the recipe:

350 g Bread flour
21 g sugar
6.5 g salt
35 cc milk
180 cc water
21 g butter
5 g dry yeast

- In the rice cooker bowl, put in the flour, then sugar, salt, water and yeast mixed together, and milk. Knead until dough comes together. Knead in soft butter and knead dough till not sticky and slightly elastic. Shape dough into ball and place inside bowl and proof in warm place till doubled (I left it in the rice cooker on the warm setting and turned it off after a half hour). Punch down to deflate air and shape into a ball again. Leave in bowl and proof again till doubled. Turn the rice cooker on and "cook" for about 45 mins. Flip the dough over and cook again for 45 mins. The recipe says to flip again and cook for another 45 mins but I found that mine didn't need this. Remove and cool.







-after the 2nd proof

I also added in 2 tbsp of matcha powder with the flour. The result was a very green soft, bread. It looked more like a cake because it was baked in the bowl but the interior was chewier than normal sandwich bread which was interesting. It wasn't as green tea-y as I would have liked but it did lend a nice colour to it. The crust was actually quite good and crunchier than I thought it would be. It's a bit of work to bake in the rice cooker so next time, I think I might just use the same recipe but bake it in the oven to see how it turns out.