BBQ Pork Buns

I was looking through some of my favourite flood blogs the other day and stumbled upon a childhood favourite of mine's on "A Cracking Good Egg". Bbq pork buns, otherwise known as " char siu bao ". Most of the time, you would have these during dim sum or at certain chinese bakeries/deli shops.

KJ has a great recipe on her site here with step-by-step instructions along with pictures. The only thing I did differently was that after wrapping up the filling, I left the seams facing up because it was reminiscent of the ones I usually had before. It was a fairly easy recipe to do and the dough was a dream to work with.

Here are the buns before steaming:



And after steaming, the delicious filling:

Melon Bread

I've always loved Melon Bread (or "Por Lo Bao" as it's also known in Chinese). It has that sweet, slightly crunchy top, and is soft and fluffy, underneath the crust. The recipe I tried out has a crust that's even more "cookie" and the bun itself is very soft. I made half with some home-made azuki bean filling and sprinkled a little black sesame on top to distinguish it from the plain ones. The plain ones here have the traditional cross-hatch design on the top.

Melon Bread:

175 g bread flour
8 g fresh yeast
115 g water
25 g sugar

-mix above ingredients and leave to proof for 2 hours

50 g bread flour
25 g pastry flour
3 g salt
45 g sugar
12 g milk powder
25 g milk
12 g shortening/lard

- mix all except the shortening into the proofed dough. When mixed, add shortening and knead till elastic. Cover and proof for 30 minutes.




-meanwhile, make the cookie dough crust:

60 g sugar
25 g butter
40 g eggs
3 g rum
10 g milk
120 g pastry flour

- cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs and liquids and mix till combined. Add flour last and form dough.



-Take the proofed dough and scale out 50 g each and form into balls. Flatten out a small piece of cookie dough and wrap on the top of the ball. Score a design on the dough and sprinkle with sugar. Proof for 1 hour. Bake at 350 degrees fahrenheit till slightly golden, rotating pan halfway.



And here's the finished product:

Croissants

Croissants are definitely a guilty pleasure for me. I used to buy them all the time from the supermarket and gorge on the mini ones. There's just something about them...the flakiness, the buttery-ness...mmm.

Making croissants at home however, are a little tricky, time-consuming, and messy, unless you're using a pre-made kind that is. I have to admit the Pillsbury brand crescents aren't half bad. If I'm feeling lazy, these are great. Since I've finally bought myself a half-decent rolling pin though (It's actually not that great. It looks good and is heavy enough, but not quite sturdy. It is however a big improvement to my previous one which was very...what's the word...dinky.) making croissants from scratch aren't that much a problem if you have the time.

Here's the recipe I have for them:

Croissant: yield:6 large

250 g all purpose flour
9 g fresh yeast
5 g salt
15 g sugar
37 g water
120 g milk

150 g salted butter for the tourage

For the dough: dissolve the yeast in the water and add the milk. Add the rest of the ingredients except the salt and mix till slightly combined. Add the salt and mix on low speed for 4 mins. Turn up the speed and mix for another minute. This is the detrempe. Wrap up dough and place in the fridge for at least 2 hours before rolling in butter.

Here's where it gets tricky. The time-consuming part deals with the different "turns" you need to give the dough. You start out with the "detrempe" which is essentially just the dough. Then you have the "tourage" which is the butter. You roll the detrempe into a square and fit the tourage in and fold it like a parcel. Roll it out in one direction. Fold in thirds and repeat the process 2 more times giving the dough a rest in between each time. This is to relax the gluten that form in the dough when you roll the dough.

Once you have all that, have fun shaping as you please and fill with whatever you desire, whether it's cheese and ham, or Nutella, like I've done with mines. Really try out the Nutella one, it's absolutely heavenly. Let the dough rise till it feels less firm and egg-wash. Bake at 400 degrees fahrenheit till completely golden.

Here is a mini one that I made with Nutella:

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!

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.