Happy Easter !!

Last week, a friend called to ask me if I could bake some Easter cookies for her & she brought me a very lovely Williams-Sonoma Easter cookie cutter set. After baking & decorating, the cookies are supposed to be interlocked & standing.

So we spent Good Friday baking & decorating the cookies. It was a lot of fun for both the kids & adults too. Hubby & I did the outline & flooding of the cookies, CJ was in-charge of checking if all the cookies were well flooded at every corner, also helping me with colouring the royal icing & washing up. She's a real helper in my bakery now :)

I followed the cookie recipe that's printed on the box & found the dough too soft so some of the baked & decorated cookie broke before I had the chance to assemble & take pictures of them. So I'm only left with these few cookies :


There's supposed to be a standing grass patch underneath the bunny so it could stand but it broke ! The girls had quite a few broken cookies this 2 days.



This duckling survived !

Standing Easter egg



Hot Cross Buns


We were out shopping & only got home when it was almost time for the KL F1 Grand Prix but the rain came at the wrong time so Astro's out. Instead of lazing around, I thought of bread making.

Since it's Easter, I decided on hot cross buns.

By the time the buns were done, it was about 6.30pm. We had a very late lunch at 3pm, so these buns were our light dinner. A very satisfying one, warm hot cross buns on a rainy Sunday evening......

* RECIPE FOR MY HOT CROSS BUNS *


400g High protein flour
100g Plain flour
6g Instant yeast
40g Sugar
52g Maple syrup (can be replaced with honey)
30g Egg yolk
170g Milk
72g Butter
6g Mixed spice
100g Sultanas

Flour paste :

1/2 cup flour
4 Tbsp water

Mix flour with water till a paste form, if too thick, just add a little more water.


1. Mix all ingredients, except butter & sultanas in a mixer with a dough hook on low speed until combined, add butter & continue to mix on medium speed for about 15 mins until dough is fully developed. Add sultanas.
Cover bowl & let rise in a warm place for 1 hr or until dough doubles in bulk.

2. Divide the dough into 48g portions & mould them round, place them onto a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper, let proof for about 20 mins.
Place the flour paste in a piping bag, snip the corner off with scissors, pipe a cross on top of each bun.
3. Bake in a preheated oven of 190 degrees for 14-15 mins.


* This recipe yields 24 buns. Arrange buns in an order of 6x4 on a rectangle tray. I always bake my buns at the bottom rack for the first half of the baking time then rotate to the top rack after that for the top to brown. Once the buns are done, brush the top with sugar glaze while still hot.
I just make a simple glaze with about 2 Tbsp of sugar to 1 Tbsp of boiling water, stir till sugar is dissolved & brush on the buns.

Apple Buns - Improved Version

I made another batch of apple buns yesterday, with the same recipe that I posted earlier on.
The dough part is the same, only made some changes to the apple filling.

Filling :
(A)
400g Apples, cut into cubes
150g Sugar *
Pinch of salt
110ml Water
1Tbsp Lemon juice

(B)
40g Cornflour*
40ml Water

(C)
20g Butter

Cook (A) til boiling, add the premixed (B) & continue cooking till mixture thickens. Remove from heat, add (C) & mix till well blended, leave to cool.


This time I've added 75g of sugar & a teaspoon of cinnamon powder to the chopped apples. As for the cornflour, 20g of it with 2 Tbsp(30ml) of water is sufficient to thicken the liquid for cooking the apples. The consistency is just nice, not too thick & gooey like the first time I've done it.

I made 16 buns but only got to try one, the rest were all snapped up by hubby & the girls. Definitely worth the effort to make these buns, this recipe is a keeper !



I've egg washed the buns before baking, definely more atractive than the first batch !


First batch of the buns, without egg wash

Bo Lo Bao (波萝包)

The girls are on their half-term break so I'm rather idle this week. Besides baking, I had extra time for haircut, pedicure & bread making too !

I tried a new recipe for Bo Lo Bao yesterday. Found this recipe while surfing the net some time ago, printed it out & stuck it to my recipe collection book. I think I've tried making these buns before long time ago, couldn't remember the outcome.

The original recipe is in mandarin, I've translated it to English :

Dough :

330g High protein flour
4g Yeast
50g Sugar
33g Egg
50g Cream cheese
175g Milk
40g Butter

In a mixer bowl, combine all ingredients, except butter, mix till it comes to a ball. Add butter & continue mixing until the dough is smooth & elastic, let rise for an hour.

Prepare the topping while the bread dough is rising :

60g butter
60g Icing sugar
1g salt
42g Egg
5g Milk powder
110-120g High protein flour

Cream butter, icing sugar & salt till creamy, add egg gradually, followed by milk powder & high protein flour, until the mixture comes to a ball. Divide the mixture into 16x 16g balls & set aside.

When the dough has risen, punch down, divide into 16x40g balls & round up. Flatten each ball of topping & place it on top of a dough ball. Place on a baking tray, lined with greaseproof paper, let proof again for 30mins. Bake in a preheated oven of 190C for 18 mins.

* I chill the topping while waiting for the dough to rise as I find them sticky & difficult to work with in our hot climate. This is a plain bun recipe, I prefer to have the bun with a piece of butter , rather than with filling in it. I'm not good with shaping & wrapping the bun with the topping, that's why mine look far from those in bakery shops. Nevertheless, I'm sure they are healthier than store bought ones as they do not contain any bread softener nor preservatives. My girls love these buns......

Apple Buns

The girls started their new term yesterday. It used to be much later than local schools but I'm still glad that it's a day later. I was out Monday afternoon & happened to be at Likas area where there's quite a number of schools there, the traffic jam was so so bad, we got to make a detour to get to Tanjung Lipat area.

Well, the girls are really happy to be back to school after a 3 week break, so am I ! They spent most of their holiday at home & I think they were really bored. We couldn't go anywhere because I was so busy with my festive baking but at least they got some hands-on fun in the cookie session.
Back to school means I have to start preparing their lunchbox & making bread every weekday, so no more lazing around..........

Back to the bread making, it's been weeks since I last baked some. I was thinking of some fruity bread so after flipping through my books, I decided on this apple buns from Alex Goh's World Of Bread. I've used his baisc sweet bun dough recipe :

Ingredients :
(A)
480g Bread flour
120g Plain flour
110g Sugar
10g Salt
20g Milk powder
4tsp Instant yeast

(B)
1 Egg
300ml Cold water

(C)
60g Butter

Mix (A) till well blended. Add (B) & knead to form a dough. Add (C), continue to knead to form a smooth & elastic dough.

Place dough in a large bowl, cover & let it prove for 50 - 60 mins or until it doubles in size.

Filling :
(A)
400g Apples, cut into cubes
150g Sugar *
Pinch of salt
110ml Water
1Tbsp Lemon juice

(B)
40g Cornflour*
40ml Water

(C)
20g Butter

Cook (A) til boiling, add the premixed (B) & continue cooking till mixture thickens. Remove from heat, add (C) & mix till well blended. Leave to cool.

Divide the basic sweet bun dough into 70g portions, mould into balls & put them in the fridge to rest for 15 mins.
Roll the each dough ball out flat to make rectangle (L14cmXW12cm). Place some of the apple filling at one end & cut strips at the other end with a sharp knife. Roll them up from the filling end.
Put on a baking tray, lined with baking paper & leave to prove in a warm place for 45 mins or until they double in size.
Brush with egg wash, bake at preheated oven of 190C for 12 - 15 mins.

* I've used Royal Gala apples which I think are sweet so I've reduced the sugar to only 50g when cooking the apples. As for the cornflour & water, I found 40g of cornflour makes the filling too thick, the next time I will probably reduce the cornflour to 20g & water to 60g. I've also added a dash of cinnamon powder. I'm hopeless in shaping buns so I've made them round instead !

Dome Bread (小巨蛋面包）

I'm not sure why this bread is called dome bread ? This is the translation I got from Google.

When I was much younger, I used to buy this bread from bakeries in Singapore, known as 巨蛋面包.
The size of this bread sold in bakeries are much bigger, I've made them into smaller buns & I've not brush my buns with egg wash, that's why they looked 'dull' but I like my bread & buns this way !

This recipe yields 10 buns of 55g each :

250g High protein flour
50g Flour
40g Egg
40g Egg yolk
5g Yeast
3g Salt
20g Condensed milk
65g Sugar
40g Whipping cream
55g Milk
45g Butter

Mix all ingredients except butter, in a mixer bowl fitted with a dough hook until combined. Add butter & continue mixing until dough is smooth & elastic, about 15mins. Let rise in a warm place for an hour.
Punch dough down & divide them into 10 portions of 55g each. Round each dough & place on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Let rise again for 30 mins.
Bake in preheated oven of 200C for 8mins.

This is the link to the original recipe, in Mandarin.

* These buns are a keeper !! So soft & aromatic, enriched with the goodness of eggs, cream & butter, so so yummy...........

Pumpkin & Honey Buns

These buns are sugar free !!!!!

I've trying to recall the original link of this recipe but I failed. The only thing I could remember is that this recipe is from a Taiwanese blog.
These buns are so soft & fluffy, they're sweetened with honey instead of the usual caster sugar. Even though pumpkin has no flavour, I love it's natural orange hue & the sweetness in it. The aroma of honey filled the kitchen while these buns are baking !

This recipe yields 24 buns :

480g High protein flour
120g Plain flour
36g Milk powder
120g Honey
5g Salt
8g Yeast
300g Pumpkin paste *
135g Water
84g Butter
80g Sultanas

In a mixer bowl fitted with a dough hook, mix all ingredients, except butter & sultanas until well combined. Add butter, mix till smooth & elastic, about 15 mins, knead sultanas into the dough. Let rise in a warm place for 1hr or until dough doubles in bulk.
Punch dough down, divide dough into 56g balls, round up & place into muffin pan that has been lined with muffin cup. bake at preheated 180C oven for 14 mins.


* Pumpkin paste can be obtained by steaming & mashing peeled pumpkin. I usually buy 1/2 a pumpkin & after steaming/mashing, I'll weigh & portion them, thereafter freeze them for breads or muffins.

Banana Yeast Bread

I've been searching for a yeast bread recipe with bananas for a long time but couldn't find one. The banana bread recipes we get on the net are all buttery banana cake.

Finally, after some time, I found a banana yeast bread recipe from a China web page. I usually copied a recipe that I found on the net, try it out & will only print it our if it's good. I did the same thing for this recipe but couldn't find it again after trying it. It was really good, so chewy & full of banana flavour. One thing I don't quite understand is I think banana may hinder in the rising of the dough because the dough don't rise as much as other bread dough without bananas, maybe that's why I couldn't find any banana yeast bread recipes !

The recipe as follows :

This is a water-roux paste method (汤种）

Water-roux paste
Ingredients :

45g Milk
30g Water
18g High protein flour

Mix all ingredients together in a saucepan, cool over low heat until a thich paste forms. remove from heat & let cool.

Dough
Ingredients :

600g High protein flour
85g Sugar
9g Salt
18g Milk powder
60g Milk
78g Cold Water
180g Mashed banana
72g Water-roux paste
9g Instant yeast
60g Butter

Combine all ingredients, except butter in a mixer bowl, fitted with a dough hook, until well blended. Add butter & continue mixing until dough is smooth & elastic. Let rise in a warm place for an hr. Punch the dough down & divide into 55g portions, let rise again until dough is double in size. bake at preheated oven of 180C for 14 mins.

* The original recipe calls for 1kg of flour, which I think is too much for us. Since I only have 4 over-ripe banana with me which weighs 180g, so I scaled the recipe according to the weight of the bananas. This portion yields 20 buns & I've used salted butter today so I left out the salt.
By the time I'm typing this, half of the buns are gone, they are so doughy & chewy ! I know hubby likes these buns, will make it a point to make them once a week !

Black Sesame Buns

I've always like black sesame, in sesame sweet soup, chiffon cake & bread as well. As sesame contains its own natural oil, these buns keep well, still moist even after 2 days ! These buns are made with organic black sesame powder & I've added some toasted black sesame seeds from Japan. I've tried using black sesame seeds from China but found that they are not as aromatic as the Japanese ones.
I used to make my buns in muffin cups because I'm not good in shaping buns. Even though the buns are pretty in muffin cups, I find it a waste to be throwing away the cups all the time. After few attempts of shaping our buns, I'm better in rounding up those dough balls now & I'm happy that I've done a better job now.....

Matcha Buns With Adzuki Bean Filling

While looking through my freezer, I realized I still have some sweetened adzuki beans,
ahha we shall have matcha bread for tomorrow breakfast. I've used this coffee buns
recipe, it's a straight dough method. I've changed the coffee powder to matcha powder to go with the sweetened adzuki beans filling. I've doubled the recipe to make 18 buns, at 58g of dough each. Bake at 180C for 16 mins.

Pandan Buns

Made these for breakfast tomorrow. I got the pandan juice from blending the leaves with some water, no added colour that's why it's only a light green hue. The recipe as follows :

200g High protein flour
50g Plain flour
3g Instant yeast
20g Sugar
2g Salt
26g Maple syrup
15g Egg yolk
36g Butter
170g Pandan juice
15g Angel flake (sweetened coconut flake)

1. Mix all ingredients, except butter, in a mixer with a dough hook on low speed until combined, add butter & continue to mix on medium speed for about 15 mins until dough is fully developed.
Cover bowl & let rise in a warm place for 1 hr or until dough doubles in bulk.
2. Divide the dough into 50g portions & mould them round, place them onto a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper, let proof for about 20 mins.
3. Bake in a preheated oven of 190 degrees for 12 mins.

* This recipe yields 10 buns, I've doubled the recipe today*

Sausage Rolls

I made some sausage rolls today, just out of the oven at 2pm. JF's class is going on a school trip to KK Wetlands, Jesselton & The Clock Tower tomorrow. The children are not supposed to be carrying any lunch boxes or backpack so I have to pack her roll in a disposable bag, that will be her lunch, with a packet of milk, anyway she'll be too tired to eat after having fun at the wetlands ! I've also packed some rolls for few of her classmates.............