Blueberry Bagels

The bagels that had just been shaped, ready for proving

After proving, cooking in the sugar syrup

After the sugar syrup bath, ready to be sent into the oven


I was thinking of what to make for breakfast for tomorrow morning, bagels crossed my mind & I still have few packets of frozen bluberries in my freezer, so went ahead with the preparation after we sent the girls to church.

Ingredients :

500g High protein flour
6g Instant dry instant
40g Caster sugar
1/2 tsp Salt
190g Milk
100g Frozen bluberries
10g Butter

Mix all ingredients except butter in a mixing bowl fitted with a dough hook until well combined.
Add butter, continue to mix on medium speed for about 15 mins till smooth (the dough will be dry). Let prove in awarm place for 1hr. Divide dough into 8 pcs, about 105g each, round each dough pc firmly into a ball & place the dough pcs onto a baking trey lined with greasepfoor paper, let them rest in the fridge for 20 mins.
Remove from fridge, make a hole in each ball, like a doughnut , about the width of 3 fingers. Let the dough pcs prove in a warm place for 30 mins. In the meantime prepare sugar syrup with 750g of water & 40g of sugar, bring to boil. I've used my large non-stick pan to do it. After proving, place bagels into the sugar syrup, cook for a min on each side, remove with a slotted spoon, drain on ktchen towel. Place bagels onto baking tray again, brush with egg wash, bake in a preheated oven of 180 degrees for 20 mins.

* When I made the hole on the bagel, I've forgotten about the 3 fingers width, so have only used my thumb, after proving the hole had almost disappeared that's why the bagel looked not quite a bagel, sigh......... after placing the bagel into the sugar syrup, it turned wrinkled, like what Terri had mentioned ! It did smoothen out a little but still slightly wrinkled if you take a closer look. And I've forgotten to eggwash the bagel so it turned out slightly pale. What happened to me today, seemed to be lost......... nevertheless it turned out to be nice & chewy ! This is my second attempt, the third time I'll remember to make the hole for the bagel bigger & to eggwash before baking !

It's Ian Birthday's Cake Again !

This is the second cake Ian had this week for his Birthday on July 31st. He had one chocolate cake in school during the class party on Thursday & one yesterday with his Mummy's friend's kids who were visiting them. This is a vanille sponge cake filled & iced with buttercream frosting, decorated with animals in train set made from sugar paste (not me, Ididn't make them!). His mummy called me only at 9am yesterday & she collected the cake at 3.30pm. I wouldn't advise such a short notice though, luckily I have everything in my pantry & happened to be lazing around yesterday...........

German Muesli Bread

This picture is updated on Aug 12.


This is another of our favourite bread, grainy & wholesome. JF is not a great fan though, because there's a lot of grains & seeds in it but I make sure she finish the whole slice on her plate each time I make this bread. The recipe is adapted from Celebrity Chefs' Cookbooks, Don Yong's Bread Winners.

Ingredients

280g High protein flour
80g Multigrain (leave some for coating the top)
40g Wheat bran *
12g Dry wheat gluten *
6g Bread improver *
8g Instant dry yeast
30g Sugar
8g Salt
260g Cold water
30g Butter
120g Raisins
100g Chopped walnuts *

With an electric mixer & dough hook at low speed, mix the dry ingredients for 1 min, add water & mix on low speed for another 2 mins. Add butter & mix on medium speed for 12-15 mins until dough is fully developed. Add raisins & walnuts on low speed.
Place the dough into a large greased bowl & let it rise in a warm place for 1hr until dough doubles up in size. Divide the dough into 3 pcs, each 350g, roll the dough pcs out with a rolling pin. Mould each pc firmly into a cylindrical shape, the length of a appropriate baking tin. Wet the surface & coat with multigrain.
Prove the dough pcs for 1hr until double in size. Bake at 200 degress for 25mins.

* I change the wheat bran to wholemeal flour & omitted the dry wheat gluten cos' it's not available in KK. The bread improver is also left out as I make my bread without any bread softener. I've used dried fig & cranberries instead of raisins & left the walnuts out too, my girls don't like walnuts ! I've double the recipe to 1.5x & made two bigger loaves, the other loaf is too camera shy cos' it was deformed by me, haha ! In our weather the second proving only took about 40 mins.

Cappuccino Cake

It's cappuccino for you, grandma ! A friend ordered this cake today for her grandma, she must be a coffee fan ......
This is a new addition to my cakes, for the coffee lovers, 3 layers of coffee sponge with 2 layers of home-made coffee filling, iced with coffee flavoured whipped cream & topped with more coffee filling.

Birthday Birthday

There you go, ChickyEgg, one cake missing, it was a plain cotton cheese cake so I didn't take any pictures of it & OMG I've juz realised that I did not take any pictures of the cupcakes. Oh I did have another picture of cookies .........

Well, tomorrow is the last day of term for my girls, thereafter they gonna have a long 6 week summer holiday, so as usual there's a class party today. And without consulting the mummy they agreed to bring cupcakes so I was toiling the whole day in my kitchen. Friends ordered chocolate cake for the party for their respective class. Another friend called me last night to order a chocolate cake for her colleague's birthday today but she wanted one with a piggy face, I didn't have enough time to do a 'nicer' one, so hehe die die draw one out this morning, think it looked like a pig cos' when I asked my girls what is that, they said it'a a pig, well kids don't lie !!

It happened to be a friend's birthday today, so I made a mango cotton cheesecake with mango puree, topped it with some diced & additonal pureed mango set with gelatin. Oh dear, JF asked me if that was mashed banana.............. haha

The cookies, it was for the class party too. CJ's friend wanted to bring cookies to the party, she've seen my girls bringing them to school for snack so her mummy asked me to make some for her girl. I'll be making some again to send it back to my niece for her birthday next month, hope the cookies won't get crashed .........

Yam Cake

I noticed yam is very popular here in KK, probably due to the Hakka culture, the locals simply love yam, in deep fried yam nest, stewed pork with yam, steamed savoury yam cake. I fancy the yam paste with ginko nut a lot but try to stay clear of it now, due to health consciousness, the rich coconut milk & the yam that has been fried in lard in tradional Teochew restautant, this is my sister's favourite dessert, we ordered this in Thai Village restaurant in Singapore in May but couldn't even finish a small bowl each, how our appetite has shrunk !

Yam cake is another popular cake among my customers, few of them are real fans of yam o yam. The cake consists of 3 layers of vanilla spomge & with 2 layers of blended yam filling. I blend the yam to a smooth paste with some double cream & icing sugar. The real yam is a slight greyish colour or sometimes a darker hue, never bright purple like those you find in bakeries, I don't tint my yam so don't be alarmed if you find it pale, ha ha.......... again the cake is covered with yummy whipped double cream !
Kim ordered this cake for a lady friend so I added some sugar flowers on it & leave it simple with just the message & piped border, no purple cream. She also ordered the chocolate cake for another male friend, so instead of flowers, I've used gold, green & blue cachous to decorate the cake. I've been hooked on piping little dots on the outside of the cake, they do add some elegance to it, don't they ?

Durian Puffs

Couldn't get enough of durian lately, the aroma is still lingering in my kitchen, luckily hubby & the two girls are great fans too, I remembered when the girls were little, they stayed away each time they see durians, now they're grown to like them, especially CJ !

Had an order for 2 boxes of durian puffs today. Each box contains 20 pcs of mini choux pastry puff filled with pure blended durian & the filling is piped into the puff, taste great when frozen, like eating ice-cream............