Washing up

Brioche au chocolat

If there's one thing I could forbid my parents from doing, it would be to ban them from buying bread outside. I tried the last time they visited Australia while I still lived in Brisbane and I failed. The first morning after I issued my ban, I saw commercial bread in the kitchen. After analysing the situation I am thoroughly convinced that great improvement must be made in my bread making skills to achieve such thing. My objection, thus, is to make bread so good that my parents not only keep quiet (silence is a sign of approval in my family) but they'd express some sort of positive emotion.

Typical Asian bread is soft and sweet. My grandmother particularly loves the soft pillowy buns that we buy from Kaisar Bakery at home (not to be mistaken with Kayser). There's not really a name for it but something generic. I've been looking through my bread book wondering what it is exactly. Is it brioche? Challah perhaps? Milk bread?

I saw the lemon curd brioche croissant in Knead for Bread and I decided to give it a go. Trouble is that I prefer my citrus uncomplicated, untouched... simply served wedged. So.... I made a chocolate brioche croissants instead. All you have to do is make a thick chocolate ganache for the filling. Knead for Bread had so kindly put up a step by step guide accompanied by pictures, however I went with my own little recipe for brioche, using fresh milk instead of water to further enrich the bread.

It makes a pretty neat breakfast bread or tea party snacks for those of you who, like me, never quite grown up. :P

Happy holidays!!

youI was home in Brisbane for a few days for my sister's birthday. For four days I made bread day in day out, night in night out and I got the nod of approval from them. It was blissful to feed your family and to be responded to with enthusiastic grunt that escaped speechless chewing mouths.

So I'm back now in Sydney and my appetite for cooking is numbed by the pressure from not knowing who exactly are coming for the party at my place tomorrow and if the cutlery will suffice. On top of that the champagnes I ordered didn't come, they ran out (how could they run out??!!). For tomorrow I will just make chocolate chip bread rolls and I'm posting my recipe for bread dough which you can also use for pizza base. The sugar is a bit excessive but I think it complements the savoury taste of the toppings very nicely.

Midnight bakery bread dough

Ingredients
250 g plain flour
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp instant yeast
250 ml H2O
25 g butter, cubed

Direction

1. Mix all dry ingredients together and make a well in the center.
   
2. Pour in the water and mix with hand until all ingredients are mostly lumped in together. At this stage the dough should be really sticky but fear not.
   
3. Add in the butter and knead. If the dough clings on your skin, feel free to dust some flour over, but don't over do it.
   
4. Keep kneading the dough until it's sort of elastic. There's one stage where you're able to push a hole in with your finger and the indentation will bounce back. When your dough reaches this stage, leave it to rest for about 3 hours. I prefer to use plastic container or bowl because plastic is a sucky conductor of heat so your dough won't be dry on the outside or form any "skin". Don't forget to cover the bowl with damp kitchen towel.
   
5. Now, your dough should be at least doubled in size. Push down and just knead the dough briefly.
   
6. Cut the dough into the size of half an adult fist (or a little fist) and just shape it anyway you like and leave to rest for about an hour.
7. Preheat the oven to 180 degree Celcius for 10 minutes.
8. Bake and watch.
   

Bonne chance et Joyeaux Noel!!

Cookies & recipe

I decided to make cookies tonight. I started with my usual recipe mix for peanut butter, pecan and chocolate chip cookies but added a twist of red, green, yellow glazed cherries. Wait, that's not all. At my last batch of dough, I added the green tea that I got from Japan earlier this year. This is a mix of green tea leaves and green tea powder. I understand that much from the picture on the packaging. Please feel correct me if I'm wrong.
It's an experiment, a gamble if you like.The result is a different aroma in the air. There's definitely an infusion of green tea and how well does the marriage of peanut butter, pecan nuts, dark chocolate and green tea go? Let me put it this way, I thought that the peanut butter would overwhelm the green tea, but instead both distinct tastes blend into each other. I think I'll get some green tea powder the next time I do grocery shopping to experiment further.

Midnight Bakery Cookie
(Peanut butter, pecan & chocolate chip)

Ingredients

• 100g unsalted butter at room temperature
• 50g peanut butter
• 280g brown sugar
• 2 eggs (whole eggs)
• 100g flour
• 100g pecan (more if you like, I've used 200g of nuts before and they were great)
• 100g chocolate chips (or just chop blocked chocolate. Likewise... use the whole 250g block if you like)
  

Direction

1. Cream the butter, peanut butter and sugar until light and fluffy. If your butter is too hard to mix... well, serves you right not to follow my direction properly. You can melt the butter slightly by microwaving it for 10 seconds. I recommend doing this step by hand (no machine) not because I'm cruel (ok, so I am a little), but because it's a great arm exercise.
2. Add the egg, one by one, mixing well at each addition.
3. (Optional) You could add in a tablespoon of vanilla essence or I recommend Franjelico liqueur, but keep this out if you're baking for friends whose religion forbids the consumption of alcohol.. not that the alcohol would stick around during baking but it's the principle that matters.
4. Sift the flour into the butter mixture and mix it.
5. Add pecan and chocolate chips and just make sure they're distributed evenly.
6. Use 2 spoons to roll cookie dough into balls and position them apart on the tray. Use teaspoons if you like your cookies small or tablespoons if you want giant size cookies, but make sure the opening of your cookie jar is big enough to fit the giant ones before you start getting excited about making super-sized cookies.
7. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degree Celsius.
8. Watch as they bake in the oven. The cookie dough balls should melt a little to resemble disks but you should start worrying if the whole thing just melt. This had happened to me twice using a craptastic oven that didn't reach the intended temperature. I didn't really time my baking, so just watch it until you think it looks like those that you get at your favourite cafe.
   

I'd love to hear feedback from anyone who tried this recipe. Happy baking and good luck! (^.^)

Comfort Food - Rice Ball/Onigiri

Although bread is something that fascinates and obsesses me, my love for it almost stops just right there at the making. I don't think I've ever really craved the taste of it like I do for rice. Is this due to my upbringing (environmental factor) or is it in my blood (genetic factor)? Who knows. If you have a toddler aged around 3 that you'd like to give up for the purpose of unravelling this mysterious phenomena, please get in touch with me. For now, while it remains a question, I shall indulge in my rice craving by making and eating onigiri day in day out until it is satisfied.


This is an onigiri with tuna salad filling. In all simplicity, it... it... it is divine... seriously.

Master Chef

Last week I received an email from Graeme de Vallance, a casting director from A Cast of Thousands about a reality show and I thought I'd post it up here. I think this is such a great idea and I encourage anyone who is a foodie or amateur/non-professional chef to go out there and battle it out. I'd do it myself if I'm not already committed for the next 2-3 years to my PhD.

The search is on to find Australia’s first true MasterChef. Network Ten wants every kitchen wannabe from amateur chefs to budding foodies to toss their chef’s hat in the ring…each hoping to become…Australia’s next super Chef.A real life drama will play out as the contestant’s kitchen courage is put to the ultimate test. From the lows of failure to the highs of success, our cast of characters will be catapulted from starters to mains then desserts and back again.IN 2009 WE ARE ABOUT TO SEE WHO CAN TAKE THE HEAT…AND WHO HAD BETTER GET OUT OF THE KITCHEN!To apply, go to www.masterchef.com.au

Not just a pretty face

The institute's student club is having our Christmas party today. A whole range of activities had been organized and one of them is baking contest. I made this cake last night after browsing many wonderful blogs and recipe sites. The design is nothing new, but I did make some changes to the basic recipes mainly due to catastrophes like having the chocolate curdle. I'd like to acknowledge some blogs that I drew inspiration and ideas from: Happy Home Baking and Scent of Green Bananas.

So what exactly is this stuff then? The base of it is thick short crust pastry with crushed peanuts baked into it, topped with peanut butter chocolate mousse and strawberries and fenced with sponge finger biscuits that had been brushed very lightly with the syrup from canned mangostene.
This is my favourite entry, a butter cake shaped like a mouse and so well decorated. The icing was so impressive, it just melted in your mouth. This entry won most creative cake.

My cake won best taste. (^_^) The party was really fun. I'm so glad to be surrounded by such fun and great people.

Le pain, c'est la vie

This is probably going to make me an obsessive freak if I am not one already. Within 48 hours I have made 4 batches of 250 g of bread.

First batch went to my dinner guest.
Second batch burned to crispy blackness because I fell asleep while baking it.
Third batch was born out of boredom.
Fourth batch just came out of the oven.

I finally got this bread making business right, the consistency, the texture, the softness. They are like the stuff that you get from the bakeries back at home, but just.. dare I say (and forgive my arrogance) superior due to the longer resting time which allows the delicate flavour to develop further. I'm now in search of a good butter.

Ok... so for the last batch of bread of the weekend, I finished kneading at 21:15 and I thought what the heck, I'll let it rest overnight and see how it turns out. The problem that I anticipated with leaving it to rest for such a long time despite promise of better flavour is over fermentation where a side product of yeast digestion, namely alcohol, especially in large amount after a long fermentation time might kill this microorganism and instead of cuddling a of rock star a bread, you get a tough and inedible dough. I kept on coming back to this baby from last night at 00:15, at 1, at 3 and finally at 6 when it looked great and smelled even better! There was a scent that was not quite, yet bear some resemblances to sourdough.

I made 3 shapes: petit bâtard, knot and three circles. My creativity is limited, I copied these from my first baking book. They look ok. Texture wise, they are not dissimilar to the batches with only 3 hour resting time. They're so soft and upon tasting, there's something there, something. I must titrate the starting ingredients to optimize the taste, but this is definately better than all the previous breads that I have ever made.
This has been a great start for the week. Happy Monday all and may our week be filled with many wonderful things!