Monday, October 12, 2009

Creation 007 - Milk Loaf

This is my first attempt to make a loaf of bread after graduating from my bread making course. I followed the steps closely and try to remember all that I have learnt from the course. I saw the milk loaf recipe from Happy Home Baking. Her result was so good. I am filled with envy. This is the type of loaf I hope to bake.

As I started making the bread at late afternoon, I did not have much time for it to double proof so I added 3g of bread improver to it so it only requires one proof. After demonstrating to the whole family what I have learnt from the course, I let it proof. I checked every 15 minutes to monitor the development. To my surprise, it proofed beautifully.


Then I sprayed the surface with water then sent it into the preheated oven. After 7 minutes of baking, it rose so high that it is almost touching the heating element so I tented it with aluminium foil abd baked for 20 minutes. The result is GOOD. I was delighted. It felt just like what HHB had described in the blog. It has a nice flavour. The aroma is overwhelming. I ate it with peanut butter the next day without toasting, unlike my previous attempt. After 2 days, it is still soft and no crumbs on the table after you ate the bread. A good start to my bread making journey.

Do you know why the surface looks so crumpled? I did not realised that the bread is that soft and I just knocked the bread out and it fell head on onto the cooling rack thus creating the crumpled look. I was too rough. Sigh.

My photography skill is still not that fantastic yet. So I failed to capture the softness of this bread in this photo. Nonetheless, I am glad that eating my bread is not a torture for my family now. They have eaten tonnes of failed bread before this. Haha.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Puppy is back to the blogging world.

I am so sorry. I have neglected you for almost half a year. Kym kym has no interest in writing blog already. So here I am. Puppy will be updating this blog while Kym kym is out there enjoying life. You must be wondering where have I been. Haha. I am busy working, shifting house, attending bread making lesson to brush up my skills (YES. I have suffered enough failures.) and many other things. The most important thing is I am too lazy to on my laptop to update this blog. I still prefer to write my journal in my baking scrapebook. I am slowly becoming an antique. Haha.

I have attended 12 bread making lessons with a small baking school. The environment is nice and filled with warmth and laughter. I enjoyed every lessons there even though it deprived me of my beauty sleep every Saturday morning. I have learnt the various techniques associated with bread making like kneading the dough, understanding the ingredients, temperature of the oven etc. So many things to learn. I can bake a loaf of soft bread but there are still room for improvements like how to make the softness last longer. Enough of rattling. Let's take a look at some of the photos of my creations during my 12 lessons.
These are what I made for my first lesson. Haha. Of course with guidance one.

Deep fried bun. Yum Yum. Makes me fat. Love and hate. Haha.

What a beautiful croissant. Nice on its own. Great with tuna mayo.

Guess what is this? Spinach bread with sambal shrimps. Spicy. I love it.
This is puff pastry bread with cream mushroom and chicken filling. Peppery. Yeah.

Pork floss roll. Need lots of skills to roll it. Delicate.

Pizza. Great way to get rid of the leftover veggies in my fridge.

This is the season finale. I made this myself during my last lesson. A bit like test. No help is given. Luckily I took notes during the lesson else by then I should have forgot everything liao. Haha. Benefits for being hardworking. Yeah. I hope I will have the urge to update my blog soon. Till then, take care.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Puppy's Creation 006 - Milo Chocolate Muffin

In this entry, you will see the colourful sillicone muffin cups that Puppy bought. Do you know why she bought it in the first place and not the normal muffin tray? Blame on her stupidity lor. The story begins like this...

She had heard from people that one cannot put metal plates into the microwave oven as it will cause the metal to emit radiation or something like this. As she is a typical Singaporean (obedient), she bears this in mind. Her first few baking attempts were just cookies so she just need the microwave turnable. When she started to read more blogs, she wants to bake more than just cookies. The next in line will be muffins. But those muffin cups that she saw were made of metal. So NO NO. Cannot put that in microwave. She search the blogs to find for alternatives. Then finally, she found that there is things such as silicone baking ware. She immediately went to that shop and buy it. And she tried with this milo chocolate muffins.

One day, maybe she was being enlightened by someone in her dreams, she went to read the instruction manual of the microwave. Then she realised that her microwave is a higher end model which allows her to choose a function called 'Convection' to bake her creation. So all along, she has been using hot air to bake and not microwave, which means when she is using that function, metal baking wares CAN be place inside the microwave. She still dares to declare that she is an engineering student, a Science person when such simple logic she still don't know.

Enough of teasing her, I think she also feels very stupid and spent so much money on the silicone ware which she feels that is not that good for baking and it has a peculiar smell. Very hard to wash too. Anyway, she had just bought metal loaf tin, metal cake tin and metal muffin tray. Metal metal metal. Haha.

Enjoy the muffins. ; )




Thursday, May 14, 2009

Puppy's Creation 005 - Walnut Butter Cookies

Haha. Since Puppy has time to update her blog today, so might as well post two entries. Puppy has found an interesting site. Video Jug, is a site full of videos. As pictures worth a thousand words, Puppy has learned a couple of useful techniques over there, from tying of hair knot to kneading bread. She also saw this simple butter cookie recipe there. She decided to experiment again. And poor me, I have to be her guinea pig again. But I love being one. Hee hee.

During the process, Puppy has a bad feeling as the dough doesn't look like a cookie dough. It is extremely creamy and soft. After baking the first batch, to her horror, all her cookies melted in the oven and got burnt. She dare not to bake the second batch so she kept the dough in the fridge for the time being while she was thinking of ways to salvage the situation.

She went back to the website and read through the comments. She discovered that others also encountered the same situation. Then an experienced baker thought that the author might have typed the recipe wrongly, instead of 25g of flour, it should be 250g of flour. After reading through this, the next morning, Puppy added 125g to the remaining dough and kneaded it until well combined. This time, it looked like a cookie dough and her confidence came back again. She baked it and the kitchen was filled with the aroma of the butter. Yeah. This cookie is not those sweet kind as the recipe requires you to sprinkle icing sugar after baking it. But we prefer it just like this. Nice twist to this baking attempt. : )


Puppy's Creation 004 - Chewy Rolled Oats Raisin Cookies

It's Oats again. Haha. Puppy got too much oats in the kitchen. Will be expired in a couple of months time. After searching among her favourite blogs and websites, she located this recipe. She can find all the ingredients in her mini kitchen so she started making it straight away. Haha.

The product tasted good but it is not chewy at all. Haha. How come?? Puppy suspected that the cookies are overbaked as all the cookies have charred bottom. But she followed the oven temperature stated in the recipe leh... Maybe the oven temperature is not calibrated properly? So many maybes... New bird, opps, I mean new baker is like this one. I told her she is at her exploring stage. She will mature as a baker as time passes. Haha. Do I sound like a wise old man? Of course not. I am a wise old bear. : )


Friday, May 8, 2009

Puppy's Creation 003 - Oatmeal Cookies

Puppy was into baking since September 2008. It has been more than 6 months since she started to bake. Most of the time, the results were not what we see in the recipe book. There must be some techniques that were not mentioned in the book. Puppy does not have any baking experiences (unless you count Home Economics lesson in Sec 1 and 2) and her mum doesn't know baking either. She depends solely on the recipe book. Maybe that can account for the differences in the products.

Other than recipe books that she bought or borrowed from library, her favourite source of recipes will be from blogs. She loves to read them. From there, she can learn from others and get tips in baking and cooking. There are several sites that she visits frequently, namely Happy Home Baking, Just Bento, Elinluv's Tibits Corner and many more. Got addicted to them.

There is also another thing about Puppy's website that readers should take note. Puppy will not publish the recipes that she tried in this blog as she took them wholesale from books and blogs. And she is still not up to the standard to modify the recipes and publish here. Actually she can acknowledge the source lah but she forgot where she took them from already. A puppy with the memory of a goldfish. Haha. Nonetheless, she is more than happy to share with everyone. So if you are interested, do drop her a message in the comments and she will send you the recipe.

This oatmeal cookies is her second creation. Not really that succesful even though they looked quite nice from the photos. The cookies could not get golden brown without the bottom getting burnt. Not sure of the reason. Puppy suspects maybe her microwave oven's temperature is too high. Anyway, after scraping off the burnt part, the cookies are still edible and quite nice actually. Hee hee. Can add more almonds. Kym kym loves almonds.


Puppy's Creation 002 - Chocolate Chips Cookies

This blog is not dead. Puppy was just too busy to update it. After two months, finally she has the time to update it. Hee hee. This blog is about Puppy's first baking creation - Chocolate Chips Cookies. This recipe is obtained from Sharp's instruction manual. Puppy's first attempt MUST be a successful one in order to boost her morale or else she won't have the courage to bake again. Then the microwave oven will become a white elephant.

The advantage of using the Sharp's recipe is that you can follow everything in it and no need to modify the recipe to cater to the oven because this recipe is written with this oven in mind. Hee Hee. The results is great. Everyone in the family loves it. The only comment is that more walnut can be added in.


I was eyeing on the cookies when they are just freshly out of the oven. Smell soooo nice. Hahah. I am going to chop a few for myself by stamping my foot print on them. Haha.




Sunday, March 1, 2009

Puppy's Dinner Series 005

Though I did not blog about Puppy's dinner for two months, this doesn't mean she did not eat at home for two months. In fact, she eats at home every day except maybe for weekend. The two dishes that I am going to blog about are one of Puppy's family's favourites.

First will be the Salted Veggie Duckie Soup. This soup makes your appetite grows. For those who are watching your waistline, better avoid this dish. The slight sourish taste from the salted veggie makes you want to eat more. The duckie in it was so tender that the meat just fell off from the bone of the drumstick. Puppy likes to dip it in the high quality dark soya sauce before sending into her mouth. The other ingredient in this soup will be the sea cucumber. Full of collagen. Straight after you eat it, you can feel that your skin feels younger and more springy. Perfect for ladies. And the best thing is it has no cholesterol. Yeah.


As Puppy's mum is a Hokkien, she is very good at braising pork, chicken feet, eggs, mushroom, dried beancurd sheets, tau gua... Puppy can finish a bowl of rice with just an egg and the gravy. Delicious. Puppy always wonder when can she be a great cook like her mum. It is really a god's gift to be able to cook delicious food. Three cheers for Puppy's mum.

Puppy's Creation 001 - Pineapple Tarts and Peanut Cookies

Wah. Almost 2 months since Puppy updates my blog. So sad. But I don't blame her. She is so busy that she hardly has time to play with me. Luckily she still bakes, at least once every two weeks. She picked up this hobby since September 2008. Until now, she has 15 creations. Maybe I start introducing her most recent masterpiece.

This is the first year she bakes her own Chinese New Year cookies. She attempted pineapple tarts and peanut cookies. The pineapple tarts taste good. The pastry was the softer kind, not cookie-like and it melts in my mouth. The pineapple jam was from Phoon Huat. Not too sweet, just nice for me. The ingredients are simple and easy to make. This recipe is definitely a keeper. See, even the stupid husky is trying to pry open the bottle to get one. Haha.



The second CNY goodies she made was peanut cookies. Another simple recipe for a greenhorn like her. I can describe the method to make these cookies in one sentence - mix all the ingredients in a big bowl and knead it into a dough. Haha. That's it. Then you can make them into the shapes and sizes that you want. Haha.


Puppy gave Barney one bottle of each creation. Hope he had enjoyed the goodies and the cookies did not increase his waistline. Haha.