Hamburger Buns

For busy (or lazy) people like me, I would prefer to make plain bread loaf or bun. It saves me the trouble of preparing the filling. So far, the fillings I have prepared at home are simply store bought grated cheese, cinnamon sugar and sausages. I really like to try fillings like curry potatoes and custard but that will have too wait.

This time, I tried a recipe from 65oC Tang Zhong Bread by Yvonne C. I heard so much about this book and it is really not disappointing. I am so inspired to try out all the recipes in the book. In this post, I have tried the hamburger buns.

I was so happy and amazed by the smell and softness of the bread when it just came out of the oven. I simply could not resist but to press the sides of the buns. Please bear with me. I hardly have success baking bread so far. Haha. After it was cooled, though not as soft as it was when it came out of the hot box, but the texture is comparable to the bakery one. As I was slicing them into half, I was smiling all the way. I had them with cheese the next morning, it was good without toasting. I had it the next next morning again with honey baked ham, still so good. I gave two to my mum and she gave me the same feedback too. She had them with ham, cheese and tomato. She said that the sesame seeds gave the bread the fragrance that cannot be found in the store bought ones. I was delighted.


Recipe (adapted from 65oC Tang Zhong Bread)

Ingredients:

(A)
bread flour 210g
cake flour 56g
milk powder 20g
castor sugar 42g
salt half tsp
instant yeast 6g

(B)
whole egg 30g
water 85g
Tang Zhong 84g

(C)
butter 22g

Sesame seeds for decorations

1. Mix (A) and (B) until it is smooth using a dough hook. Start with slow speed to prevent the flour from flying around then change to medium speed.

2. Add in (C) and knead till the dough pass the window pane stage, which means if you tear a piece of dough out, you are able to stretch it till it forms a thin membrane.

3. Make it into a round dough and put it into a floured bowl. Let it proof in an enclosed area for 40 minutes. (I placed it in a big box with a cup of steaming hot water and cover the box with the lid.)

4. When it has doubled in size, punch down the dough and divide into 9 round doughs (each ~60g) and let it rest for 10 minutes.

5. Roll them into nice round balls, brush the surface with the remaining egg or water and coat it with tonnes of sesame seeds. Space them out on greased baking tray.

6. Let it proof for another 40 minutes. 20 minutes before the end of proofing, preheat the oven to 180oC.

7. Bake for 15 minutes in middle rack. Let it cool first before slicing. Enjoy.

Bread Bread and More Bread

Seems like I have abandoned my blog again. :( I am stuck in a busy and vicious cycle. Even though I am baking every weekend, by the time I clean up my kitchen, it will be time for bed and get ready for another week of work. Sometimes I do get a little depress over this. Finally I am here again after about 4 weeks.

I have been baking bread during these 4 weeks. Why did I keep on baking bread?? First, I love bread and I have it for breakfast every weekday morning. Second, the bread that I baked just doesn't seem to be as fluffy as what I bought in the bakery. Sometimes I do get soft bread but it's just not the fluffy kind. More dense to be exact. I don't know if my expectation is too high. But to me, I feel that I have yet to succeed in bread making. I will keep on trying. This process just simply has too many variables and unknowns. Maybe this is the third reason. It is challenging.

20th March - Butter Cinnamon Roll from here


For this bun, I forgot to leave the dough to double in the second proof. After shaping it, I sent them into the oven straight away. So blur. Luckily it is still soft and nice just that it is not fluffy.
I am sure if I did not forget that step, the standard will be closer to my dream bread.

27th March - Sweet Bun with hotdog from here


This ugly looking bun is the result of me acting smart when I am not. Slap myself. I prove the dough overnight because I don't want to spend so many hours in the kitchen on Sunday. On Sunday, I took out the dough, shape it and bake it. Terrible mistake. I should have thaw it first but I am afraid that the dough will be over proof. Sigh. I think I won't try this method again until I got more specific instructions on how to carry this out correctly from a trusted source. Anyway, this bread has a scone-like texture. It still taste decent after toasting. Far from my dream bread.

3rd April - Sweet Bun with hotdog


I am tired of failure. So this time, I decided to be obedient and follow the above recipe step by step. And finally, I got a bun that is close to my dream bread, just that the fluffiness is still shy of those bought ones. But this bun is good enough to make me happy for the whole day.

10th April - Wholemeal Bun (Using Tangzhong)

I forgot to take picture of these plain wholemeal bun. After hearing so much about Tangzhong method and how it can retain its fluffiness for three days, I decided to try it. But sad to say, it did not come out right. Quite soft but not exactly fluffy. Luckily it tastes good when it is toasted with cheese.

I am taking a break this week from baking bread. I think I will bake muffins instead. :) But... I will be back.

Valentine's Day

For the past week, I have been indulging myself with CNY goodies like my favourite bak gua, pineapple tarts, love letters... The list is so long. The angel in me will tell me to watch out for my waistline and the devil in me will say one year once only, it's ok. Sigh. I always lean towards the devilish me.

For Valentine's Day, by right I should be making heart shape cookies or chocolatey heart shaped cake or even heart shaped truffles (even though I never make it before) but I think my hubby and I had enough of those high sugar, high sugar, high calories goodies (or maybe I should call them baddies ;). I should make something for him that is part of his daily three meals so I would not increase his calories intake. My decision is Bread. You may think that I am unromantic. Yeah. You hit the jackpot. I must say I am quite a practical person. Flowers for Valentine's Day? I don't know how to appreciate them and I don't really crave for them. I rather have something practical. Haha. Hope he gets my hints.

I made him cheesy heart-shaped buns with a little raw sugar sprinkled on top. I read about this technique of shaping in Happy Home Baking. The recipe that I used is adapted from Angie's Recipe. In order to add more fiber to our diet, I replaced 30 g of bread flour with wholemeal flour. As for the taste, you cannot expect it to be super soft and fluffy like the white bread. However, it is indeed soft even on the second day (which is today) without toasting. I can say that I am satisfy with the result. :)



I am submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers hosted by Cuisine Paradise. More information can be found here.

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.

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.