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April 17, 2016October 31, 2023

Sweet Potato Bread

I have been so busy lately and felt terrible that this blog has been abandoned. Adjusting with new job at the busiest time of the month is just taking up a lot of my time, so when I get home late at night, I really do not have the energy to do any blogging. For the same reason, I had not been experimenting with many exciting new recipes, be it baking or cooking. There is still a long list of things I want to attempt, but finding the time and energy is a real challenge at the moment.

Last weekend, I ticked one of the recipe from my list which is another bread recipe. This time we added mashed sweet potato to the bread. The original recipe calls for purple sweet potato, but since I only have the usual sweet potato, so that was what I used. I am surprisingly impressed with the result! Very soft bread, although it is not as fluffy as the milky bread with tangzhong, but it remains really soft until the next day. I guess the addition of mashed potato makes the bread somewhat solid in texture, a little heavier than the tangzhong method. But overall, we think it is a winner and that’s why this recipe is a keeper and I shall make an effort to share it with my readers 🙂

The original recipe is from Femina, one of those popular Indonesian women magazines, not sure when it was published, but here are the ingredients:

300 grams bread flour
100 grams sugar (I used 75 grams)
3 tablespoons milk powder
100 grams mashed sweet potato
50 grams butter at room temperature
150 ml warm milk
2 egg yolks
1.5 teaspoons instant dry yeast (I used 1 teaspoon)
1 teaspoon salt

Mix the dry yeast with warm milk, 1 tablespoon of sugar (from the total sugar listed above). Set aside until it is frothy.

Combine flour, sugar, milk powder and egg yolks in a separate mixing bowl. Keep mixing while adding in the warm milk mixture a little at a time.

Mix until it forms a ball then add in butter, salt and mashed sweet potato.

Knead until the dough is smooth and flexible.

Leave it in a warm place for proofing about 1 hour or more when it is double in size. Since I used less yeast, I find it takes longer to reach that state, mine took about 1.5 hours.

Once it is double in size, punch the dough to release trapped gas. Divide it into 9 portions and fill with your favorite topping. I used Nutella and small pieces of cheddar cheese to balance out the sweetness of Nutella.

Let it rest for another 15 minutes and meanwhile, preheat the oven at 200C.

By the time the oven is ready, brush the surface of each dough portion with egg wash (I used 1 tablespoon of the egg yolk from above ingredient mix with 1 tablespoon of milk).

Bake for about 20 minutes and brush the surface of bread with butter once it is finished baking.

Happy eating, and I hope you like the recipe as much as we like it 🙂

April 2, 2016September 18, 2023

Roti Boy Wannabe with Tangzhong Method

During the Easter long weekend, I have been testing a few Roti Boy “Wannabe” recipes I found on the web and whilst all of them resulted fluffy bread, I am still not very happy with the topping. I reckon there must be a secret ingredient to the original roti boy recipe (¬_¬) Note that I usually just make half of the recipe when trying out new ones, also for roti boy, it is best to have them fresh. So by making half the recipe, usually they are gone within the same day or latest the day after baking.

I have posted a recipe of roti boy copycat before in here and I was pretty happy with the recipe. But since then I have experimenting with few more recipes and in my opinion, nothing really beats the tangzhong method to result in super soft bread and actually stay soft for longer. No magic in here, it is just the fact that the dough contain much more liquid than the usual recipe and you will have to knead it longer to achieve the flexible stage – hence the super soft bread texture.

On my third attempt, I realized why not I use my favorite tangzhong method to make the bread. Whilst I really can not do much about the topping, at least make the bread super soft and fluffy would be nicer (っ˘ڡ˘ς), so here we go the recipe below:

Bread, the source is here:

300 grams bread flour
30 grams sugar
8 grams instant dry yeast (I used 1 teaspoon)
25 grams milk powder
1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg, lightly whisked
50 grams whipping cream/thickened cream
For the roux: 20 g Bread flour and 1/2 cup water

Filling:

10 small cubes of cold butter (if using unsalted butter, sprinkle tiny pinch of salt to each cube of butter)

Topping:

50 grams butter at room temperature
50 grams icing sugar
egg white from 1 egg
60 grams all-purpose flour
10 grams milk powder
1 teaspoon ground coffee
1 teaspoon coffee mocha paste, for darker colour

Prepare the water roux at least few hours before you start the bread dough, so that the water roux is at least at room temperature.

I prefer to combine my yeast in the slightly warmed milk and 1 teaspoon of sugar (from the 30 grams as recipe calls for) and let it becomes frothy before adding in to the flour.

Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl and let the mixer does the hard work until it form a ball.

It will still be quite sticky at this stage, so you’ll need to knead the dough a bit on floured surface until it is smooth.

Then, let the dough to rise in warm place for about 1 hours until it becomes double in size.

Release any trapped gas from the dough then divide to 10 equal smaller balls.

Flatten each dough ball and add in the filling, close them up then roll again to a smooth ball. Repeat for all dough balls.

Place them on a baking tray lined with baking paper and let the rest for 30 – 45 minutes, meanwhile we prepare the topping.

Topping: combine all ingredients together, whisk until everything is incorporated well. If it is too thick, add water a little at a time (started with 1 tablespoon, then mix well, and add again if needed). The consistency should not be too runny either that you will not able to pipe it onto the top of the bread. Place in a plastic bag or piping bag and snip off the end a little bit.

Pipe the topping in swirl motion starting from the middle all the way down the side of each bread. Repeat for the rest of the bread.

Bake in preheated oven at 170C for about 20 minutes.

March 28, 2016

Restaurant Review – Ale Ale, Pontianak, Indonesia

This is another super late post from our trip back home September last year. During our very short trip to my hometown, Pontianak, we visited this restaurant which my family had been going in the past but kind of forgotten in the recent times somehow. The restaurant name Ale Ale refers to a type of shellfish that are found in a small fishing town in West Borneo, called Ketapang; hence their famous dish is spicy ale ale stew. Upon researching on the internet, apparently ale ale can also be found in other part of Indonesia and called with different names. I think they look quite similar to pippies, don’t you think? They are fairly small in size compared to mussels, the shells are whitish and so are their meats are kind of whitish and almost transparent. Here is a picture of ale ale shellfish, courtesy of Google Search.

Now. the restaurant is mainly semi outdoor, with part seating consists of the usual tables-chairs in the middle and on the side are seating on floor with low tables (aka lesehan). On that occasion we chose the lesehan style for a more casual dining. Ale Ale (the restaurant) offers not only the shellfish, also various Indonesian and Chinese food options. Here are what we ordered:

Ale Ale1 — From top left: Spicy Ale Ale Stew, Crispy Prawn with Spicy Mayonnaise, Anchovy Sambal, and Grilled Chicken

Ale Ale2 — From left: Crispy Calamari, Spicy Fern (Pakis), and Fried Rice for my nieces

We definitely had a delicious and memorable dinner at Restaurant Ale Ale Podomoro, and all that only costs about AU$30, bear in mind that is for total of 6 adults and 2 kids! So, yes we are certainly going back to this place when we are in town again 🙂

** Some other recommended menus are: Sour and spicy fish stew and Black pepper beef ribs.

Pondok Ale Ale Podomoro

Jl. Putri Candramidi (Podomoro), Pontianak, West Borneo, Indonesia

Phone: +62 561 763048

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pondok-Ale-Ale-Podomoro/143935298989119

March 11, 2016March 22, 2016

Chocolate Braided Bread

I made this bread from the remaining of the eggless donuts dough that I tried and yet failed again. Instead of throwing them away, I hoped that it would be nicer to be baked as bread. And exactly true, the dough makes a good bread even though it does not contain any eggs. The water roux has acted as natural bread improver that creates soft texture bread.

So here we go, full recipe as seen on this post:

Divide the dough into two equal portions.

Add 1 tablespoon of sifted cocoa powder to one half and knead to mix well.

Flatten the white dough portion to a somewhat rectangular shape, try to match the length of your baking pan. Smother generously with chocolate spread (can be substituted with peanut butter or even water, lightly brushed) on the surface of the flatten white dough leaving about 1 cm of each sides. I made mistake by spreading it all the way through and made a massive chocolate mess when rolled the bread later.

Flatten the chocolate dough to about the same size as the white dough and lay on top of the chocolate spread.

Roll up the bread dough into an oblong shape, secure both ends.

Flatten the bread roll a little bit and cut into three portions, but not all the way through, leave about 2 cm of one end uncut. Braid the dough and place in a baking pan.

Let it rest for 15 minutes and bake on preheated oven at 180C until it is thoroughly cooked. (Mine took about 20 minutes)

Brush the bread with butter while it is still hot to have that glossy look 🙂

braided bread — Note that I used Kraft Chocolate Hazelnut spread this time, trying out new brand. Hubby still prefers the good old Nutella, so will definitely go back to our trusted brand again 🙂

March 10, 2016September 27, 2023

Eggless Donut with Water Roux [Failed?]

Up till today I have tried making donuts about four or five times and from all those experiments, it was only once that I am quite happy with, which was the no knead donuts. All the other experiments have pretty much failed, too hard, not cooked through with burnt skin, the donuts cracked when fried hence soggy with oil, and all other failures you can associate with donuts making. I have tried the basic donuts recipe to ones with mashed potatoes, which supposedly creates donuts with softer texture that lasts to the next day; none of them really worked for me for some reasons. The fact that I have tried many times and almost every time was a failure was really discouraging to even re-attempting again, but at the same time it intrigues my inner curiosity 😛 So here we go, another attempt on donut making.

I was just browsing through my Facebook updates and noticed a friend who shared a post on eggless donut recipe. The pictures of that soft pillowy looking donuts then prompted me to click on the post and there it was a not so detailed recipe. Since it has startled my curiosity, there was just no way I would stop there. Upon googling the recipe, I found this post that was very helpful and decided to give it a try, hoping that my donuts curse will be lifted 😀

Here are the ingredients:

Water roux: 25 grams bread flour + 125 ml water
200 grams bread flour
50 grams all purpose flour
1 tablespoon of sugar
2 tablespoons of milk powder
1 tablespoon of instant yeast
1 teaspoon of sugar
50 ml lukewarm water
50 grams of butter
3 – 5 tablespoons of lukewarm water (only if the dough was too dry)

Cook the water roux until it became sticky paste, cover with cling wrap directly on the surface of the water roux. Set aside to room temperature.

On a glass, mix the 50 ml lukewarm water with yeast and 1 teaspoon of sugar. Stir and set aside for about 10-15 minutes until it is foamy.

On a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, and milk powder together. Then add in the cooled water roux and the foamy yeast mixture. Knead the dough until it form a ball, add more water if it is too dry and vice versa flour if it is too wet. I ended up adding extra 2 tablespoons of water to the dough. Then add butter, knead again until elastic.

Set aside the dough for proofing for about 45 minutes until the dough is double in size.

Shape little balls on donuts and place on the floured baking pan and let them rest for about 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat up pan with plenty of cooking oil for deep frying with low heat. Poke a hole in the middle of each donuts just before dropping them for deep frying. Turn them over once the other side is golden. Don’t rush the deep frying process by cranking up the heat to ensure the donuts are thoroughly cooked and not burnt on the outside.

So, turned out my donuts cursed is not lifted yet. There must be something wrong with the way I cooked them, they are soaked with oil, again! The texture itself is pretty soft and would have been enjoyable if not soaking with oil. Phew maybe I should just not attempt on making donuts again, ever. I am sure there is nothing wrong with the recipe, as many have testified its results are wonderful. So dear readers, if you do give it a go, please let me know how yours turn out 🙂