Cafe Batu Jimbar, Sanur Bali

As we waited for our room to be ready, we went across the street and had lunch at Cafe Batu Jimbar. It has the Balinese architectural influence, semi open air, high ceiling and mostly wooden theme throughout. There are ample seating inside the restaurant or on the front porch and side alley. We chose to sit inside hoping to escape from the Sanur heat during lunch time and indeed it was cool inside, even without air conditioner.

cafe batu jimbar
Notice the amazing decoration!
Seatings at the side alley
Seating at the side alley

There is cabinet displaying cakes and little sweet treats in front near the cashier and bar, which all looks very appealing. We ended up ordering one of their chocolate sliced caked for dessert. But first of all, a friendly waiter came to our table and left us to read the menu. They offer not just Indonesian food, but also Thai, Vietnamese, and Western.

Cake display
Cake display

I opted for one the Batu Jimbar favourite, which is Ikan Woku Belanga – fish cooked in spicy sweet and sour broth. Hubby went for Arugula Salad with grilled sirloin beef as he had craving for green leaves 🙂 It was a difficult choice to make for the drinks, all the juices in their menu sounds delicious! We ended up getting the Green With Envy and Inner Cleanser. I personally prefer the Green With Envy, but both tasted good not just on the taste buds but body as well.

The healthy juices
The healthy juices
Arugula Salad
Arugula Salad
cafe batu jimbar5
Ikan Woku Belanga
Close up of the fish stew
Close up shot of the fish stew
Chocolate Mousse Cake - yes we are in chocolate heaven!
Chocolate Mousse Cake – yes we are in chocolate heaven!

Hubby said the Arugula Salad is very flavorsome and the beef cooked perfectly well. When we went to Bali, we rarely had western food, mainly because the point of Bali trip for us is to devour on Indonesian food that we already miss. But with this Arugula Salad, hubby said he would happily order it again and again. Same goes to the Ikan Woku Belanga, well-balanced dish that packs with flavour.

Oh and a side note, Cafe Batu Jimbar has Sunday Market event where various chefs sell their food on the stalls in front of the restaurant. We had already left Bali on Saturday night, so missed this chance; but we would definitely love to try it out.

Cafe Batu Jimbar

Jl. Danau Tamblingan No. 75A, Sanur, Bali

Phone: +62 361 287 374

Email: info@cafebatujimbar.com

www.cafebatujimbar.com

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 🙂

sweet potato bread3

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 🙂

sweet potato bread

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 🙂

 

 

 

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 🙂

eggless donut2

Egg white Rolled Cake

I love Asian patisseries with their cute and fluffy cakes, they are usually spongy (which I love most) and at the same time very fluffy soft. Also, they usually have “Asian” flavors, such as taro, matcha green tea, even durian 😛 But one day we tried the Korean patisserie and there were slices of white rolled cake that really drew my eyes. So the cake itself is all white, without any hint of yellow whatsoever, and then it was filled with vanilla cream. So of course I tried it, it was nice! Spongy texture, was not as delicate as cake with a lot of egg yolks, then the creamy vanilla whipped cream – all adds up to a one delicious dessert.

I have not made any rolled cake since my first attempt at rolled cake here which was satisfactory according to The Wifey’s Corner Team aka Mr Hubby and myself 😀 But after making this moist cake and these rich cheesy cookies, I have saved up a small bag of egg whites. Whilst I can and have used them for cooking, there are still some left and sitting in the fridge for couple weeks now. So then I remembered that white rolled cake I had a while ago and I looked up the recipe for it.

I followed the recipe from a Youtube channel here.  The recipe is easily followed and use only the typical stuffs in the pantry. The ingredients are as follows:

  • 40 grams flour, sifted
  • 20 grams milk powder, sifted
  • 40 cc milk
  • 30 cc vegetable oil
  • 120 grams egg white (from about 4 eggs)
  • 45 grams sugar
  • For whipped cream: 140 grams thickened cream, 15 grams sugar, 15 grams sweetened condensed milk

Mix together milk and vegetable oil in a bowl.

Then add in the sifted flour and milk powder to the bowl, mix well with a whisk balloon.

On separate bowl, beat the egg white until foamy then gradually add the sugar a little at a time while mixing until it becomes glossy and hard meringue stage.

Add 1/3 portion of the meringue to the flour mixture, and fold to combine well with a spatula. Be gentle on this, so that we don’t lose all the air in the meringue. Once it is all combined, add more meringue and fold again, repeat this step for the rest of the meringue.

Pour the batter to a lined rolled cake pan (27 x 27 cm), smooth the surface with spatula. Tab the bottom of the pan to release trapped air bubbles.

Bake on preheated oven at 170C for about 12 minutes

Once cooked, release the cake from baking pan, flip the cake to another clean sheet of baking paper and gently peel off the baking paper that stuck to the bottom and side of the cake. Let aside to cool to room temperature. Meanwhile waiting for the cake to cool, you can prepare the whipped cream filling. I omit sugar and sweet condensed milk this time and instead mixed in 1-2 tablespoon of Nutella. Also, I have just a bit of thickened cream left, therefore my filling is not as thick one showed in the video.

Once it the cake is cooled, spread the whipped cream generously on the surface of the cake and leave some space at the of the cake. Roll it away then wrap with a clean baking paper, secure each end to hold its shape and refrigerate. Best enjoyed straight from the fridge 🙂

egg white rolled cake1