My Baking and Cooking Paradise

Stir Fried Chicken with Apples

>> Sunday, November 23, 2008

Trying out a new dish, Stir Fried Chicken with Apples.

I adapted the original recipe from Peng's Kitchen Blog

Ingredients:
Half a chicken
1 red apple
2 tsp of plum sauce
2 Shallots
1 Onions
A few slices of ginger
1 tsb of oil
1 tsp of soy sauce
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp of lemon juice

Method:
1. Season chicken with soy sauce, pepper & 1 tsp of plum sauce.
1. Heat up 1 tsb of oil, Stir fried chicken with garlic, shallots and onions. Add in chicken, stir fried till cooked, add in 1 tsp of plum sauce, add in abit of water, stir fried till cooked.
2. Add in apples, cook for about 10 mins or till gravy slowly dries up.
3. Dash some parley on the dish. Ready to serve.

Milk bun

This is my 3rd attempt on bread making, i adapted the recipe from Happy home baking blog. Having the idea of not giving up on bread making, i decide to bake it again today. I do not have a pullman tray so i used a baking tin. Instead of shaping 3 swiss roll dough, I shape it into 2 portion of longish dough to fill up the tray. This time, it took about 2hrs to fill up the tin. It did not rise super high but it fill almost 90% of the baking tin and the taste of it is so much better den previous time.

To me, it looks like a milk bun instead of milk loaf.. keke. the turn out is great, very soft inside.

143g fresh milk (I used HL low-fat fresh milk)
35g egg
25g caster sugar
5g salt
250g bread flour
4g Instant yeast
38g butter (unsalted)

Place milk, egg, followed by caster sugar, salt, bread flour and yeast into the pan of the bread machine. Set to Dough function. Add in the butter after 8 ~ 10 mins into the kneading cycle. Continue to let the bread machine do the kneading. Stop the machine after the kneading cycle. Re-start the machine and let the dough knead for another 10mins before stopping the machine.
Remove dough from the bread pan, let it proof in room temperature in a mixing bowl, covered with cling wrap. Let proof for 60mins.
Remove dough and punch out the gas. Divide dough into 3 equal portion. Roll and shape into balls. Let the doughs rest and relax for 15 mins. (this 'relaxing' time is needed so that the dough will be easier to roll out and shaped).
On a lightly floured surface, flatten one dough and roll out into a longish shape. Roll up the dough swiss-roll style. Do the same for the two remaining doughs.
Flatten the rolled-up dough and roll out again into a long rectangular shape. Roll up tightly, and make as many rolls you can, swiss-roll style for the second time. Do the same for the two remaining doughs.
Place doughs in lightly greased bread tin/pan. Let the doughs proof for the second time, until it fills up 80% of the tin/pan. Cover with cling wrap.
Bake at pre-heated oven at 180 ~ 190 deg C for 30 to 35mins.
Unmould the bread immediately when removed from the oven. Let cool completely before slicing.

Cranberry cupcake

>> Monday, October 27, 2008

While waiting for the bread dough to proof, i made some cranberry cupcake with the remaining egg and fresh milk.

Milky Loaf

After browsing some of the baker's blogs on bread making. I made 2 loaves of bread on sun and monday but the end result wasnt as good. Not sure what's the problem. The 2nd proofing didn't go well, after proofing for 2hrs, it did not rise very high dough it rise doubled size of the dough.

It was a long day of waiting and baking.. waiting for the proof. It took me about 5hrs to make this bread including the 3hrs of proofing. My hubby commented that should have just buy a loaf of bread for $2, why waste 5hrs making bread? hahaha.. well i would say its a sense of accomplishment and eating the bread that you have made your own, its kind of joy too.

I suspect the following problems:
1) The baking tin is not the correct size
2) During the 2nd proofing, after an hr, the clingwrap stick onto the dough, i carefully remove it but i think i deflate the dough :( the dough collapse abit.

Any shifu can advise on my problems?