Chocolate Buns

I usually bake bread, buns or cakes for breakfast. Once in a while I may make our local kuih like Pulut Kaya, Yam Kuih, Baked Ubi Kayu, Angkoo Kuih, Ma Lai Koh and so on for my family. Pancakes are very commonly made in my household - either plain, pumpkin, chocolate, banana, etc. But it is very rare that I fry noodles or make noodle soup for breakfast.

We love chocolate buns especially those filled with lots of chocolate chips.  Making them is easy and fast. These buns are soft and fluffy; they easily remain soft till the third day. 

Ingredients:

• 250 g bread flour
• 15 g cocoa powder
• 50 g castor sugar
• 1 tsp instant yeast
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 140 ml chocolate milk
• 1 egg, Grade A
• 30 g butter
• chocolate chips
• Egg wash: 1 egg + 1 tbsp water

Method:

• Put the bread flour, cocoa power, sugar, instant yeast and salt into the bowl of a stand mixer.

• Turn on low speed to mix all the ingredients.

• Add chocolate milk into the bowl.

• Add in the egg.

• Knead the ingredients until the dough forms into a ball.

• Add butter to the dough and continue to knead.

• Knead the dough till window pane is achieved.

• Grease a clean bowl.

• Transfer the dough to the greased bowl.

• Cover the bowl with a cling wrap and let the dough proof till it doubles in size.

• Once the dough has doubled in size, transfer it to a slightly floured surface.

• Punch down the dough and knead it by hand for another 5-10 minutes.

• Weigh the dough and divide it into 10 small dough balls. (Each of my dough ball weighs 52-53 gm.)

• Take a dough ball and roll it out on the slightly floured surface into a circle.

• Put 2 tsp of chocolate chips onto the circle.

• Bring the edge of the circle together to seal it.

• Roll it out gently to form a ball.

• Place the ball onto a cake liner and place it onto a baking tray.

• Repeat till all the small dough are completed.

• Cover the baking tray and let the dough proof till double in size.

• Egg wash the dough before baking.

• Bake at 170 degrees Centigrade for 18 minutes.

Assam Belai Soup

Assam Belai Soup is a sourish and spicy soup somewhat similar to Assam Laksa Soup. However, in the former, usually the fish is cooked whole (i.e. it is not mashed up), the soup is lighter in colour and it is usually eaten with rice. However, I prefer to mash up the fish so that it can be eaten together with the soup. This is because from experience, my family will just drink the soup leaving the fish untouched.


Ingredients:

• 6 pieces of fish (I like to use ikan kembung)
• 3 litres water
• 2 stalks lemongrass
• 1 big onion
• 1 bunch of kesum leaves (daun kesum)
• 1 torch ginger flower (bunga kantan)
• 4-5 pcs assam keping
• 3 tbsp ground sambal (See my post on Sambal under Condiments - 24 Feb 2018.)
• Salt to taste

Method:

• Remove the entrails from the fish and then wash the fish.

• Boil a pot of water (3 litres).

• When the water is boiling, add the fish and let it boil till the fish is cooked.

• Remove the fish from the pot and let it cool down.

• Smash the lemongrass and put them into the pot.

• Slice the onion and add to the pot.

• Add the kesum leaves together with the stalks to the pot.

• Quarter the torch ginger flower and add to the pot together with the stalk which must also be quartered.

• Add the assam keping and sambal to the pot.

• Let the soup simmer for about 20 minutes over low fire.

• While the soup is simmering, carefully remove all the bones from the fish. Use your thumb and pointer to test for the presence of any small bones. Once this is completed, mash up the fish meat and add to the soup.

• Let the soup boil for another 10 minutes.

• Add salt to taste.

• The soup is ready to be served - with rice or rice noodles.

Beetroot Swiss Roll

 

Beetroot has been gaining in popularity as a super food due to the benefits it brings to those who consume it. Research has shown that it is low in fat, full of powerful antioxidants, rich in vitamin C and helps in the absorption of iron. It can be juiced, eaten raw or roasted, stir fried, pureed to be used in cooking or baking, cooked in soup and so on.

I had taken the beetroot and pureed it to obtain some juice to make a Swiss Roll. As I had diluted the juice, I could not detect any strong beet taste in my roll. The dilution also resulted in a very sweet colour for the roll.

Ingredients:

For the Meringue:
4 egg whites, Grade B
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
60 g castor sugar

For the Batter:
4 egg yolks, Grade B
20 g castor sugar
1/4 tsp salt
45 g oil (I use corn oil)
40 g beetroot juice from 1 cm thickness of beetroot + water
1 tsp vanilla essence
65 g cake flour
1 tbsp milk powder

For the Filling:
130 g whipping cream
20 g powdered sugar

Method:

• Put a tray of hot water into the oven. Pre-heat oven to 170 degrees Centigrade. (Adjust according to your oven.)

• Line a rectangular pan (10 inch x 14 inch) with a good quality parchment paper. (This is to ensure that the cake will not stick to the parchment paper.)

• In a mixing bowl, whisk the egg white with a hand mixer over low speed. (Please ensure that your bowl and beaters are dry and have no traces of oil otherwise the egg white will not rise.)

• Once large bubbles are formed, add the cream of tartar.

• Whisk till small bubbles are formed.

• Add sugar gradually in 3 batches.

• Whisk the egg white till stiff peak.

• Once stiff peak is achieved, set the meringue aside.

• In another mixing bowl, add in the egg yolks, sugar and salt. Whisk until they are creamy.

• Add the oil and continue to mix until they are well combined.

• Add the beetroot juice and vanilla essence. Whisk to mix them well.

• Sieve the cake flour and milk powder into the egg yolk mixture. Mix until well combined and the batter is smooth.

• Take 1/3 of the meringue and add to the batter. Use the whisk to mix the meringue with the batter gently, taking care not to deflate the meringue.

• Add another third of the meringue into the batter. Gently mix it with the batter.

• Add the remaining meringue and gently fold it into the batter using a spatula.

• Pour the batter into the pan and spread it evenly with a spatula.

• Drop the pan onto the counter-top from about 1 foot high to break out any large bubbles. Repeat this 2 to 3 times.

• Bake in the oven at 170 deg C for 20 minutes until the cake surface is golden brown. Do not over bake or the cake will crack when you roll it later.

• Once the cake has baked, remove the pan from the oven.

• Drop the pan from 1 foot high onto the counter-top to prevent shrinkage of the cake.

• Remove the cake from the pan onto a wire rack.

• Put another sheet of parchment paper on the cake and invert it to remove the parchment paper below.

• Let the cake cool down completely on the wire rack.

• While waiting for the cake to cool down, whip the cream with the powdered sugar till it is stiff. (Test for sweetness. Add more sugar if the cream is not sweet enough for you.)

• Cut 3 shallow slits (about 1 foot apart) across the cake at the end from which you will start rolling the cake. (This is to aid in the rolling of the cake i.e. to ensure that it does not crack when you start rolling it.)

• Spread the cream evenly on the cake.

• Roll the cake and wrap it in the parchment paper. Put the roll into a plastic bag or cling wrap it to prevent dryness.

• Keep the roll in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours.

• After 3 hours, remove cake from the refrigerator.

• Remove the plastic bag or cling wrap and parchment paper and slice the roll for serving. 

No-Frills Chicken Curry

Cooking curry usually involves the use of many spices and herbs like dried chilies, turmeric, ginger, turmeric, coriander, fenugreek, cumin, onions, shallots, garlic and many more. Thus, sometimes it is easier to buy pre-packed curry powder or curry paste which is manufactured from a combination of all the spices and herbs.

However, cooking curry may not be as difficult as it seems if we are to use only a few necessary ingredients such as fresh chilies, lemongrass, garlic, shallots and turmeric which can be found at all times in the wet market or the supermarket. The No-Frills Chicken Curry is one such curry which uses very few ingredients and yet it is tasty and aromatic.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 a medium size chicken, cut into bite sizes
• 2 stalks lemongrass, white part only, sliced thinly
• 8 pcs shallots, peeled and slice
• 1 medium size garlic bulb, peeled and chopped roughly
• 1/2 inch fresh turmeric or 1 tsp turmeric powder
• 4 red chiliies, cut into smaller pieces (I use chili padi.)
• 2 cups of water
• 125 ml santan (can add more if you love the creamy taste)
• salt (to taste)
• cooking oil

Method:

• Blend lemongrass, shallots, garlic, turmeric and chilies together till fine.

• Heat oil in a wok.

• Add blended ingredients into the wok and saute till they are fragrant.

• Add the chicken pieces into the wok and fry with the blended ingredients till they are well cooked.

• Add water and let the sauce simmer over low to medium fire for sometime so as to soften the chicken.

• Continue to simmer until the sauce thickens.

• Add the santan and let it boil.

• Add salt to taste.

• The curry is ready to be served with hot rice.

Wheat Bran Buns

Healthy and delicious, these buns were a result of my experiment on the mixture of special wholemeal flour, high protein flour and wheat bran. They are soft and fluffy in texture. They are tasty to the taste buds. They can be eaten on their own or with a spread of some butter. 

Ingredients:

• 2 cups wholemeal flour
• 1/2 cup high protein flour
• 1/2 cup wheat bran
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp yeast
• 1 cup warm milk
• 1 egg, room temperature, slightly beaten
• 4 tbsp butter

Method:

• Add special wholemeal flour, high protein flour and bran into the bowl of a stand mixer.

• Add sugar to the bowl.

• Add salt to one side of the bowl and yeast on the opposite side. (Salt will slow down the fermentation activities of the yeast.)

• Using a low speed, mix up all the ingredients in the mixing bowl.

• Slowly add in the warm milk and the egg. Mix and knead until a smooth dough is formed.

• Add butter and knead further to incorporate the butter into the dough.

• Knead till you achieve window pane state.

• Grease a clean bowl.

• Transfer the dough into the greased bowl.

• Cover the bowl with a cling wrap and let the dough rise for about 1 hour or till it doubles in size.

• Remove the dough onto a slightly floured surface.

• Punch down the dough and knead by hand for about 5 minutes .

• Weigh the dough and divide it into 10 small dough (about 70 g).

• Roll each dough into a round ball.

• Place the ball onto a cupcake liner.

• Repeat till all the dough has been done.

• Let the dough rise for a second time till double in size. (Remember to cover the dough to prevent them from drying out.)

• Pre-heat oven to 170 degrees Centigrade.

• Bake the dough for 20 minutes. (If your buns brown too fast, tent them with a piece of aluminium foil.)

• Once the buns have baked, remove them from the oven.

• Let them cool down completely on a wire rack before keeping them.