Tang Zhong (Water Roux) for Bun Making

Looks like the current trend now is to make bread and buns! Well, I don't want to be left out too! :lol: Like many others, I have joined the bread making bandwagon a few weeks back and it has been addictive! Have been trying various recipes and figured that those bread using the Tang Zhong or Water Roux Method has better texture... softer and fluffier!

So, what is Tang Zhong? It is something like a dough starter but this one you don't have to ferment anything for hours or days. Basically you can use it almost instantly. Tang Zhong is also the basic for making the 65°C bread and buns. All you need is some bread flour and water, mix together under small flame.

.

.

Ingredients (to make approx. 130gm of TZ)

• 25g Bread flour


• 125ml Water

Methods

1. Mix bread flour with water in a small sauce pan, stir with a whisk under small flame.


2. The mixture will start to thicken so you'll have to stir consistently else it will burn.


3. Once it reaches 65ºC, you will see the mixture turning creamy looking and when you see lines/streams appearing while you stirred, means you have reached the right consistency (refer to photo above)


4. Remove pan from the heat and pour the Tang Zhong into a clean bowl and cover with a cling wrap touching the surface of the mixture. You can keep it in the fridge up to 3 days. Discard when it turns greyish.


5. You can use it once it has reaches room temperature.

Strawberries & Cream Swissroll

Besides chiffon and sponge cake, I am also a fan of Swissrolls. Well, probably it is also another type of sponge cake! :P I just like cakes that are not too heavy but spongy and light. I don't really fancy buttercream but happy with some fresh cream. Used to buy a lot of Swissrolls each time we visit Ipoh. I guessed everyone who has visited Ipoh, knew about or tasted JJ Swissrolls. I was a HUGE fan! hehehe Each time we pass by Ipoh, we never fail to pack a few rolls home!

All these while I have the perception that Swissroll is a challenge to make... especially the rolling part. It kinda scares me off thus I have never have the courage to try making any... until yesterday!

However, after joining the Munch Ministry FB Group and reading on so many amateur bakers trying their hands on baking a varieties of bakes, I decided to gather my courage to try baking something I really like but does not have the guts before. I am so happy I overcame this fear and bake my very first Swissroll!

Also, it is the strawberry season again (I think there is 2 seasons here in a year!) that I bought so many punnets of strawberries the last few weeks! My kids are more than happy to eat them fresh but a few days ago, my boy asked for cream on cakes. That sparked the idea of making this strawberries and cream Swissroll.

.

Ingredients

(A)

• 5 Egg yolks


• 80g Caster sugar (I think can go even lower)


• 1 tsp Vanilla extract


• 2 tsp Melted butter


• 60g Heavy cream (Whipping cream)


• 1 tsp Lemon zest (I put almost 1tbsp as I have so many lemons!)


• 1 tsp Fresh lemon juice


• 55g Cake flour

(B)

• 5 Egg whites


• ½tsp + 2 pinches of Cream of tartar


• 95g Caster sugar


• Pinch of salt

Cream filling

• ½ Cup of Whipping cream (I used 1 cup as my kids love extra cream)


• 4 tbsp Icing sugar


• 1tsp Vanilla extract


• Hulled strawberries and cut into small chunks or quartered

Methods

1. First, line a 10 inch x 15 inch baking try by spraying some oil onto the pan so the parchment paper will stick onto the pan. Leave aside.


2. Start with (A). Cream the egg yolks with the caster sugar with a whisk until pale and creamy. You can use a mixer too which can be done faster!


3. Add in the vanilla extract, mix well then followed by the melted butter, heavy cream, lemon zest and the lemon juice while continue whisking.


4. Sift in the cake flour and gently fold in using a rubber spatula. Set aside.


5. Move on to (B). In a mixer mixing bowl, beat egg whites till foamy then sprinkle in the cream of tartar. Then slowly pour in the caster sugar in mid speed. Once all the sugar has been mixed in, switch your mixer to high speed and beat till stiff peak.


6. Take about ¼ of (B) and fold into (A) in one direction gently and not compressing the air in the egg white. Continue with the rest of the egg white. Your batter should be runny now and in pale creamy yellow.


7. Pour into baking try and bake in 170ºC preheated oven for about 20 minutes then increase to 180ºC degree for another 3 minutes.


8. Leave it in the oven with door ajar (this is to avoid the sudden drop of temperature) for a few minutes before cooling on rack.


9. Prepare the cream for filling by whipping it with icing sugar and vanilla extract till stiff peak using a mixer. Chill it in the fridge.


10. When cake is completely cooled, spread the chilled cream onto the entire cake surface but keep the end thinner so your cream will not get squashed out after you rolled your cake.


11. Place all the cut strawberry chunks onto the cake and slowly roll peeling the parchment paper along as you roll. There maybe some batter that will stick onto the paper but don't worry, just continue rolling.


12. Once you are done, throw away the parchment paper and wrap your cake with a fresh piece of parchment paper to keep the shape. Chill in the fridge for at least 10 minutes before cutting. I blast chill in the freezer :P


13. Cut both ends away for a better presentation.

Marbled Chiffon Cake

Though I've been baking cakes for years but I do not have the courage to bake any chiffon cakes even when I've already bought the pan for more than 2 years! I heard of the intricacies involved and it just scares me off! I lurve chiffon cakes since I was a young girl as I just love the fluffiness. Since my mom is not keen to bake so I will usually get my pandan chiffon fix every weekend from the bread and cake stall at the pasar malam (night market). Now that we have moved to Melbourne, chiffon cakes does not come cheap. So, no choice, gotta DIY!

Over the past few weeks, I have been experimenting with some recipes that I got online. I tried a few and so far only get 2 successful cakes out of the four I attempted. Not bad... 50:50 :lol:

The first was a chocolate chiffon... it was so good that it was gone within minutes I took it off the pan! Don't even have chance to snap any nice photos! Will have to make again so I could share the recipe here. :) Then I attempted the pandan chiffon and both attempts was sort of a failure. First was too dense and second, I put the wrong ingredients so it collapsed! :lol:

Then a friend shared with me her 'fool proof' recipe from Agnes Chang's recipe book. It was supposed to be a basic chiffon but I tweaked it to make a marbled chiffon instead. And tadaaaa....

.

.

The texture of the cake is pretty spongy and not too sweet. The cocoa powder gave a very fragrant aroma to the cake. This is definitely a keeper! :)

.

Ingredients

(A)

• 5 Egg yolks


• 150g Self raising flour (take away 2 tbsp and replaced with cocoa powder)


• 75g Castor sugar (I only used 60g)


• 5tbsp Vege/Conola/Corn Oil


• 5tbsp Water

(B)

• 5 Egg whites


• ½tsp Cream of Tartar


• 75g Castor sugar

Methods

1. In a mixing bowl, cream egg yolks with caster sugar till well mixed. Add in the vege oil, mix well. Add in the water and beat till fluffy before sift in the flour except the cocoa powder. When all combined, take half of the batter out into another mixing bowl and mix with the cocoa powder (best to sift first).


2. Whisk the egg whites using a mixer till fluffy and slowly add in the sugar then the cream of tartar. Whisk on high till it reached stiff peak.


3. Divide the egg white into 2 even portions. Slowly fold in (in one direction) into both the egg yolk batter with a rubber spatula.


4. Fill a 22cm (or a smaller if you like tall cake) chiffon pan alternating both batter to get the marbling effects.


5. Bake in preheated oven at 150ºC for 30 minutes till light brown and increase to 180ºC for about 20 minutes or till golden brown.


6. Leave the cake in the oven with oven door ajar for a few minutes before inverting it and leave it to cool before taking the cake out.

In the original recipe, all you need to do is to combine A and mix well then add in B since no cocoa powder was involved.

Creamy Caramel Popcorns with HCP

Like many Asian moms, I am on the HCP bandwagon too! I purchased my HCP or commonly known as Happy Call Pan which is from Korea months before but only got to use it after my confinement was over. My mom brought it over from Malaysia when she came over to help me with my confinement.

So, for the last 3 months I have been using this very versatile pan to do most of my cooking. This pan is really good as I can use minimal oil to do stir frying. In fact it can fry fish without using any oil so there will be no oil splattering on the stove top! However, I don't fry fish all the time since the hubby prefer steamed fish.

Two weeks ago, while shopping at Target, they were promoting this handy popcorn maker and gave out free popcorns. My girl has 2 servings and began to bug me for more. Feeling a little embarrassed, I told her that I'll make them for her since I knew my HCP can do the job. Also, I am missing those sweet and crunchy popcorns we used to buy from the cinema so I was so eager to try making them! :D

.

.

I went to get some corn grains from the supermarket and tested them out. The first try was not so successful as the corn grains did not popped properly. There were many un-popped grains. Thus, I went to search for the popping corn grains and was lucky I found a grocer nearby my place that has it. It was selling much cheaper too! Was so happy to get fluffy looking popcorns. :)

Next was having the perfect caramel to coat these fluffy pops. Tested out 2 different recipes for the caramel sauce with the first one too oily and decided to try the second which has cream. I tweaked the recipe and finally got a good combo.

.

Ingredients

• ½ cup Corn grains


• 2tbsp Oil


• 50g Butter


• ¾ cup Raw sugar


• 2tbsp Honey


• 2tbsp Thick cream


• A pinch of salt

Methods

1. Line a baking tray or a big mixing bowl with parchment paper.


2. Heat up both sides of the HCP using medium flame for a minute.


3. Heat up the oil for a minute and toss in a corn grain to test. If the oil is hot enough the grain will 'dance' in the hot oil before it pops.


4. Toss in the rest of the corn grains, stir them a little and make sure all are coated with oil before you close and lock the pan.


5. When they are ready, you'll hear popping sound. Shake the pan a bit and turn to small flame. Move the pan around so that every area get heated. Off the flame when the popping sound stopped.


6. Move all the popcorns to the prepared tray or bowl.


7. Clean the HCP off all the residue from the popcorns with a kitchen towel.


8. Heat the pan again and melt the butter. Add in the sugar and stir continuously till all are well mixed. Sprinkle in the salt.


9. When the butter and sugar mixture starts to boil and you can see it bubbles, stir and switch to small flame and continue stirring for another 3 or 5 minutes.


10. When it starts to brown, add in the honey and thick cream and stir till well mixed and let it continue to caramelize.


11. Once the caramel turn darker brown, switch off the fire and very quickly pour it over the popped corns. You have to do this very quickly as the caramel solidify very fast. Give the the popcorns and caramel a quick stir so all the popcorns will be coated.


12. Store in air tight containers if you want to consume later.

Stir Fry Bowties Pasta

My kids prefer to eat noodles and pasta over rice but my hubby is a rice barrel! Can't satisfy everyone's preference so I told them to compromise that only on weekends we get to have noodles. So far the arrangement is working fine.  :)

So, to keep my promise, the kids get to have their noodles or pasta on weekends. Sometimes I will do the regular Hakka or Cantonese fry but pasta is cheap here so beside using them in pasta type of dishes, I will either use them for noodles soup or stir fry them.

Also, I've been using my HCP (Happy Call Pan) to do most of the frying which is very convenient and less oil splattering onto my stove top.

.

Ingredients

• 150g Bowties pasta


• ¼ of Red Capsicum - strips


• ¼ cup of Green pea


• 100g of Meat (chicken or pork cut into thin strips)


• 1 small stick of Carrot - sliced


• ½tsp Garlic -minced


• Soy sauce


• Black sauce


• Pepper


• Mirin (Japanese sweet cooking wine)


• Raw sugar


• Salt


• Olive oil

.

Methods

1. Marinade the meat with some soy sauce, black sauce, pepper and mirin and set aside.


2. In a small pot, boil half a pot of water added with some salt and cook the pasta till al-dante (at a chewy stage), drain away the water and sprinkle some olive oil to keep them apart.


3. In a frying pan (in this case in the HCP) saute the minced garlic with a tsp of oil till fragrant.


4. Toss in the marinated meat and stir fry till brownish and 80% cooked.


5. Add in the capsicum, then the peas and carrot and continue to fry for 2 minutes or so. If using HCP, you can click and lock it.


6. Toss in the cooked pasta and stir to mix them well (if using HCP, you can lock and flip the pan)


7. In a small bowl, mix some soy sauce, dark soy sauce, raw sugar, pepper and about ¼ cup of water and pour over the pasta and vege mix. Stir till well mix.


8. Serve while hot!

Home Made Pickled Chilies

One thing about being an Asian is the love for chilies. We are so used to having chilies in our food that one day without chilies is like we are missing something. Especially when living in a foreign country where having chilies in their food is not a norm, we will have to plant our own else it will be so expensive to buy them from the market.

We are so fortunate to have friends who have been here for a while and planted some essential Asian plants which not easily found or should I should I say not sold cheaply. A month ago, our good friend gave my hubby a pot of bird eyes chilies and that magic tree has a good harvest not long after we got it. There was so many ripe chilies and we had difficulties finishing and worried that they might get rotten, I decided to pickled them.

It was not difficult and I am glad the chilies can be kept longer in the vinegar solution. Surprisingly, its level of heat remained unchanged too! It is common to have pickled green chilies and it is uncommon to have pickled bird eyes chilies but after this experiment, I think they are just the same!

.

.

Ingredients

• 1 Glass jar


• Bird eyes chilies (slightly more than 1 cup) - depending on the size of your container


• ½ cup Vinegar (depends on the size of your container)


• 2tbsp Sugar


• Some salt

.

Methods

1. Clean jar and make sure it is dry.


2. Wash and dry chilies. Cut away the stems and coat with some salt for a few minutes. Was off and dry the chilies with paper towel.


3. In a sauce pan, heat up the vinegar and sugar and stir till the sugar dissolved.


4. Arrange chilies into jar almost to the brim (best to leave a little space).


5. When the vinegar solution comes to a boil, pour into jar with chilies and use a clean spoon or chopsticks to compress all the chilies until there are no more space and bubbles in the jar. Fill with more chilies to the brim.


6. Close the jar tightly and leave it on the table for a few days before consuming.

.

Tips: Make sure the lid of your jar is not made of metal as it will get rusty when in contact with vinegar. Use a piece of plastic to separate between the glass jar and the metal lid.

Simple Meaty Lasagne

We visited Rome and Milan during our honeymoon but the ironic thing is, we never really eat what the Italians eat except pizza! Yes, no kidding... we only had a few slices of pizzas as I was so sick with morning sickness that I don't have much appetite for any food well, except a few cones of gelato! What a shame! :P

Back then I was not so interested in Italian food and cheesy stuff don't appeal to me since I had lactose intolerance. My tummy will have a fit each time I eat cheese except mozzarella so I avoid them at much as I could.

However, when we moved to Melbourne, cheesy food seems to be everywhere! Well, one thing is that, cheese is so much cheaper here compared to Malaysia and the kids love to have cheesy stuff once in a while. Darrius is a fan of cheese and of all things he only ordered lasagne from his school canteen!

One day I saw a big lasagne dish on sale in one of the supermarket and decided to get one so I could cook my own lasagne. Checking the net and found a few recipes but most have béchamel sauce which I was reluctant to do as I don't have so much time to spare. So, I decided to go for the simplest where I used bottled bolognese sauce andwith added vegetables.

I can tell you the aroma from the browning cheese (mozzarella) filled the entire kitchen and it was oh so good! :lol:  The dish was rather huge so we have half of it as left over. I cut them into a few snack size portions and freeze them so I can have it whenever I have the cravings while having some bingo games when the kids are sleeping :D I know it is sinful but it was really satisfying!

Since I still have some left over lasagne sheets, I might be baking another dish soon when I finished the frozen batch.

Ingredients

• 1kg Mixed ground beef and pork (I used 50/50)


• 1 jar of Bolognese or pasta sauce of your choice


• 1 can of Tomato paste (optional)


• 1 Zucchini - cut into thin slices or diced


• 2 sticks Carrots - diced


• 1 cup Peas (I used frozen peas)


• 1 jar of Bolognese or pasta sauce of your choice


• 1 Onion - diced


• 3 pips Garlic - smashed


• 1 cup Water


• Olive oil for stir frying


• Salt and pepper to taste


• Lasagne sheets


• 1½ cup Cheddar cheese - grated


• 1½ cup Mozzarella cheese - grated

.

Methods

1. Heat up frying pan with some olive oil and sauté the vegetables (garlic, onion, zucchini, carrot and peas), lift up and set aside then in the same pan stir fry the ground meat till 80% cook.


2. Add in pasta sauce, tomato paste and water to the cooked meat, stir till well combine, toss in the sautéed vegetables and stir till well mixed. Add in salt and pepper to taste.


3. In a sauce pan, boil water with some salt to slightly soften the lasagne sheets (if you are not using fresh lasagne sheets).


4. Fill the first layer of your lasagne dish with some of the bolognese/pasta sauce, line with lasagne sheet, sprinkle with some cheddar and mozzarella, pasta sauce, lasagne sheets and so on until all your pasta sauce is used up.


5. Topped the dish with lasagne sheets, a layer of cheddar and lastly the mozzarella to get the browning effects on the surface.


6. Bake in a preheated oven of 190ºC for 30 minutes and turn to 200ºC for another 10 minutes or till the surface is brown or slightly burn.