Chocolate Buns with Coffee Buttercream

Inspiration came to make something chocolatey and laced with coffee for tea time, and my kids now are big enough to have some coffee, well... not all my kids though. The second one still refuses anything with coffee. 

Orange Sugar Buns

I love orange flavoured bakes. It has a wake me up effect.

My kids love butter sugar buns, so I made the usual butter sugar bun into an orange sugar bun.
You can use your favourite basic bun recipe and mix the sugar with some orange zest to get the same effect.

Gone in a day.

Strawberry Crumble Buns

I miss the smell of fresh bread from the oven, but kneading bread made from bread flour takes too much of my time. I was googling for some recipe and this image caught my attention. It was an image from a bakery in Poland, .. and the strawberry and the crumble and the icing, so yum looking.......but no recipe. So, I used the name and googled for a recipe.  And settled with this recipe. My mind just kept thinking about it for days until I finally got my strawberries and turned my thoughts into reality.

Apple Almond Buns - Fruity Buns #3

Remember I made apple butter some time ago?
The only person who enjoyed this spread was Lydia and I, the rest all went uuurrghhhh because of the cinnamon.

I still had some apple butter left and when I saw this recipe, I just gave it a go since some Aussie relatives will be here. They are used to eating cinnamony stuff since they have been there for decades. It'll be a good chance to make these since the others didn't like this spread. The relatives enjoyed the buns and I'm happy!

Chocolate Banana Boomerang Buns - Fruity Buns #2

Cathy! I really made this, hehehehe.

Last year (I made these buns last year, LOL), I saw Cathy posting some boomerang coffee buns and I thought she wrapped them with a banana. She said I was being imaginative and I thought it would work out.
And after I made the chocolate cream cheese buns, I fell in love with the dough and my mom gave me a bunch of 'velvet' bananas. They're perfect since these bananas are slim and curvy!

Strawberry Custard Cream Buns - Fruity Buns #1

The blueberry buns that Pook made were soooo pretty. Can't take my eyes off them. And so, I wanted to make them too. I chose to use strawberries because of the price factor and personally I love strawberries.

My girls thought these were cupcakes due to the form it takes in. And they were in for a surprise when they tried eating it.

Almond Cheese Buns- Cheezy Bread #2

Where’s the cheese? Can’t see it oozing right?

It’s in the dough. Kneaded in the dough. But frankly, I can’t smell or taste the cheese.

The buns are quite good, but not sweet enough for me. Well, it is not bland. But when the buns are filled with almonds, I would expect it to be sticky and sweet, rather than just ‘not bland’. It has to have that stick that I always expect with almond fillings. The next time around, I’ll double the filling’s sugar.
 

Chocolate Cream Cheese Buns - Cheezy Breads #1

It's been so long since I've posted about breads!
I think I should not be keeping these in my drafts any longer.

I saw this recipe in Veronica's blog and it loooooks soooo tempting.
But my cream cheese filling isn't as smooth as Veronica's. Maybe it's my itchy butt decided to chop up the cheddar slices and mix it in, LOL.

The recipe is egg free (if you skip the glaze) and with only that tablespoon of milk yields a pretty soft bun. I am impressed. Absolutely!

Chocolate Cream Cheese Bun

Shared by: Veronica's Kitchen
Original recipe source: Chef Alan Ooi

Dough
300gm bread flour
30gm cocoa powder
5gm instant yeast
65gm sugar
5gm salt
1 Tbsp full cream milk powder
190gm water
40gm butter

Filling
250gm cream cheese, room temperature
50gm icing sugar
2 slices of cheddar cheese, chopped

Topping
1 egg, beaten
Almond nibs

1.Combine dough ingredients and knead until window pane stage. (KA speed 4, 15 minutes)
2. Cover and let it proof til double.
3. Meanwhile, mix cream cheese with icing sugar and cheddar cheese, form into 10 blobs and keep chilled until time of use.
4. Divide dough into 10 pcs and wrap with filling.
5. Place wrapped dough onto a lined tray, and let it proof for 45 minutes, until puffy and big.
6. Preheat oven at 160(fan)/180C.
7. Brush the top of dough with beaten egg and sprinkle almond nibs over.
8. Bake for 15 minutes or until done.

Pang Susi - MFF Melaka #2

This bun is called pang susi, bun Susie, pan susie…. no matter how it's spelt, it's a special bun from the Kristang community in Melaka. No, there's no girl inside this bun, not a girl named Susie. The inside is a sweetish spiced minced pork filling wrapped with sweet potato dough.

Pecan Sticky Buns - Cinnful rolls # 3

Sticky buns is glazed on the bottom instead on the top. Then turned over after baking to let the caramel soak into the buns. As the name implies, it is sticky. And what makes it sticky? Sugar.

If it's not sticky, then it's not sticky buns. Just like eating assam laksa that is not hot and sour, where's the kick? Or drinking beer that taste like water, yucks!

Clone of a Cinnabon - Cinnful rolls # 2

Recipe tried on 22 Oct 2011.

Lyanne was so excited about these rolls that she broke her plate… She had a teeny weeny taste of it just before I took pictures of it and she came running after them. LOL. Poor thing, luckily the plate didn’t hurt her. I guess I have to get more Corelle plates, and this time, butter plates, perfect for tea time snacks.Lydia who was sick that day also came to the patio to have her rolls……invited by the smell of it. She didn’t have any appetite. Poor girl, at least she ate half a roll.

Chelsea Buns - Cinnful Rolls #1

Chelsea Buns... Looks like cinnamon rolls? Almost.
The difference is in the filling. It has mixed fruits especially currants.
And it is glazed with either honey or golden syrup.

Buttery Dinner Rolls - Plain Rolls # 3

This is a Peter Reinhart’s recipe, found in the book Baker’s Dozen. This book has very very few pictures and most of those that I have attempted are those with pictures. I guess pictures do play a very important role whether or not we want to read through the recipe, moreover try it out.

Parker House Rolls - Plain Rolls #2

Recipe tried out in Oct 2011

Wait.... you must be thinking these look like clams... LOL.
Cute and very delicious! 

Why?
1. It has a beautiful crisp but tender crust but once u bite into you, you are welcomed with soft bread. It's like having a micro thin shortbread as crust, get what I mean?
2. It is very buttery, and I didn’t even slather on more butter. Yummy!

Japanese Cream Buns - Plain Rolls # 1

Recipe tried out in May 2011

My 2nd bread with my mixer. Long ago.....

When I prepared the roux, I was a bit shocked to see how hard that clump of dough was, and I weighed it again.. phew, correct weight, but it was hard. Lightly kneaded it to distribute the moisture and kept it airtight in the fridge overnight.

Crab Cake Burgers - Seafood Week # 3

I never ever thought I’d make crab cakes. Never! Simple because crab meat is pricey.

For CNY this year, my FIL went on a seafood spree. Bought this and that and this and that. My MIL looked at the pack of crab meat and asked me, “Do you know how to finish this up??”
Haha, of course I do! The easiest way is crab cakes. It uses a great deal of crab meat.

And then few days before the day I was supposed to cook this (hey, I need to buy and gather ingredients ok, it’s not like I want to cook now, I can cook now), I then had the idea of making burgers out of the crab cakes and then hahaha, make my own mayo!!! Lime mayo with crab sounds good eh??? This crab cake burger is 100% homemade, except that I didn’t make the raw ingredients myself, didn’t plant my own lettuce, didn’t plant my own wheat, but then, all made from scratch.

I’m not that always that particular about my food, but I take it as a learning experience. Of course, buying buns and mayo is like.. walking next door only. Yes, I do mean that literally. My current neighbour, front and side are grocery stores and 2 more few doors away. But then, it’s a good chance for me to add more ‘posts” to my blog. Kekekekeke. But in the process, I do learn something new of course. I’ll talk about my mayo next time. And my burger buns too.

Today it’s only about the crab cake burger.

These are the crab cakes

The recipe initially called for 1 pound of crab meat, so then I reduced everything accordingly and skipped most of the seasonings as I can’t be bothered to go get mustard that I don’t’ really consume.
I too, like the other try-ers of this recipe found it too wet, even when I skipped the lemon juice and the mayo. My crab meat were moist but they weren’t wet as they weren’t frozen in water as some in supermarkets are. I found it so so hard to form into patties and flour them before frying. So, in the end, I threw the flour that I prepared to coat the patties with into the whole mixture itself. Phew, life is easier then on. I could form soft balls of it and gently place them into the pan. Life is full of contingency plans. Just don’t sit there and cry. Crab meat is very expensive to be wasted.

Crab Cake Burgers
Crab cake recipe loosely adapted from Paula Deen

350gm crab meat
1/3 cup chopped red capsicum
1 cup chopped spring onion (green and white, 2 large sprigs)
1/3 cup finely ground Ritz crackers (can use more actually)
1 egg
3 Tbsp all purpose flour
½ tsp salt
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
½ tsp black pepper powder
8 burger buns
Some butter for spreading
2 cups of coarsely chopped iceberg lettuce
Some homemade lime mayo (recipe to be posted don’t know when) as dressing or any other dressing of choice

1. Mix all together and form 8 balls.
2. Heat a pan on medium low heat and put in some cooking oil.
3. Place balls of crab mixture into pan, and with an oiled spatula, carefully press the mixture down to form a patty.
4. Fry until both sides are golden.
5. Dish up and drain on absorbent papers.
6. Split burger buns into half and lightly butter them before toasting on a clean pan.
7. Place crab cake onto the lower half of the toasted bun, top with a tablespoon of lime mayo and then some coarsely chopped lettuce before covering with upper half of bun.

All packed into a large Tupperware and will be transported to my in law's place to be chowed down together

Wonderfully Soft Bread

I tried making this 2 years ago during the early times of blogging…. And guess how long it took to proof?
4 hours for first proofing and another 4 after shaping!!!! Crazy right????
I guess my yeast went on holiday. It was a hot and humid night and I don’t know what happened to my yeast.

This time, the first proofing took 2 hours, 2nd proofing was 1 hour.

The name speaks for itself. Wonderfully soft bread. But once you look at the ingredients, you’ll know why it’s so soft. With that amount of coffee creamer and egg yolks… hehehehe, it’s just soft, just like having bread softeners added in. I made this cos I have 3 yolks left from my buttercream, so I used 2 here in the dough and another for the egg wash. So, if you have a few extra yolks and don’t know what to do with it, this will be a good choice.

The dough actually feels rather oily… even it’s just 40gm butter. My previous sweet bread and buns used 100gm butter for slightly more flour, but it’s less oily compared to this. Maybe due to the yolks and creamer. Again, which is why it’s so soft.

If you don’t want to do TangZhong method or use bread softeners, maybe this will be another choice for you. I don’t know which is worse, so much creamer or little bit of bread softener. Which is the less of two evils, I have know idea. I don’ t really like creamers, after I knew they were made from palm kernel oil and non dairy whipping cream is as well.

Wonderfully Soft Bread inspired from Do What I Like who adapted from Cilinbaby

(A)
310gm bread flour
60gm cake flour
40gm coffee creamer (coffeemate)
70gm sugar
2 tsp instant yeast

(B)
115gm milk
1 egg
2 egg yolks

(C )
1/3 tsp salt
40gm butter

(D)
½ egg mixed with 1 tsp water


1. Combine (A) together. Mix it around to combine.
2. Combine (B), pour into (A) and knead to form a dough.
3. Put (C ) into the dough and knead until a smooth dough forms. (I gave this a 15 min knead by hand)
4. Cover the dough and let it proof until it doubles in size (Mine took 2 hours)
5. Punch down and knead for 1 minute.
6. Divide dough into 50 or 60gm pieces each.
7. Wrap each piece of dough with preferred fillings (I used sausages and cheese)
8. Let dough proof until double again and brush with (D). Bake in a preheated oven at 170 /190C for 15 minutes or until golden.

And to show you some of their "stuffing the bread into their mouth" pics. Actually Lyanne was trying to chomp away every piece with cheese topping.

Why is Lydia's face like that??? See below

Banana and Honey Bread

Yes, Banana bread, literally. A true kneaded bread.

There “was” no butter or oil in the recipe, but I used some melted butter to coat the dough balls when I put then into the pan, so that they won’t stick to each other.

This is an Angmoh(caucasian) bread. Do not expect super soft, like pillow type of Asian bread. It was soft when fresh from oven, but turns harder quite fast. My kids finished up the pan of bread by dinner time, and it was still ok, not very very hard. As Jamie says, this is a chewy bread. So exercise your gums a bit.

Banana and Honey Bread

Source: Jamie Oliver

250gm bread flour
1 tsp sugar
Pinch of salt
1 and 1/2 tsp instant yeast
180gm bananas, mashed
2 Tbsp honey
25gm chopped nuts (walnuts or almonds, as you fancy)
Few teaspoons of water if needed
Some melted butter
Some honey for brushing
Some almond flakes for sprinkling

1. Mix bread flour, yeast , salt and sugar together.
2. Pour in mashed bananas and honey, and incorporated everything into a dough.
3. Do not be tempted to put in water too soon, not until you have pressed everything into a dough. It will come together, but it will be hard. If too hard, then add water by the teaspoon until a more pliable dough is achieved.
4. Knead dough until it is smooth and elastic. Put in the nuts and knead until well incorporated.
5. Cover dough and let it proof for 1 hour or until double.
6. Punch down dough and give it another 2 minutes of kneading.
7. Pinch a bit of the dough, about the size of a lime (not calamansi, but if you like it really small, you can make them that size) and roll them into balls. Repeat until all the dough is finished.
8. Line one 8 inch pan with baking paper.
9. Dip each ball of dough into melted butter, make sure all surface is rolled in the melted butter.
10. Arrange the buttered dough balls into the lined pan.
11. Let it proof until double again for about another 45-60 minutes.
12. Preheat oven at 190C (that’s according to JO, but I do it at 170)
13. Generously brush some honey over proofed buns and sprinkle some sliced almonds over it.
14. Bake for 20 minutes or until nicely caramelized.

Sweet Bread & Buns

I've been trying to make sweet buns with sweet and savoury fillings lately.

I knead by hand.... and it takes me more than 30 sweating minutes to knead 500 gm flour.
I don't have the guts to use my hand held mixer to knead the bread... I'm scared it'll explode while I'm holding to it. It's tough work!
Anyone out there wanting to give me an early Christmas gift???

I adapted the recipe from Aunty Yochana's butter buns, and I added more sugar, yeast and slightly more butter to her dough recipe. These buns are made without softeners and improvers, therefore do not expect it to be super pillowy soft(retail bakery breads). But they are soft, even for 3 days. And on the funny side, they taste better the next day. Maybe it could be due to my fan oven, the surface sort of dries up a bit, and keeping it allows the moisture from within to seep up and moistens the bread.

And I found that egg white is my favourite glaze. Milk and whole eggs burns too easily, pure egg yolk is too golden for my taste. Egg white is the best!

500gm bread flour/high protein flour
100gm sugar
50gm milk powder

11gm yeast (1 sachet)
220ml water
1 big pinch of sugar
1 egg

85gm butter
1/2 tsp salt

1. Proof yeast with water and pinch of sugar until mixture turns frothy.
2. Mix bread flour, sugar and milk powder together. Make a well in the centre.
3. When (1) is ready, beat in 1 egg and pour into (2).
4. Knead dough for 10 minutes (15 by hand)Dough should be smooth by now.
5. Knead in butter and salt. It feels very oily..Continue to knead for another 10 minutes (15 by hand)or until dough is very stretchable.
6. Shape dough into a ball and cover with cling wrap, leaving a small hole by the side. Or u can place it in a pot and cover with a lid.
7. Leave to proof for 45 mins or until almost triple (I won't call it double, look at the pic), or until u can make a dent in the dough that doesn't spring back.
8. Punch down and knead for 1 minute. Divide into desired sizes and shape. Do not put toppings at this stage.
9. After shaping let proof for another hour or until more than double. Brush with egg white. Put on desired topppings.
10. Preheat oven. Bake buns at 160C for 12 minutes, or loaves at 150C for 20 minutes.(My oven)

**** Maybe ur oven needs to bake at higher temperatures. Most recipes I see call for breads to be baked at 200C or 180C. My oven burns my bread at this temperature. U have to experiment a bit here.









And here's a collection of my bread making. You can do whatever patterns or use whatever fillings u fancy.

Sweet Raisin Bun Ring
-just added moistened raisins to the dough, made into 6 80gm buns and put in a tube pan. Egg white glaze












Ham and Cheese Twist-just ham and cheese folded and twisted. egg white glaze.




Chilli Sausage Bun
-Mushroom jumbo sausages rolled into a piece of 60gm dough, cut into 4 pieces, laid out and garnished with chilli sauce and grated cheddar before baking. This was glazed with milk and whole egg. A bit too golden hoh???





Ham and Cheese Spiral Loaf-Ham and cheese laid out on a rectagular piece of dough, rolled up swiss roll style. Laid in a tube pan to proof and bake at 150C for 20 mins. Egg white glaze.






Double Cheese Buns
-Cheddar on top, cream cheese in the middle

Cheese Plaits
-Grated cheddar mixed with some egg and sugar. Spread on top of plaited 60gm buns.

Cheese Buns

-Filled with Cheddar cheese, it makes a cave inside as it bakes

Sweet Cheddar Cheese Bun
-Cheddar cave inside, cheddar and sugar topping.

Sausage roll
Roll 60gm dough into long strips and wind around thawed sausages.

I'm not going to bake anymore of these sweet buns in near future.. been baking too much of these lately, a bit sick of it oredi. Hahahahaha!

UFO Bun 飞碟面包

Whenever I make breads from whatever overseas site, I always have to reduce the water content by 10-15%. If not the dough will not be pliable… very sticky and can’t be formed. Maybe it’s due to the type of bread flour or the humidity in Malaysia.. I dunno..but reducing the water a little bit sure make things better

The site shows that this bun has filling… but I can’t seem to find out what it is. So, I omitted it. Hub said, the topping itself is tasty enough, no need to add in filling. He likes it.. he likes it.. kekekeke


Bun (A)
160 gm bread flour
40 gm low protein flour
1 tsp yeast
½ tsp salt
1 Tbsp milk powder
40gm sugar
30gm egg
90gm water (I used 80gm only, add in by the teaspoon if u can still handle it)
30gm butter

Topping: (B)
50gm egg
40gm sugar
1 drop vanilla essence
30gm low protein flour
¼ tsp baking powder
10gm ground almond
45gm melted butter

Method:
1. Mix everything in (A) together except butter. Knead until dough is smooth and stretchy. (took me half hour by hand, I don't have a bread machine). Knead in butter until well incorporated.
2. Cover and leave to proof until double in size.
3. Punch down dough and divide into 6 portions. Roll each portion into a ball and place on a piece of baking paper, about 5 inch diameter.
4. Let proof until double again.
5. For topping, melt butter and mix with ground almonds.
6. Beat eggs with sugar until sugar dissolves. Add in vanilla essence.
7. Sift flour with baking powder.
8. Combine (5), (6) and (7).
9. Chill until consistency turns thick.
10. When dough balls have doubled, pipe topping starting from the centre of dough, in spiral pattern until it almost covers the top of bun. When baked, the topping batter will later melt down the sides.
11. Bake in 200C preheated oven for 15 minutes.



(From what u can see of my buns, they are a bit burnt, I did 200C for 7 minutes, and they browned, so I quickly turned down to 170C for another 10 minutes, but yet.. **sigh** still brown, very brown. The next time around, I’ll go 180C for 15-20 minutes, it depends on your oven)





Source: http://www001.upp.so-net.ne.jp/e-pan/recipe/recipe.htm