Buttermilk Fantails

My family and I love flowers and gardening. Every week, my son and I enjoy going to the market to buy fresh seasonal flowers for our house.

It feels like "gardening" baking these rolls! Watching the bread dough proving is like watching these flowers "growing" in these ramekins. 

Both my husband and my son are very impressed with these rolls. My son was very happy eating these. He was peeling and dismantling every piece of these rolls as he was enjoying every individual piece on its own. I shouldn't say my son is being silly eating these rolls like this because I did the same too! All these peeling of rolls make me feel like we are picking every petal off a flower seeking for an answer of "He loves Me" or "He loves me not"...

Every slice of these is nice and buttery outside and soft and spongy inside. I think our answer is clear..."We loves you, bread"! LOL!

My family and I will be having our holidays in Singapore and South Korea for the next coming 2-3 weeks. We hope to see cherry blossom for our South Korea trip and will return soon after this break. See ya.

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Here's an announcement for the coming Cook like a Star. Based on the voting held in my previous post, 70% votes for Jamie Oliver to be held on July 2012! So, here are the upcoming schedule for Cook like a Star:

• Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa) for May 2012
• Jamie Oliver for July 2012
• MasterChef  for Sep 2012

 

rolling and cutting the bread dough

Nicely-stacked doughs that are ready to be placed into the ramekins

Watching my "flowers" grows...

Here's the recipe from Epicurious

(with my notes and modification in blue)

1 stick plus 2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted, divided
2 tsp active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water (105–115°F)
1 tbsp mild honey or sugar (I used honey)
3 cups all-purpose flour plus more for kneading and dusting
(I use a combination of bread flour and Italian OO flour in the ratio of 1:4)
1 1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup well-shaken buttermilk

Butter muffin cups with 1 tbsp melted butter.

Stir together yeast, warm water, and honey in a large bowl and let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes.

Mix flour, salt, buttermilk, and 6 tbsp melted butter into yeast mixture with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until a soft dough forms. Turn out dough onto a well-floured surface and knead, dusting surface and your hands with just enough flour to keep dough from sticking, until dough is elastic and smooth, 6 to 8 min. Form dough into a ball.

Put dough in an oiled large bowl and turn to coat. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel and let dough rise in a draft- free place at warm room temperature until doubled, 1 1/2 to 2 hrs.

(Instead of kneading by hand, I've placed all my ingredients into my bread-maker and use "dough" setting to knead and prove the dough for 1 hr. Please note that the butter that I used is not melted, just soften so that the dough will not be too wet.)

Punch down dough (do not knead), then halve. Roll out half of dough on a lightly floured surface with a floured rolling pin into a 12-inch square (about 1/8 inch thick; keep remaining half covered with plastic wrap). Brush dough with 1/2 tbsp butter and cut into 6 equal strips. Stack strips, buttered sides up, and cut crosswise into 6 equal pieces. Turn each piece on a side and put into a muffin cup (or ramekins). Make more rolls with remaining dough in same manner. Separate outer layers of each roll to fan outward. Cover rolls with a kitchen towel (or oiled cling wrap) and let rise in a draft-free place at warm room temperature until doubled and dough fills cups, 1 to 1 1/2 hrs (I did mine for 1 1/2 hrs).

Preheat oven to 375°F (or 170°C fan forced) with rack in middle. Bake rolls until golden brown, 20 to 25 min (I baked mine for about 17 min). Brush tops with remaining 2 tbsp butter (I didn't do this), then transfer rolls to a rack and cool at least 20 min.

Note: Using half amount of this recipe, I've made 6 of these flower-looking rolls. 

Happy Baking

Orange Crème Brûlée Spoons

Honestly, I was little worried at first when Joyce from Kitchen Flavours and Lena, from Frozen wings and I have decided to bake crème brûlée for this bake-along. This French name, Crème brûlée is typically known as caramelised sugar coating with a crisp top, paired with velvety custard.

Why am I worrying?... all because of the reason, my family and I don't really like eating crème brûlée. I was afraid that if I can't make a good crème brûlée and we will all have to eat runny or eggy-tasting crème brûlée. What can be worse? The excessive thick sugary crust on these dessert can be too teeth-crunching! And, everything will go straight into the waste bin...I don't like the idea of wasting food and I didn't want this to happen.

Maybe a little bit of brûlée is ok...and so I have decided to "cheat" in this case! My cheat's crème brûlée is actually made in less than 5 minutes! I recall a previous issue of Donna Hay magazine which she has everything to know about crème brûlée, even explaining the technique of brûlée. In the similar issue, she also has a selection of "Quick fixes" for entertaining which includes this "cheating" way of making crème brûlée. To "cheat", all I need to do is to use store-bought vanilla custard and brûlée it with a blow torch! That it! LOL! 

This recipe is fantastic. It creates a great opportunity for me practicing how to brûlée and the small amount of crème brûlée served on a Chinese spoon is just the right amount for us to enjoy this custard with a not-too-much amount of crispy sugary-top.

For our next bake-along, we are baking Honey Walnut Cake (recipe from the book, Cake Keeper Cakes which is to be posted on 4 May 2012. Please join us and blog hop with us on 4 May 2012 or within the next 7 days.

Things that I need to make my "cheating" version of crème brûlée

Not forgetting the store-bought vanilla custard... I'm using the low fat and low sugar one.

Ready to eat!

Here's the recipe from Donna Hay Magazine Issue 58, Aug / Sep 2011.

Place 1/3 cup store-bought vanilla custard and 1 tbsp finely grated orange rind in a bowl and mix well to combine. Place 2 teaspoonful of the mixture into each of 8 ceramic Chinese spoons. 

Sprinkle each spoon with 1/2 tsp white sugar and caramelise with a small kitchen blow torch until golden crust forms.

Tips on how to brûlée (by Donna Hay):

Sprinkle sugar evenly onto the surface of the chilled custard or dessert that you about to brûlée.

Light the kitchen blow torch. Carefully hold the flame 2 cm from the top of the brûlée and heat the sugar evenly for 1 min or until the sugar caramelise and you get an even golden colour and a crisp crust. Don't hold the flame too close to the brûlée or the sugar will burn.

Enjoy the treat

Here are our baking friends that have joined us for this bake-along. Please visit their blogs for their Crème Brûlée.

Please submit your details if you wish to link your post with this bake-along. This linking tool is open from 10 Apr to 16 Apr 2012.

To blog hop with us, simply copy and paste this linky HTML code into your blog post where you want the blog hop list to appear. Make sure you are in HTML view/mode when you paste in the code. get the InLinkz code

Very Chocolaty Hot Cross Buns

Happy Easter! This is the season again to eat lots of CHOCOLATES and HOT CROSS BUNS!

Seeing every bakery and supermarkets selling lots and lots of hot cross buns these days, I can't stop thinking that I need to bake hot cross buns again.

In my mind, all I can think is this simple equation...

Chocolate + Hot Cross Buns = Very Chocolaty Hot Cross Buns

I love this idea and so I researched and googled around for the best chocolate hot cross buns recipe and all I can find is this from Taste.com.au. Coincidentally, I saw Veronica from Veronica's Kitchen using the same recipe too to make her hot cross buns!

These buns are very extremely delicious when they were freshly baked. For my experimental purpose, I've kept a bun to see if it will stay fresh on the next day and kept another one in the freezer as my "comparison" bun. I'm not surprised at all to know that the "freezer" bun retained its texture better than the one kept at room temperature but when both of them were lightly toasted in the oven, they were equally soft and delicious again!

Making the hot cross buns

I was going to eat this bun and find this looked simply irresistible...

... then I realised the pinched out piece from the above bun looks ultimately the most mouth-watering :D

Here's the recipe from Taste.com.au

(with my modification in blue)

Makes 16

Ingredients

7g sachet (2 tsp) dry yeast

1 1/2 cups milk, warmed

1/4 cup caster sugar

4 cups plain flour (replaced by bread flour)

1/2 cup cocoa powder (I used Dutch processed cocoa powder)

60g butter, chilled, chopped

1 egg, lightly beaten

1/2 cup dark or milk choc bits

1 tsp gelatine

1 tbsp boiling water

Butter, to serve

   

Flour paste

1/4 cup plain flour

2 tsp caster sugar

Instead of flour paste, I'm making the crosses by piping melted milk chocolate on the buns (40g of chocolate is required to make crosses for 9 buns).

Method

Grease a 6cm-deep, 23cm (base) square cake pan. Place yeast, milk and 1 tbsp sugar in a bowl. Whisk to dissolve yeast. Cover. Set aside in a warm place for 10 minutes or until foamy.

Sift flour and cocoa into a bowl. Rub in butter until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Make a well in center. Add yeast mixture, egg and remaining sugar. Stir to combine. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface. Knead for 1 minute. Transfer to a lightly oiled bowl. Cover. Set aside in a warm place for 1 hr or until doubled in size.

Punch down dough. Turn onto a floured surface. Knead for 5 min or until smooth. Add choc bits. Knead to combine. Roll into 16 balls. Place in prepared pan. Cover. Set aside in a warm place for 30 min (I had mine set aside for 1 hr) or until slightly risen. Preheat oven to 200°C/180°C fan forced.

Meanwhile, make paste Combine flour, sugar and 2 1/2 tbsp cold water in a bowl. Spoon into a snap-lock bag. Snip 1 corner from bag. Pipe crosses onto buns. Bake for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 180°C/160°C fan forced. Cook for 20 min or until golden and cooked through.

Meanwhile, sprinkle gelatine over boiling water in a heatproof jug. Stir with a fork until gelatine has dissolved. Place buns, top-side up, on a wire rack. Brush tops with gelatine mixture. Cool. Serve with butter.

Note: Using half the recipe, I'm making 9 buns using 20 cm sq pan. I didn't make the crosses using this flour paste recipe and bake the buns at 160°C fan forced for 20 min.

Happy Baking

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Please help me to decide who should be the "star" for July 2012? MasterChef or Jamie Oliver?

Please refer to my previous post for details. Voting open from today, 2nd May to 8th May 2012. Result will be announced soon after your votes are consolidated. If you have voted, please disregard this message. Thanks for voting!

Lemon Chicken Breasts (Barefoot Contessa)

I never like to use an oven to cook chicken breast. They can be dried, tough and rubbery on the outside and tasteless at its inside.

Before baking this dish, I have heard and know about Ina Garten but didn't get a chance to cook any of her recipes. But when I first saw this Barefoot Contessa recipe at Jacquelyn's post (Marin Mama Cooks), I was very impressed and amazed how easy to cook this dish. These chicken breasts were well-flavored and every bite of them is so moist and juicy. Jacquelyn has rated this dish a perfect 10 and my family and I would rate this dish the same!

Through Jacquelyn, I am inspired to cook more of Ina Garten's recipes and that's why I'm organizing a blog hop event, Cook like a Star and would love to make Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa) the star of MAY 2012. 

To join, all you have to do is to cook or bake any of Barefoot Contessa's recipes. Her recipes can be from her cookbooks or websites (Barefoot Contessa) and simply do a blog hop with me on the whole month of May 2012. For more details of this event, please see this.

 

If you are thinking to search and cook a Barefoot Contessa recipe, here's a tip to share. I have a Barefoot Contessa book but reckon that there is actually lots of Ina's recipes at her website and Food Network. I am very impressed with most of Ina's recipes as I was browsing. Believe me... there is really a lot of great recipes to cook or bake and learn from Ina.

Last but not the least, I would like to thank everyone for participating the first Cook like a Star with the theme, Donna Hay. It has been a huge success and I'm glad that everyone including me loves to cook like Donna Hay. Originally, I was thinking of organizing this event for every month but was quite exhausted after the first event and thought of doing it in every odd months (Jan, Mar, May, July, Sep and Nov) instead of every month.

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For the next coming July and September events, I was thinking of these themes, Jamie Oliver and MasterChef but can't decide to set which theme set on which month.

If you do a search for "famous celebrity chef" at Google, you find Jamie Oliver mentioned in the top hit being the number one most famous celebrity chef in the world. I like Jamie Oliver. Being about the same age as Jamie, I can relate well to all his objectives and perspectives for cooking. In particular with this:

"I want to inspire you to get in the kitchen and cook meals for yourself and your family from scratch, whether you're a complete beginner or a good cook who likes simplicity. With some basic skills under your belt and a handful of recipes, you'll be able to prepare nutritious meals on any budget." - Jamie Oliver

Besides Jamie Oliver, I'm also big fan of the Australian MasterChef! Ever since the first season of the Australian MasterChef in 2009, this reality cook show has expanded to many versions all around the world. Typically, the Australian season starts in early May and ends at August every year and there will be lots of recipes to cook and learn in its website as the competition progresses. At this point, I wasn't sure if we should cook while the heat of Australian MasterChef is "on" or "over" and not sure too if your country version of MasterChef is on-going or not.

HELP! I need your vote (by leaving me your comments) to help me to decide who should be the "star" for July 2012? MasterChef or Jamie Oliver? Please let me know which is your best option. Voting open from today, 2nd May to 8th May 2012. Result will be announced soon after your votes are consolidated.

Take a closer... I can't believe this dish is so easy to cook!

Ina Garten is the "star" of May 2012. Join us and cook like a star!

Here's the Barefoot Contessa recipe from Food Network

(with my notes modification in blue)

1/4 cup good olive oil
3 tbsp minced garlic (9 cloves)
1/3 cup dry white wine  
(I used Semillon Sauvignon Blanc being always the best match to enjoy with a chicken dish)
1 tbsp grated lemon zest (2 lemons)
2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp minced fresh thyme leaves
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 boneless chicken breasts, skin on 
(6 to 8 ounces each - mine is about 13 ounces each!)
1 lemon

Serve 4  
(or more - this portion is a little too much for the 3 of us and had to freeze half of the amount)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400°F (or 180 °C fan forced).

Warm the olive oil in a small saucepan over medium-low heat, add the garlic, and cook for just 1 minute but don't allow the garlic to turn brown. Off the heat, add the white wine, lemon zest, lemon juice, oregano, thyme (lemon thyme), and 1 tsp salt and pour into a 9 by 12-inch baking dish (mine is 24 cm x 35 cm).

Pat the chicken breasts dry and place them skin side up over the sauce. Brush the chicken breasts with olive oil and sprinkle them liberally with salt and pepper. Cut the lemon in 8 wedges and tuck it among the pieces of chicken.

Bake for 30 to 40 min, depending on the size of the chicken breasts, until the chicken is done and the skin is lightly browned (I baked mine for 40 min). If the chicken isn't browned enough, put it under the broiler for 2 min (I did grilled mine for the extra 2 min). Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil and allow to rest for 10 min. Sprinkle with salt and serve hot with the pan juices.

Happy Baking
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MasterChef or Jamie Oliver for July 2012? 

MasterChef or Jamie Oliver for September 2012? 

Voting open from today, 2nd May to 8th May 2012. Result will be announced soon after your votes are consolidated. Thanks for voting!