KBB #14 - White Bread

The recipe is sourced from Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. The details can be read here: http://klubberanibaking.blogspot.com/2009/11/resep-kbb14-white-bread.html

I find bread baking is quite challenging. There are so many steps involved and I need to pay attention whether each step has been done correctly. The other thing about bread baking is that I need to be extremely patient to wait for the dough to raise to an appropriate volume ready for the next step.

Anyway, I like the end result of the recipe. You just need to tweak the recipe slightly to suit your taste preference. The bread is still soft until the next day providing you knead and proof the dough right.

Enjoy!

Garlic Naan Bread

Description:
After searching many recipes in the internet, I came across to two recipes that have a pretty good review. Those are from Mandhur Jeffrey and Anjum Andnan. The recipes are similar and I guess the taste is nice too.

Here is the naan bread recipe, my version.



Ingredients:
500 g all purpose flour
2 tsp dry active yeast
1.5 tsp (10 g) salt
2 tsp caster sugar
100 g low fat natural set yoghurt, Paul's
1 egg
1 cup water (approximately)

2 Tbsp canola oil, for pan frying

Garlic oil:
1 clove garlic, grated finely mixed with
2 Tbsp canola oil



Directions:
Put flour, yeast, salt, sugar, yoghurt, egg and three quarter of the water in a bowl. Mix until all ingredients come together. Knead until the dough is smooth and elastic. Add a little bit of water at a time if the dough is dry. Leave it on the bowl and cover with a cling wrap for about 1 hour or till double the volume.

Punch the dough and divide to 5 pieces (about 100 g each). Roll it to an oblong/tear drop shape.

Heat up a heavy bottom griddle. Put about a tablespoon of oil until the pan starts to smoke. Heat one side for about 2 minutes then flip to the other side and cook for another 2 minutes, until the bread is bubbling up. Adjust the heat if the pan is too hot.

Smear a little bit of the garlic oil on the cooked side. Flip back to cook the garlic, only takes a few seconds.

Banana Walnut Bread

Description:
This recipe is adapted from My Kitchen Snippet. I chose this recipe because it is just simply the photo showing moist crumb. The original recipe is using dried cranberries and without wholemeal flour, FCMP and spices. I changed the recipe slighty because I did not have dried cranberries. Thus, I need to add some dry ingredient to absorb the moisture.

The original recipe can be viewed here: http://www.stumbleupon.com/toolbar/#topic=Food/Cooking&url=http%253A%252F%252Fwww.mykitchensnippets.com%252F2008%252F11%252Fbanana-walnut-cranberry-bread.html.

The taste is nice but I find the end result very greasy. May be the fat will keep the bread moist but I think I'll adjust the amount of butter next time.



Ingredients:
170 g unsalted butter, room temperature (if cold and hard, microwave for 15 seconds at high)
150 g light brown sugar

3 extra large eggs

½ cup light natural plain yogurt, Paul’s

170 g all purpose plain flour, Home Brand
50 g wholemeal flour, Farmland
30 g FCMP, Home Brand
1 tsp cinnamon powder with a tiny pinch of nutmeg and cardamom
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup (about 2 large) mashed very ripe bananas - one of the secrets of delicious banana cake

120 g coarsely crushed Californian walnuts, Sunbeam


Directions:
Pre-heat the oven to 160 deg C. Line the base of 20x20 cm non stick pan with baking paper.

Mix flour mixture till well combine a bowl.

Place butter and sugar in a mixing bowl and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add one egg at a time and beat until incorporated. Add in yogurt beating at low speed until well mixed.

Add in bananas and vanilla beating at low speed until well mixed.

Add in the flour mixture, fold until mixed well.

Fold in the nuts and pour the batter to the baking pan. Check the doneness at 45 minutes with a skewer. Continue baking for another 5-10 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre of the bread comes out clean.

Let it cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Turn the bread out of the pan and let it cool completely before serving.

Serve plain or with creamcheese frosting.

Neapolitan-style Pizza Dough

Description:
I made this pizza dough 2 days ago since my hubby and I had craving over pizzas. When I looked into the recipe book called Pizza - anyway you slice it by Charles and Michelle Scicone, I found this delicious pizza dough recipe. The taste was definitely better when the dough was proved overnight in the fridge. It has more flavour, just like what the authors said. The authors also mentioned that the pizza base in Napoli is neither too thick or too thin.

The texture of the base is slightly chewy, soft crumb with slightly crispy edge and bottom. The only thing is that I don't have is wood fired oven or pizza stone base to bake the dough. I form the discs by hand to give the natural look and some bumps and blisters for extra texture. If you are using a rolling pin, all the air pockets will be flattened out. I'm not sure what the texture is like when it is cold since the pizza has already gone when it was still warm.

As with the topping, I put just enough toppings so that the base was not overweighted and overpowered by the toppings.



Ingredients:
1 tsp active dry yeast dissolved in 1.25 cups warm water (about 40 deg C)

2.5 cups all purpose flour, Home Brand
1 cup cake flour, Laucke
2 tsp table salt

Oil for oiling the bowl

Some flour for dusting



Directions:
Mix yeast solution into flour until forming soft dough. Put it on the work bench that has been light dusted with flour. Knead for about 8-10 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic. I added about 2 tsp water since the dough was dry. Add a bit more flour if the dough is wet.

Oil the bowl and put the dough ball in there. Cover with cling wrap. Let it prove for 1-1.5h until double in volume. I put the bowl over a warm water bowl.

Punch the dough and divide to 4 small dough balls. Wrap in cling wrap and let it prove in the fridge overnight.

Take the dough out and let it warm up a bit. Leave it on the bench for about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 240-250 deg C. Open the wrap and shape it by hands to a 20 cm disc.

Put the desired toppings and bake for 8 minutes or until the bottom is golden brown. I put the pans on the middle rack since it was too hot on the lower rack and the heat was not even.

Walnut and Blue Cheese Loaf

Ingredients:
3 cups self raising flour
0.25 cup fresh herbs (fresh parsley, dill, chives), chopped
0.25 cup castor sugar

2 eggs, lightly beaten
250 mL water
60 mL vegetable oil

1 cup chopped walnuts
125 g soft blue cheese



Directions:
Grease 23 x 12 cm loaf tin

Preheat oven to 200 C

Mix flour, sugar and herbs then make a well in the centre.

Whistk eggs, water and oil, add to flour. Mix with a wooden spoon and do not overmix. Fold in cheese and nuts. Put into loaf tin.

Bake 40-45 mins or until golden and firm and skewer comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes in the tin. Turn out cool. Wrap and store overnight before using.

Serve sliced with butter or toast and serve for breakfast.

Pizza Base

Description:


This is the third challenge for the Dare to Bake Club. The source of the pizza base recipe is from The Perfect Cookbook by David Herbert (Viking, Victoria, Australia. 2003)

Just click here to see the pictorial step by step directions and some surprises behind the making of this challenge.

Ingredients:
1 sachet (@ 7g = 1/4 oz = 2 tsp) dry yeast
1 tsp sugar
2 ½ cups bread flour (high-grade flour, tepung cakra kembar)
salt
2 Tbs olive oil


Directions:
Dissolve the yeast and sugar in a small bowl with 200ml (6 ½ fl oz) of tepid water. Stir well and set aside for 10 minutes, or until the mixture froths.

Place the flour and a pinch of salt in a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the centre and add the yeast mixture and olive oil. Mix until a firm dough forms.

Knead on a lightly floured surface for 5-7 minutes, or until smooth and elastic. Place in a clean, lightly oiled bowl, cover with a cloth or plastic wrap and leave in a warm place for 1-1 ½ hours, or until the dough has doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 210C (415F, Gas Mark 6-7).

Punch down the dough with your fist to release the air. Divide into two or three equal portions and roll out or press to a thickness of 4-5mm (¼ in). Transfer to lightly oiled pizza trays.

Top with your choice of toppings and cook for 15 minutes. Then slide the pizza off the tray onto the oven shelf and cook for a further 3-4 minutes, to crisp up the base.

My Chocolate Kugelhopf

Hmmm... I think I kind of getting addicted to this pastry. The smell of the chocolate and the the taste overall makes me drooling. Especially, when it just comes out from the oven. The smell is so heavenly. So... I decided to make one today with the recipe and the guidelines that I got from Guido.

Here is the Nigella wannabe

As you know, I do not bake that often and as a result, I have very little experience with baking too. I had to gauge the quantity of the extra water to make a soft dough. It was a very pleasing experience to learn new things. To have a feeling towards to pastry. As others have said, we need to put our heart when we bake. The recipe is only a guideline. Well, the thing is that working with the reality of variation in ingredients. 

I made a slight change and adjustment to the recipe. I used full cream milk powder instead of soya milk as I do not have it today. I used 215 mL water and 1 tablespoon of full cream milk powder for the first hydration. I added 90 mL of water to make the soft dough. I think it was a dash too much. I will try with 60 mL (0.25 cup) water next time.

I also changed, just slightly, the composition of the filling. I used 40 mL water, 25 mL dark rhum, 3 tablespoons lingonberry jam and 4 tablespoons nutella. As for the icing, I used 100 g Lindt 85%, 100 g Lindt milk chocolate, 1 teaspoon soft icing sugar and 50 g reduced salt butter. I think I will add some cream next time to make the ganache 'pourable'.

The other things that I need to pay more attention are when I made the starter dough and the first proving time. My dough has more volume than his with the same amount of proving time. Also, the baking time may need to be longer for this wetter dough.

The chocolate filling came out from the dough because the dough stuck to the bench. I had to ask my husband to help me placing it into the tin. Some parts were torn and causing the marbling effect.

Covered with chocolate ganache... covering the imperfection.

Moment of truth... finally, I could taste my kugelhopf. The crumb is softer than Guido's and I think it was due to more water in my dough. It was more bread like, pretty much like sweet bun texture. Thus, my kugelhopf also do not have gaps in between the layers.

Taste wise, not bad at all!!!  For sure, I will make again.  Once you can make the bread or the cake sort of right, you will get the confidence and addicted. Trust me!

 

My loyal fan whenever I am at the kitchen.