Sunday, September 18, 2011

Flower Bun & Ham Rolls


My kids asked me this morning if I can make some buns for them to bring to school tomorrow.  As I still have some white lotus paste in my fridge, I agreed. I remembered seeing this very pretty flower shape mooncake somewhere before so I thought it may be a good idea to shape my buns into “flower”.

After making all the “flowers”, still have some dough left, so I just ask the kids to flatten the dough, put a ham in the middle and roll it up. J



Here is the recipe for the Basic Bread Dough taken from Bread Code with a slight modification.

Ingredients A:
500g high protein flour
1 tsp instant yeast

Ingredients B:
60g sugar   (will increase next time as I prefer sweeter bread)
1 tsp (5g) Salt   (I omitted as I used salted butter)
1 tsp (5g) milk powder   (I replace this with soya milk powder)

Ingredients C:
1 Egg
250g water

Ingredient D:
5og butter

Method:

  1. Put ingredients A in a mixer and blend at low speed for 1 min.
  2. Add ingredients B, blend for 1 min.
  3. Add ingredients C, blend at low speed for 1 min, then use medium speed to blend for 5 min until dough-like.
  4. Add ingredient D and continue to blend 10-15 mins till dough is shiny and springy (I didn’t use mixer so hand kneading will take about 30 mins)
  5. Use a wet towel to cover the dough and allow to leaven for 45mins till the dough doubled.
  6. Divide the bread dough into 40g and wrapped the white lotus paste, flatten and use a knife to cut out 5 openings.
  7. Place on baking paper, glazed with beaten egg  and sprinkle some almond nuts in the center of the flower (additional step by me)
  8. Place into pre-heated oven, baked at 180 C for 20 mins.
  9. Cool on cooling rack.

Monday, September 12, 2011

中秋节 Mid-Autumn Festival


The Mid-Autumn Festival is here again and traditionally on this day, all the family members and friends will gather together to admire the bright round moon and eats mooncake.
Wishing everyone Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!
祝大家中秋节快乐!

 



My 1st batch of snowskin mooncake.  There are 2 types of lotus paste wrapped within.  The inner filling is chocolate paste and the outer layer is white lotus paste with melon seeds. I use chocolate emulco to make the chocolate flavoured snowskin. 


My 2nd batch of snowskin mooncake.  I wrapped premium dried cranberries with a layer of white lotus paste with melon seeds.  I chopped and added some cranberries to the snowskin to give it a nice and chewy feel.

My 3rd and last batch, used 2 difference snowskin, green apple and red cherry to wrapped the chocolate paste with almond nuts.  I love this batch the most as it was very colourful. J




Ingredients for Filling:
1 kg of lotus paste + 120gm of melon seeds + 80g dried cranberries
1 kg of chocolate paste + 150 gm of chopped almond nuts

Ingredients for Snowskin:
1000 g Snowskin flour (Premix)
500-550 ml cold water
200g – 220g  shortening
Chocolate emulco for the chocolate snowskin
Chopped dried cranberries for the cranberry snowskin
few drop of green apple colouring and cherry red colouring

Method

1. Snowskin: Sift kao fen into a mixing bowl and add the cold water and mix well.
2. Rub in shortening and knead lightly.
3. Divide the dough into 3 portions and add in the chocolate emulco, cranberries and colouring to each portions.
4. Knead until a soft dough is form and set it aside for 15-30 minutes.
5. Weigh the skin and wrapped the paste and roll it into a round ball.
6. Coat with some cooked glutinous rice flour and pressed into mould.
7. Unmould it and keep it refrigerated.
8. Thaw a few minutes before serving.