Another Chapter in my Life

I just had a long 2-hour session with my Dutch boss. 2 hours! Yes, it is a long 2-hour, and it is a big deal since our conversation rarely exceed 6 minutes,!!!

"How's the OTIF going to look like this month?" "...likely to be a few percent higher than last month, boss"

"Inventory is far too low, are you sure we are keeping enough?" "Boss, prices are falling, gonna cut back on the inventory."

That's the typical conversation we have... never more than 6 minutes on our monthly country reporting. The rest of the time, it's either he can't reach me, or I can't reach him! *haha*

So what's special that this respectable Dutch man would invest his 2-hour of his time on me? My job tenure is coming to an end come next Jan. And we were mulling over the options and opportunities. Not an easy task.

To me, this is big big bag of mixed feelings. Just Nov 4, I gave a heartening speech to the 200-staff plant, highlighting our achievements, sharing our success story. In no time, I am leaving the team with whom I have spent 7 years together setting up the operating processes, debottlenecking the hardware, strategising the portfolio, building competency etc. I am proud that today the Singapore Plant is the crown jewel in the entire global manufacturing network. To leave the place is like throwing away your favourite birthday present! Being a hoarder, it just mean harder for me to let go.

I know if many who are firm believer of greener pasture but I am stumbling with fear and uncertainty as I move into an uncharted territory.

But life goes on. I am going to take with me the years of experience and knowledge to build another sucess story. This I know for sure. :-)

Vegan Banana Coffee Cake

Strange as it can be... there are some baker's recipes which I can never get it right! Here's another flop - you see tell with eyes that it is simply too dry.




If you know what's wrong, pls leave a comment for me. Thankie!


Vegan Banana Coffee Cake

Ingredients:
4 ripe bananas, mashed
2 cups Self Raising Flour
100 g Margarine or Vegetable Shortening
1 tsp ground cinnamon powder
1 tsp ground nutmeg powder
2 tbsp strong Instant Coffee, crushed
70 g light brown sugar

Method:
In a large mixing bowl, add sifted flour, cinnamon, nutmeg.
Melt margarine and mix with coffee powder and sugar.
Add margarine mix to flour and fold in slowly.
Add bananas last and mix.
Line a bake tin with greased paper. And pour cake mix into it.
Bake in a preheated oven of 180 C for 30 mins.
Remove from pan, cool completely before slicing.

Whipping Cream Bread

I had some leftover whipping cream from my previous Victoria Sponge and was looking for some recipe to use it up. Cake recipes galore but none on bread... My hard work of trawling paid off when I stumble upon Pook's Blog. Her bread looks beautiful with soft crumbs.... and that got me motivated to fire away!


I divided the dough into 50g each after 2nd proof, and shape them into batard and knot just for fun:



1. Batard - you can see Pook's blog for her very clear illustration how to do this.


Cutting the dough with sharp scissors was fun!



2. Knot: Roll the dough into long strip, then make a knot.



This method is easier for Bevis to handle. We had fun doing this together.



If you have been to Aunty Yochana's blog, you would have seen her choir boy bread. Mine a disfigured choir boy... and to make it worse, Bevis insisted on putting the quins on the face. "Spots", he said!


The bread is very yummy, even on the next day.



You can see the many hole in the bread, making the bread very soft!



Will I bake this again? Yes and No.

Yes cos this recipe yields soft crumbs and bread is very delicious. I also like that there's no egg. This is however made up by the large amount of whipping cream. This is the reason why No - whipping cream is expensive lah.

With all due respect, I am inclined to believe the softness is achieved by leaving the bread to a slow rise in fridge rather than the whipping cream. If you use your favourite recipe, up to salt and reduce the yeast (pls do some calculation and make sure you get the right percentage or else all the yeast will be killed by the salt... and pls do not hold me responsible for your failed attempt!), your will likely get the same soft texture.

The whipping cream in this case, replaces the milk and fat which is staple in most recipes.

I also think this recipe is more for season baker. If you are new, do use the electric mixer or bread maker to help you - the dough is very wet. If you first time making bread and making them by hand, you will be tempted to add more flour as the dough is very very stickly... almost impossible to knead. The additional flour will upset the flour to liquid ratio and affect the fina results.

Enough said, now your turn to go ahead to try and draw your own conclusion.

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Whipping Cream Bread
http://dailydelicious.blogspot.com/2008/05/pain-crme-whipping-cream-bread.html
Makes 12 pcs

Dough
A
300 g Bread Flour
3 g Instant dried yeast
7 g Salt
40 g Sugar


B
225 g Whipping cream
60 cc Water


Egg wash
1 egg + 1 tbsp water

1. Mix the (B) ingredients together.
2. Put the (A) ingredients in a bowl, whisk to combine, pour the (B) mixture into the bowl, and use large spoon or pastry scraper to mix everything together.
3. Take the dough out of the bowl and knead, until the dough is soft, smooth and elastic about 10 minutes.
4. Put the dough into a light buttered bowl. Let the dough rise in a warm place until double in size about 1 hour.
5. Gently press down the dough, then put the dough back into a light buttered bowl and cover with cling film. Put the bowl in the refrigerator and rest overnight (min 6 hours).
6. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Take the bowl out of the refrigerator; take the dough out of the bowl. Gently press down the dough and cut the dough into 12 pieces, let the dough rest for 15 minutes.
7. Use a rolling pin to roll the dough into a circle, about 8 cm. Fold the dough and roll into a small batard.
8. Cover the shaped dough; let rise until almost doubled in volume, about 30-40 minutes. Before baking, brush the dough with egg wash and use a scissor to cut the top of the dough.
9. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until the bread is golden.

Not-so-Crispy Coffee Cookie

An old friend emailed me to asked if I could bake the coffee cookie which he previously bought from Le Cafe.


I have to credit this pix to Le Cafe.

You gotta to try their "Crunchy and thick-cut, with an exquisite texture and a heavenly aroma, these dark square cookies are roughly studded with almonds, coffee granules..." Coffee Cookie... it won the Gold Award in "Sweetest things Singapore’s Best Desserts 2005"

So, this is my boldest copy-cat attempt!

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120 g butter
45g icing sugar
160g plain flour
30g almond flakes
1 tbsp instant coffee (or replace with cocoa powder for choc flavour)
1 tbsp hot water

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C.


2. Sift flour and set aside.


3. Toast almond flakes at 180C for 5 min.


4. Beat butter and icing sugar together until light and creamy.


5. Dissolve coffee powder in hot water. Stir coffee solution into butter mixture and beat until combined.


6. Add flour and mix well. Add almond flakes and stir well to form a dough. Chill for a while.




7. Divide dough into 2 portions. Shape each into a 4cm thick triangle. Chill for 2 hours. Remove and cut into 1/3 cm thick triangle. Place triangle on a prepared baking pan/tray.


8. Bake for 15min at 180C. Cool on wire rack. Serve.
   
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   Verdict:
   
   The cookie is not sweet enough. There's far too little almond in it. Also, the cookie ain't crispy enough.
   
   In short, failed attempt. *tsk tsk*

Chocolates that we LOVE...

These chocolate from Royce are so good that I can't stop raving about it!

My taste test for the 3 types :

White Chocolate: very creamy, not overly sweet. They have dusted the choc generously with cheese powder! You can't miss this if you love milk and cheese.

My colleague who regularly buys Godiva White Choc says this is as good as Godiva, but without the hefty price tag!

Bitter Chocolate: Certainly for the adults cos it is bitter as it should. Suits me cos I get toothache for sweet things.

Champagne: Oscar Wilde said "only those who lack imagination cannot find a good reason for drinking champagne". I do not need one here. Well, for the price that you are paying, just don't expect to have Dom Perignon!

Gone in 60 seconds!

The other one is from Hokkaiddo - Corn Chocolate. Maybe because it is so difficult to come by, maybe it's the special milk taste. It is so good that I have to ask J to hide it somewhere to stop e from eating!

Steamed Milk Cake

This recipe was posted by Aunty Yochana, whose blog is widely followed by both local and overseas readers.

I was first attracted to the title, Milk Cake, Umm, spurs healthy connotations. Moreover, steamed cake are usually moist and yummy...

Shortly after she posted the recipe there were many comments from other bakers that their cake turned out to be "huat kueh"-like, a term describing the flourishing dome. Some also mentioned the texture were dense-like...

Since I am have sometime to kill on the long Deepavali weekend (but just had time to do the writing...), I did some trials on the cake to check the effect of heat. I first posted the observation in Aunty Yochana's comments and she seemed to concur... it's time I put some action to the words.

On all occasions, I do not have cake flour on hand, so I use 90g plain flour + 10g corn flour.

Results:

Trial 1 - Everything as per the recipe, steam with medium fire:

Pretty little dome. A strong taste of milk, little surpise given this is the key ingredients.

Trial 2 - added 1 tsp of pandan taste. Juice from fresh pandan would have better but I made do with what is available in my kitchen. This also mask the milk taste if you do not like it. I also reduced the sugar to 65g.

Trial 3 - added 1 tsp of pandan essence (colourless type) cos I like the aromatic pandan smell vs. milk smell. This blue colouring comes in cos I was baking with Bevis, and to add some interest, I allow him to choose the colour that he wanted.

Actually I was using the same medium fire, only difference is this time round, the water was high boiling just as I put in the muffin tray. You see that even the initial heat was intense enough to create the splitting dome on the cake.

But apart from the appearance, there's NO difference in the texture.

Verdict:

• The heat will determine how the dome is look like when done. Even the initial intense heat will suffice to cook the top, and push up the batter in the middle to split the dome. If you want the rounded dome like Aunty's, watch the heat. This is how my medium heat look like.



• The heat will not alter the texture of the cake. It could NOT be dense becos of the heat. If yours are dense, it could be due to some other reasons.



• Unlike other baking methods like creaming etc, there's no way to incorporate air into the cake. To ensure you do not end up with flat and dense cake, double action baking powder is a MUST. To explain this further - the normal baking powder release carbon dioxide, which provides the leavening power, as soon as it gets wet. In most cakes where there are eggs or butter, the "wall" are able to hold the gas within the cake fairly well. However, in this recipe where there's almost zero fat, all gas will be gone by the time we are done mixing the flour into the liquid. A double acting baking powder contains materials which do not release all the carbon dioxide until the product is heated. So if you lose the first carbon dioxide release because you take too long to bake the product, all is not lost. More carbon dioxide leaving is released as the product heats. Using an excess of baking powder will sometimes leave a bitter taste in the product, so I would not double the amount to remedise the dense texture. You can read up more about leaven from http://www.baking911.com/pantry/leaveners.htm



• Check that you have the correct flour - if you had used plain flour instead of cake flour, check the label on the package to confirm the %age of the protein. The Red Man Plain Flour has a protein contain of 13.1%! Though they indicated plain flour, I used it as bread flour instead.



• Why protein content matters? It matters cos protein increases the water absorption, leaving the cake dry. Also, higher protein encourages gluten-forming, which is responsible for toughness in cakes.
  
  
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Steamed Milk Cake
Recipe Source: http://auntyyochana.blogspot.com/2008/10/steamed-milk-cake.html
Makes about 7 cupcakes.

Ingredients:
170 gm. Fresh Milk, preferably room temp
75 gm. sugar
100 gm. cake flour
20 gm. rice flour
2 tsp. double-action baking powder

Method:
Use a hand whisk to whisk fresh milk with sugar until the sugar has dissolved.
Add in remaining ingredients and stir well.
Spoon into small cups lined with paper cups.
Steam at high heat for 15 mins. or until cooked.
Remove and cool on wire rack.

My Bake Notes:

• If you are using milk powder (adult/baby): heat up the water enough to dissolve the sugar before adding milk powder. Save the trouble of whisking.



• I find it easier to get a smooth batter by adding liquid to flour, rather than flour to liquid.



• It only rise in the middle, so I actually fill up higher, and yield only 6 cupcakes.



• I would reduce the amount of sugar to 50g. At 75g, it works out to be over 10g per cupcake. There is no RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) for sugar but since the sugar is for taste only, so go to minimum that you need.


• If using non-stick muffin tray, no need to grease them. It comes off clean.



• Next time I will add variation like:
  1. divide batter into 2-3 colours and let Bevis mix them up to make rainbow cake.
  2. sprinkles the rainbow rice or 100s and 1000s for a colourful treat.
  

Peanut Butter Cookie

I made a large batch of Peanut Butter cookie ... and I am getting bored eating the plain cookies. With the balance chocolate from the previous post, I am marrying the creamy choc frosting with the cookie.

The first and foremost thing to do is melting the chocolate, which I got quite tired of of standing next to the stove... now i see why Aunty Yochana bought the special machine for this purpose!






Instruction:

1. Melt White & dark Chocolate (of your choice) with 1 tsp of crisco (a veg shortening).


2. Spread the white choc over your cookies.


3. Pipe the dark chocolate over the white.


4. Run a toothpick across the dark lines to form the waves.

The dark choc harden very fast, and I didn't bother to soften it so in the end some of the choc lines are much thicker than others. It certainly takes patience to do things like these. :-)