Cinnamon Buns

Just baked these cinnamon buns, preparing them for the family gathering for tea on Sunday :)
This is the 3rd time I'm baking them in 2 weeks. I know the children love them.

Recipe for Cinnamon Buns

(makes 12)

Ingredients:

(A)

125g warm milk (I used warm water instead)

50g sugar

5g dry active yeast

(B)

1 egg, room temperature

35g melted butter

(C) Sift

300g bread flour 

(D) Mix

40g melted butter

60g brown sugar

6g ground cinnamon

chopped pecan nuts (optional)

Method:

1) Dissolve sugar in warm milk/water. Stir in the yeast. Let the mixture stand for 10mins, or till it is foamy.

2) Stir in (B). Add flour. Use dough hooks of beater and mix well till dough ball is formed.
3) Turn out the dough onto a floured surface and give it another good knead for another 5-10 minutes. Add a little more flour as necessary to prevent sticking.

4) Heat oven to 100 degrees & switch off. Place dough in a greased glass bowl. Cover bowl with a moist towel and leave in oven for 1hr or till dough has doubled.

5) Roll dough flat. Trim dough into a rectangular shape. (The trimmed off dough can make another 2-3 buns)
Spread the cinnamon-sugar-butter (D) over the dough and sprinkle chopped pecan nuts all over. 

6) Roll up dough & cut into small pieces. Place rolls on greased pan, leaving space for expansion. Cover & let the dough rise for 30 mins, or double.

7) Bake at 200 degrees in pre-heat oven for 15 mins or till golden brown.

8) Enjoy your cinnamon buns hot & soft. To keep, let them cool & put in air-tight container & keep in the fridge. Just need to reheat before serving.

Enjoy!

Roti Prata

Just pan fried some prata for breakfast this morning & served them with just some sugar. Well, I didn't make the prata from scratch. I just used a ready-made prata & I just need to pan fry or bake it. I always panfry them in a pan over a gentle heat & flip the prata occasionally so that the prata will be crispy & fluffy, just the way we like them.

I just grease the pan first & I don't add anymore oil. So this is definitely a healtier choice. To keep the pratas warm & crispy, I would keep them spread out in the oven with a low heat. When they're all done, just serve with your favourite curry or just some sugar :) They're better than many pratas served  in the average prata stall in the neighbourhood.

Roti Prata, Crispy Pancake... Can't wait to eat it...

Crispy & Fluffy Roti Prata... Can't get enough of them...

A Family Pack of Frozen Roti Prata

 I always have a pack in the fridge...

A piece of frozen Roti Prata Dough

Homemade Pizza, Garlic Bread & Baked Chicken Wings

Have been wanting to make pizza at home for quite some time now. Borrowed a few books from NLB but still didn't manage to make one. Must be waiting for Christmas... until I saw a blog post on Wednesday by Happy Home Baking. She had made pizza & included the recipe for making the dough. It didn't look too difficult & after my success in Cinnamon buns on Wed, I decided to make some pizza from scratch!

Pizza Before baking...

Hawaiian Pizza on the Plate, ready to be eaten...

The Taste Verdict: Jerome said that it's nice Lasagne :P The crust was kind of soft, actually soggy :P I must have added too much tomato paste, too much liquid on the dough... So this 1st pizza making attempt didn't work. Will try again soon.

I've also decided to make my own garlic bread & baked chicken wings to go along with my Hawaiian Pizza. I used the bread recipe for the Cinnamon buns to bake the bread first. As much as I tried to shaped the dough, I didn't managed to get them to look identical. No quality control :P

After the bread cooled, I cut slits into the bread & spread some ready-made garlic bread spread, wrapped the bread in aluminium foil & sent it back into the oven for another 15 mins together with the pizza. Jerome said the garlic bread is nice, but Pizza Hut's still better. Sigh...

Nice Soft Homemade Garlic Bread

Maybe not all totally homemade... as I used ready-made spread

In the end, it was the baked Teriyaki chicken wings that saved the day. I know that they will never fail to please.

Baked Teriyaki Chicken Wings

Recipe for Baked Teriyaki Chicken Wings

Ingredients:

6 pieces of midwings

2 tbps light soya sauce

2 tbsp mirin

2 tsp brown sugar

Method:

1) Mix up all the ingredients & marinade chicken wings for 2-3hrs in the fridge.

2) Grease a baking tray & line the chicken wings on the tray.

3) Bake the wings on each side for 10-15 mins on each side in a pre-heat oven of 160-180 degrees celcius (depending on your oven's 'strength') or until brown. Spread the left-over marinade over the wings occasionally during baking for more flavour.

Cinnamon Buns Again

Cinnamon Buns

More kneading, more sugar, more cinnamon, more sinful...

My 3rd attempt making cinnamon buns & 2nd successful one. Hooray! Memories of my 1st failure was always at the back of my mind & I was keeping my fingers crossed up till the moment I bite into the cotton soft buns. The 1st time I made the cinnamon buns, they were kind of tough, solid like a rock. Jerome said I could kill with them. I've also changed a different brand of yeast. The old one I was using has a very sour smell. I kneaded the dough by hands a little after the mixer worked on it, giving it a good massage. I added more sugar & cinnamon powder. The results are great! The cinnamon buns are the best that I've made so far! Now, they're to die for... Well.... At least that's according to me :P

Fresh out of the oven, looking a little 'undone'...

Buns turned out from the pan....

Ooooo.... Look at all the goodness....

Enough sin... Don't have to cover them with frosting.... and sin further...

Cotton Soft ... Just the way I love my bread...

For recipe, please refer to my previous blog entry on Cinnamon Buns :)

Pics of different steps are included.

Book on Bread

Tried making bread 3 times so far...

1st attempt in July
Cinnamon Buns from a 5* rating recipe from AllRecipes.com with reviews that included "They're to die/kill for." I tried to make them and Jerome said I could kill with them cause they're really hard, not fluffy at all. He suggested I could keep 1 in my handbag & use as a defensive weapon. We ate 1 each & ...

2nd Attempt in Sept
Cinnamon Buns using the same recipe. I just have to try them again and fortunately it worked this time. The buns were nice & soft. Jerome loved the bread. We finished up the 10 buns in 2 days. So I decided that making bread without a bread machine isn't so difficult afterall & I'm going to make more bread at home & stop buying bread.

3rd Attempt in Oct
After my previous success, I search for recipes from other food blogs, trying to make some soft white bread. I found out that many recipes have almost the same ingredients, just varying quantities. So acting smart, I decided to experiment & created my recipe during quantities that I could easily remember. I put the dough into a bread tin, expecting to get a nice loaf of bread in the end. But in the end, it turned out looking more like a cake, it didn't rise above the tin. I had to steam the 'bread' the next morning to soften it a little. The bread was very dense & heavy. I could hardly get myself to swallow it down! So experiment failed...

So decided that I better find out more about bread making before I try making another loaf. I borrowed this very informative book on bread. It's very informative with lots of pictures. From information about the kind of flour, different kinds of bread, different kinds of glazing effects, toppings, etc... All the pictures are included just so you can see for yourself. You can see the difference between a shiny-golden brown crust & a golden crust for yourself. Great!



Learning Points So far:
1) Golden Rule: Always stick to 1 system, the metric or imperial.
2) Make sure all ingredients are at room temperature.
3) Ideal temperature to develop yeast is 37 degrees celcius.
4) Salt inhibits the development of the yeast. Separate addition of yeast & salt.
5) When using an electric mixer, be careful about overmixing/overworking the dough using high speed. Some kneading by hand is still required. Don't be lazy. It's a good opportunity for some exercise,
6) Knead dough on floured surface until it becomes elastic & easy to handle.
7) Proof dough in a plastic or glass bowl, NOT metal. Metal conducts heat unevenly & the yeast will react with the metal & there will be a metallic taste. (I've proof the dough in a stainless steel bowl so far)
8) Do not allow the dough to over-proof or over-rise. ( I have thought that the longer you allow the dough to proof, the fluffier & softer is the bread.)
9) To test if rising is complete, gently press the dough with fingertip. Dough should spring back gradually. If indentation springs back immediately, dough is still under-risen. If the indentation doesn't rise up at all, the dough had over-risen. Remedy: Knock the dough back, reshape & proof again.
10) Freeze cooled baked bread to keep longer, up to 3 months. NOT refrigerator. Defrost in preheat oven of 200 degrees celcius for about 45 mins.

Cinnamon Buns

Found the recipe from AllRecipes.Com. It was a 5* rating recipe with tonnes of positive reviews Reviews included "They're to die for", "Can't get enough of them.", etc... Yeah, you get the idea. So I tried the recipe in July but that was a failure as the buns ended up quite tough, not fluffy at all. My hubby said that I could kill with that :P Anyway, I tried the recipe again yesterday evening. And was really elated that the buns ended up quite nice & soft. Hubby gave me the thumbs up after devouring 2. My 1st sucessful bread making :) Definitely, going to bake more bread... :)

Hot & soft Cinnamon Bun.... Yummy...

Recipe for Cinnamon Buns

(makes 10-12)

Ingredients:

(A)

125ml warm milk (I used water instead)

50g sugar

5g dry active yeast

(B)

1 egg, room temperature

35g melted butter

(C) Sift

300g bread flour (high protein flour)

(D) Mix

40g melted butter

50g brown sugar

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

chopped pecan nuts (optional)

Method:

1) Dissolve sugar in warm milk/water. Add the yeast. Let it stand for 10mins, or till yeast is foamy.

2) Add (B) & mix a little. Add flour. Use dough hooks of beater and mix well till dough ball is formed.

3) Heat oven to 100 degrees & switch off. Cover dough with a moist towel over the bowl.

Leave in oven for 1hr or till dough has doubled.

4) Roll dough flat. Trim into a rectangular piece. Spread (D) over dough and sprinkle chopped pecan nuts all over. (The trimmed off dough can make another 2-3 buns)

5) Roll up dough & cut into small pieces. Place rolls on greased pan, leaving space for expansion. Cover & let the dough rise for 30 mins, or double.

6) Bake at 200 degrees in pre-heat oven for 15 mins or till golden brown.

7) Enjoy your cinnamon buns hot & soft. To keep, let them cool & put in air-tight container & keep in the fridge. Just need to reheat before serving.

Enjoy!

Dough ball before rising...

1 hr later in a warm oven, dough has risen to more than double...

Roll dough, trim to rectangular shape.

Spread melted butter, brown sugar & ground cinnamon mixture all over.

Sprinkle chopped pecan nuts.

Roll it up.... & cut into pieces...

After rising in the baking pan, ready to be baked...