La Forketta

Once in awhile we like to visit Dempsey Hill and try out the restaurants there. One evening we decide to try out this Italian restaurant. It looks good and we sat outside in the cool evening air. We were off to a great start as the bread basket they put down was absolutely delicious!

It was SO good with extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar! The problem was that we had to fight the bread with our 2 year old girl, who insisted that the bread was hers. -_- We also ordered their minestrone soup, which was like the most chunky minestrone soup I've ever seen. I think they should just call it vegetable and tomato soup. Duh. I prefer that the vegetables in my minestrone to be boiled to death and unrecognizable. Haha...

Cobby ordered a cured beef with wild rocket pizza and I wished that I've ordered that instead. :P

The naughty girl ate so much bread, she couldn't eat anything else.

I ordered the tagliatelle al ragu, which was alright, but it was a little too salty and the pasta was a little too soft for my taste.

I would probably not go back for their pasta, but pizza's pretty good. Go check it out.

Purple Sweet Potato Bread

I came this book at the library and I know that I must have the book! So off I went to buy the book at Page One. The author is a Hong Kong lady and the book specialize in baking bread using a technique called 17 hour low temperature pre-fermented dough. The result is a more moist and chewy texture and a yeasty fragrance. It also last longer then your average home made bread!

天然面包香 by 獨角仙@藍色大門 (Natural Bread Made Easy by Kin @ Blue Gate)

Hubby asked me to make pandan raisin bread, but I really wanted to make this one instead. Look how pretty it is!!!



I have never eaten purple sweet potatoes before, I think the original was from Japan. I found a cheaper version at Cold Storage, which was from Vietnam, and only a few cents more then your average sweet potatoes.



Did you know that it is also a SUPER nutritious food? Check it out!

Anyway, on with the recipe. Another thing that I LOVE about the book, every recipe has a BAKER'S PERCENTAGE, which allows you to adjust the portion according to your liking. Awesome... So this recipe is adjusted to about half of the original portion.

Pre-Fermented Dough
Bread flour 210g
Warm water 120g
Instant yeast 6g
Salt 3g
Skim milk powder 6g

1. Dissolve yeast in water.
2. Add flour, salt, skim milk powder and knead until soft.
3. Cover the dough in cling wrap. Refrigerate to let it prove for 17 hours.

Dough
Bread flour 90g
Skim milk powder 9g
Salt 3g
Sugar 36g
Warm water 75g
Instant yeast 3g
Unsalted butter 24g
Sweet potatoes 150g

1. Cut the pre-fermented dough into small pieces.
2. Steam the purple sweet potato with the skin on. Peel and mash it. Save some for filling.
3. Knead all ingredients of dough together (except the butter). Add pre-fermented dough piece by piece. Knead after each addition until soft and smooth. Add butter. Knead until stretchable consistency.
4. Put the dough into a big bowl. Cover with a cling wrap. Let it prove for about 25-30minutes.
5. Divide the dough into eight small portions and round them. Set aside to rest for about 20mins.



6. Flatten each piece of dough with your hands to drive the air out. Round them again. Press flat. Stuff them with mashed sweet potato. Round again. Place dough into greased chiffon mould. Cover with cling wrap.
7. Let it prove for about 45mins or until the dough has risen to about 80 percent of the depth of the mould. Brush egg wash on top.



8. Bake in preheated oven at 180 degree Celsius for about 30-35mins.

太好吃了!!! It's moist, chewy and oh so delicious! Definitely my BEST bread yet.



Will bring some to parents tomorrow, I'm sure they would be super impressed! Oh, I will also be submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #8 - Bread Seduction. It's my very first submission, as I just missed last month's theme, which was CHOCOLATE. DUH right, I've got so many chocolate creations! Anyway, I'm quite pleased with this latest bread creation, so it's perfect! :)

Fresh Corn Sandwich Toast

Got this recipe from a new cooking book I bought a few weeks ago. My daughter and husband loves corn, so this would be a great recipe for the family. High in fibre, vitamins and natural sweetness, this is a great way to sneak in some vegetables into their daily diet!

My blender was too powerful, so my corn turned out more like a corn puree. The corn mixture was so fine that they can hardly tell there's fresh corn in the bread. Hubby suggested that I make the corn more chunky, good idea, will do that next time. :)

SET A:
50ml Warm water
40g Sugar
3g Salt
4g Instant dry yeast
150g Fresh sweet corn kernel, blended with 50ml of water

350g High protein flour
50g Unsalted butter

1. Grease loaf tin (8"X5"X5")
2. Mix Set A ingredients together and set aside.
3. In a mixer fitted with a dough hook, combine all ingredients (except butter) and mix into a dough.
4. Add in butter and knead for another 7 minutes or so, until the dough is smooth and elastic and does not stick to the sides of the bowl.
5. Remove the dough, oil the bowl and put dough back inside the bowl. Cover the bowl with cling wrap and let it rest until it double's in size, about 2 hours.
6. Divide the dough into 2 equal portions, round up and set it aside to rest for 5 minutes.
7. Roll out the dough, roll it up neatly. Roll it out in the opposite direction, roll it up again, and place it into the loaf tin.
8. Cover loaf tin with cling wrap and let it rise until it fills about 80% of the tin.
9. Cover tin with lid and bake in preheated oven at 200°C for 40-45 minutes.
10. Remove and unmould the loaf onto wire rack to cool. Slice and serve.

CoCo's Raisin Loaf Bread

350g high protein flour
50g whole wheat flour
6g instant yeast
18g caster sugar
7g salt
7g milk powder
230g warm water
18g butter
80g raisins

1. Soak raisins overnight and chop half of them into fine pulp.
2. Place yeast, sugar, salt and milk powder into warm water.
3. Using a blender, put on the dough hook and mix the flours with the liquid in step 2.
4. When the dough does not stick to the side of the bowl, add in the butter and the chopped raisins. Continue mixing until the dough has once again unstuck from the side of the mixing bowl. Add more flour if it doesn't.
5. Remove the dough onto the floured surface, flatten the dough a little and fold in the rest of the raisins. Do it gently or the raisins would burst.
6. Oil the mixing bowl and return the dough back into it. Cover with cling firm and let it rise in a warm place till it's double it's size, which takes about 40mins.
7. When it's ready, cut the dough into 2 equal portions, roll into 2 round balls and place them into the oiled bread tin. Let it rise to fill the tin, which takes about 60mins.
8. Place it in a preheated oven of 200°C for 60 minutes.
9. Slice to serve! :)

Raisin Butter Rolls

Hubby loved raisin bread and butter rolls, so I thought I combine 2 of his favourite type of bread together. Turns out ok, just wished it was more buttery.



High protein / Bread flour 300g
Instant yeast 6g
Caster sugar 30g
Salt 5g
Egg + Warm water 190g
Butter 35g
Raisins 50g (should have added more, like 100g)
Extra melted butter for finished rolls.


1. Mix warm water with egg. Mix yeast, sugar and salt into flour. Mix egg mixture into flour mixture by hand and transfer onto work table dusted with flour.

2. Knead dough until smooth and smear butter onto dough before kneading again. Add raisins before fneading dough till surface is smooth and not sticky.

3. Pinch dough into a ball and place into an oiled bowl. Cover with cling film and allow to rise about 40min till dough is double its size.

4. Cut dough into small equal portions. Flatten it slightly and return it into a ball shape again by pinching from top to bottom. Let it rest for 10mins.

5. Roll the dough as per diagram below and let it rest for 5 mins. After 5 minutes, flatten the dough by pulling on one side of the dough and roll in from the wide side in.



6. Place rolls onto baking tray and allow it to double in size, approximately 40mins.

7. Bake for 12mins at 180 degree celsius. Brush melted butter onto freshly baked rolls.

CoCo's Pimped out ham and cheese toast

Made a delicious grilled ham and cheese bread the other morning and it was GOOD! All you need is:

leftover hotdog bread
chop up some ham
shredded cheese
cajun spice
Parsley



Just mix everything up and pop it in the oven toaster.



A quick and delicious breakfast!

CoCo's Wholemeal Cheese Bread

I always buy bread that's wholemeal. It just makes me feel like I'm making an effort to eat healthy, and thus feel less guilty when I slap on a thick layer of Nutella chocolate spread on my bread. :)

Funny thing was that I can't seem to find any wholemeal bread flour here in Singapore. Not even in Phoon Huat, my favourite to-go place to find all things related to baking. So naturally I was ecstatic to find wholemeal bread flour during one of my grocery shopping trips in JB.

I know 100% wholemeal bread is more dry and not very tasty, so I made my bread with only 1/3 wholemeal flour. That means, using the same recipe from my table rolls, I use 100g wholemeal flour and 200g of normal bread flour.

Also, from my Dad, I found out that using bottled mineral water when making bread actually makes the bread dough rise better. I don't know what is the exact science behind it, but I think it really works!

Oh, and as you can see, I just add some cheese and sugar on top of the bread before baking. I actually divided the dough into too big portions. They grew bigger during fermentation, and grew even bigger in the oven during baking! Oops... Next time, when I'm dividing the portions, if it looks a little too small, its probably just right. :)

CoCo's Table Rolls

Here's another successful attempt of me making bread! I'm starting to think that perhaps it's not so difficult to make bread afterall! This time I'm making table rolls, which is softer and sweeter than French loaf.

This recipe is from a very old book, from the 70s I think. It's written in Chinese, the cakes decorations are very old fashioned and the pictures of the chefs are super funny looking (very 70s). I had a really hard time translating the instructions, but the recipes work and there were alot of pictures to guide me through. Fantastic book, but instructions was a little TOO meticulous for me. I've simplified the steps a little.

Bread Flour - 300g
Yeast - 6g
Caster Sugar - 15g
Salt - 5g
Egg - 45g
Water - 150g
Butter - 9g
Egg (to brush on dough before baking)

1. Mix warm water with egg. Mix yeast, sugar and salt into flour. Mix egg mixture into flour mixture by hand and transfer onto work table dusted with flour.

2. Knead dough until smooth and smear butter onto dough before kneading again. Knead dough till surface is smooth and not sticky.

3. Pinch dough into a ball and place into an oiled bowl. Cover with cling film and allow to rise about 40min till dough is double its size.

4. Cut dough into small equal portions. Flatten it slightly and return it into a ball shape again by pinching from top to bottom.

5. Place on baking tray with baking paper. Wet knife to make incisions on dough and allow to rise again.

6. Brush egg on dough before baking 20mins at 180 degree celsius, or until slightly brown.

7. Cool before storing.



Enjoy fluffy rolls for breakfast! :)

CoCo's No Knead Bread

No Knead Bread
By: Michael Smith

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour
1/4 teaspoon of dry yeast
1 1/4 teaspoons of salt
1 5/8 cups of warm water

Method:
Whisk the dry ingredients together thoroughly.

Add the water and stir until a wet dough forms. Continue stirring until the dough incorporates all the loose flour in the bowl, about 60 seconds in total.

Cover the bowl with a towel (I use cling wrap) and rest in a warm place for 12 to 18 hours.



It will double in size, bubble and long gluten strands will form.



Lightly flour your hands and the work surface then remove the dough from the bowl. Quickly form it into a ball. (Be warned - it's super sticky, wet and difficult to handle)

Thoroughly flour a cotton towel and rest the dough on it. Cover it with another floured cotton towel. You may also rest the dough on a non-stick ‘Silpat’ mat and cover it with just one towel. (I placed it on a non-stick baking tray) Rest the dough a second time. In 2 to 3 hours it will rise again and double in size once more.

I didn't read the instructions properly and didn't put the dough on a towel. So I had a little sticky situation when trying to get it out of the pan and into the pot. :P



A half an hour or so before the dough is ready preheat your oven to 230°C with a heavy covered pot in it. You may use cast-iron, steel, enamel or ceramic.

When the dough has fully risen slide your hand under the towel and quickly invert the delicate dough into the hot pot. Shake the pot a bit to settle it then place the lid on the pot and start baking.

Bake for 30 minutes with the lid then remove it and bake for 15 minutes more and... Presto! Home made bread...



It won't stick to the pot, so just pop it out.



Perfect with butter...



Check out the original recipe for a bigger portion and a healthier version!

Update - I'm submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #8 - Bread Seduction. I guess this creation holds some sentimental value for me as it was my VERY 1st bread creation. Besides, this is a very unique recipe!