Hokkaido Milk Bread Loaf 北海道牛奶面包

Sausage Buns 香肠面包 (65C Tangzhong Method)

Making buns for breakfast! I have some thin sausages in the fridge, this round I pan fried the sausages before stuff them into the buns just to make sure they are cooked completely. 

This recipe yield 14 buns. 

Ingredients:
65C Tangzhong/ water roux starter:
30 g bread flour
150 ml water

Bread dough:
all tangzhong
400 g bread flour
100 g cake flour (low protein flour)
30 g sugar
6 g dry instant yeast
1/2 tsp salt
50 g soft unsalted butter
200~250 ml water (add gradually)

Filling:
7 sausages cut into half to make 14 pieces

Garnish:
egg wash (1 egg yolk), mayonnaise, tomato sauce, some dried parsley  

Method:

Prepare water roux starter: in a small pan, place the bread flour and water, mix well and cook the mixture until it starts thicken, remove from heat, cover with cling wrap and set aside to cool.

Prepare the filling: in a pan, add 2 tablespoons of cooking oil, pan fried the sausages until it turns slightly brown, set aside to cool. 

Prepare the bread dough: Add the water roux starter, and all dry ingredients. Gradually add water and mix with KitchenAid speed 2 until it combined, change the KitchenAid speed to 4, mix until it form a rough dough (the dough is not stick to the mixing bowl wall). Add butter in pieces. Continue to mix with speed 4 until the Windowpane stage.

Cover the dough and let it proof to double its size, about 50 mins. (depends on the surrounding temperature) 

Take the dough out, punch down the air. Flatten the dough a bit and divide into the portion you want. In my case 14 portions. Shape the dough into equal small balls. Let them rest for 10 mins. 

Roll the dough into a long thin strip of about 30cm. Place a piece of sausage at one end and wrap the bread dough against the sausage, place the dough on the baking tray. Repeat until all dough is done. Spray with a bit of water on the bread dough, let it proof until double its size. 

Egg wash and garnish the bread dough, bake at preheat oven at 180C for 15 mins. or the bread turns slightly brown. Take out and let it cool on wire rack. 

Cranberry Cinnamon Rolls 蔓越莓糖浆肉桂面包卷 (65C Tangzhong Method)

This is a busy week as the backyard renovation started, beside the noise, outdoor space is complete covered with snowy construction dust. It really disturbs my daily routine.

Today I go back to my old recipe with minor adjustments, bake the soft and fluffy cranberry cinnamon rolls which is one of my family favourite. The fragrance of cinnamon sugar in the bread is so comforting. 12 buns won't be enough for three of us! 

Ingredients:
Tangzhong/ water roux starter:
30 g bread flour
150 ml water

bread dough:
500 g bread flour 
55 g pastry flour (top flour)
30 g milk powder
5 g instant dry yeast
60 g fine sugar
1/2 tsp salt
all the Tangzhong
200 ml water (add gradually)
20 g golden syrup
60 g butter, chop in small pieces


Filling:
100 g dried cranberry 
3 tablespoons cinnamon sugar

Egg wash:
1 egg, beaten
some raw coarse brown sugar, to sprinkle on top of dough (optional)

Method:

1. Prepare Tangzhong: Mix together ingredients in Tangzhong, cook under medium heat, keep stirring until the mixture thicken, not boiling. Remove from heat and set aside until cool.

2. Prepare bread dough: In the electric mixing bowl, add all Tangzhong and bread dough ingredients except water and butter. Gradually add water (set aside 50 ml for slowly add in) and mix with KitchenAid speed 2 for a min before change to speed 4. Slowly add more water. 

3. When the mixture form rough dough or able to pull away from the mixing bowl, add in butter. Continue to let KitchenAid knead the bread dough until elastic windowpane. It means the bread dough is able to stretch open on your palm without tearing. 

4. Cover the dough and let it proof to double its size. Punch out the air in the bread dough, use the rolling pin to flatten the dough into 60cm x 40cm rectangle (As the bread dough is very soft you may need to dust your hands and worktop with flour for easy handling the dough, use the dough scraper to help handling the bread dough without adding too much addition flour). Sprinkle cinnamon sugar to cover all the dough area, place the dried cranberry on top.

5. Roll up the dough into a log, slice the dough into 12 portions (depends on you baking pan). Place the dough into lined baking pan, cover and let it proof until it double its size. Brush with egg wash. Sprinkle some raw coarse brown sugar on top of the bread dough.

6. Bake in a preheat oven at 180C for 20 mins. or until the top of the bread turned slightly brown. 

Char Siu Bread Buns 叉烧面包 (Chinese BBQ Pork Buns) (65C Tangzhong Method)

Char Siu Bread Buns or Chinese BBQ Pork Buns is my son latest favourite breakfast (of course he has many type of favourite breads because his mum love to make breads ^^) I used the leftover Char Siu Bao filling to make this baked buns. 

The bread texture is super soft, I'm using golden syrup and water roux starter in this bread making. I like both steamed and baked Char Siu Buns. How about you? 

This recipe yield: 16 buns

Ingredients:

Tangzhong/ water roux starter:

30g bread flour

150ml water

bread dough:

500g bread flour 

55g pastry flour (top flour)

30g milk powder

5g instant dry yeast

60g fine sugar

1/2 tsp salt

~110g Tangzhong

160 ml water (add gradually)

20g golden syrup

60g butter, chop in small pieces

Filling:

180 g BBQ Pork filling (Char Siu filling)

Egg wash:
one egg yolk with 2 tablespoons of milk, mix well

Method:

1. Prepare Tangzhong: Mix together ingredients in Tangzhong, cook under medium heat, keep stirring until the mixture thicken, not boiling. Remove from heat, cover and set aside until cool.

2. Prepare filling: Please refer to Steamed BBQ Pork Buns (Char Siu Bao)

3. Prepare bread dough: In the electric mixing bowl, add all bread dough ingredients except water and butter. Gradually add water (set aside 50ml for slowly add in) and mix with KitchenAid speed 2 for a min before change to speed 4. Slowly add more water. 

4. When the mixture form rough dough or able to pull away from the mixing bowl, add in butter. Continue to let KitchenAid knead the bread dough until elastic windowpane. It means the bread dough is able to stretch open on your palm without tearing. 

5. Cover the dough and let it proof to double its size. Punch out the air in the bread dough, divide the dough into 16 equal portions. Shape the dough into round balls. Let it rest for 10 mins.

6. Flatten the dough into circle with middle part a bit thicker than the edge. Place a heap teaspoon of BBQ pork filling in the middle. Wrap up the edge of the dough, shape the dough into round ball. Place the dough on the baking tray, let it proof until double its size.
7. Egg wash the dough. Use a sharp razor, gently slice a few slices on the top of the bread. 

8. Bake in a preheat oven at 180C for 15 mins. or until the top of the bread turned slightly brown. 

Kopitiam Milk Buns / Plain Milk Buns (Overnight Sponge Dough Method)

Kopitiam Milk Buns is the plain milk buns that always selling at coffee shop when we were young. It doesn't has any distinctive taste, so the usual ways of eating it is by dipping the bun into the coffee, milo, soft boil egg, or go with kaya and butter. This bun was very popular among bloggers two years back. I always not able to keep up with the current popular bakes.

I tried with two recipes this round, one with overnight sponge dough and the other one with straight dough method. Both gave me soft bread on the day of bake, however, the bread was not soft to touch on the second day and I have to heat them up in the microwave for 20 seconds to get the soft bread. I'm not sure could it be the butter used was way too little for the straight dough and was it the overnight sponge dough I used way too dry? 

I referred the recipe from My Little Favourite DIY (overnight Sponge Dough Method). This recipe yield 9 buns.

Ingredients:
Overnight Sponge Dough:
215 g bread flour
125 g cold milk
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast

Milk buns Dough:
the overnight sponge dough
90 g bread flour
30 g egg
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
1/2 teaspoon salt
60 g sugar
45 g room temperature soft butter
1 tablespoon cold milk (I used 3 tablespoon of cold milk)

Method:
Prepare the overnight sponge dough: 

1. Add all ingredients in a mixing bowl, combine to form a rough dough, do not need to knead until windowpane. Cover with cling film and immediately store in the fridge for overnight (at least 12 hours)

Prepare the bun dough:

1. Tear the overnight sponge dough into pieces and add all ingredients except butter into the mixing bowl, using KitchenAid speed 1, combine together and change to speed 2, knead until smooth dough.

2. Add in butter and knead until elastic windowpane. Cover with cling wrap and let it proof until double its size.

3. Punch down the dough, flatten it and divide into nine equal portions. Shape the dough to round balls. Place them in a line square pan and let it proof  to double its size.

4. Bake at pre-heated oven at 180C for 15 mins.

Creamy Custard Bread 卡士达面包 (65C Tangzhong Method)

Creamy Custard Bread/Custard Bun some name it as Milk Pudding Bread. It is my favourite, when I happen to drop by a bakery I always look for custard bread or bun. A perfect Creamy Custard Bread to me is having a soft bread texture with creamy pastry cream in it. I know there are many different varieties for the filling but I love the pastry cream filling which is without the use of condensed milk. The filling which is build up purely using egg yolks, milk, sugar and pastry flour.

I bet my son and hubby will be thrilled to see these creamy custard bread later. I'm using water roux (Tangzhong 汤种) starter in the bread dough again, as this will produce a soft bread texture. I would suggest to prepare pastry cream a day in advance of the bread making as the pastry cream needs time to  settle and firm up, this will make wrapping the filling process a breeze. 

I have to bake this custard bread as all the 12 pieces of Pork Floss Buns finished in just two days! The recipe yield: 12 buns

漂亮鬆软的面包，简单素质的生活，来一杯热茶，爆破在口里浓度刚刚好的卡士达甜馅，感觉是。。。和泡芙馅一样美好。

Ingredients:
water roux /Tangzhong:
30 g bread flour
150 ml water

Bread Dough:
300 g bread flour
100 g cake flour (top flour)
6 g instant dry yeast
1/2 tsp salt
30 g sugar
15 g milk powder
1 egg
90 ml water
150 g Tangzhong (water roux)
45 g butter, cut in small pieces
some flour for dusting the hands and dough

Pastry Cream Filling:
400 g fresh whole milk
1 tsp concentrate vanilla extract
5 egg yolks
80 g sugar
40 g pastry flour, sifted

Glazing:
1 tsp golden syrup + 3 tbsp milk, mix together


Method:

Prepare water roux: In a small pot, add all water roux ingredients cook and stir the mixture until thicken, remove and set aside for later use.

Prepare filling: 
1. In a saucepan, add milk and concentrate vanilla extract, bring to just boil. 

2. In a clean bowl, beat egg yolks and sugar together using a hand whisk. Mix until the mixture is pale yellow. Add flour and mix well.

3. Gradually add hot milk to the egg mixture, mix well.
4. Pour the egg-milk mixture back to the saucepan and bring to boil over high heat, keep stirring until the mixture becomes smooth and glossy, remove from heat.

5. Transfer half of the pastry cream into a container, cover with cling wrap and let it cool in freezer (but not frozen). For the other half, place it in a pipping bag and let it cool in freezer too. About half an hour, place both pastry cream in fridge for later use. For the pastry cream in the container, cut them into equal 12 pieces.

Prepare bread dough: In the KitchenAid mixing bowl, add bread flour, cake flour, instant dry yeast, salt, sugar, milk powder, egg, and water roux. Using low speed (speed 1), mix for a min, gradually add water. Switch the speed to 2, mix the ingredients until it comes together to form a rough dough. Add the butter pieces, let the Kitchen Aid knead the dough at speed 4 until the dough form elastic window pane. 

Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover and proof until the dough double its size. Punch down the air in the dough and divide it into the portions you like, in my case 12 portions. Roll the dough into round balls, let it rest for 10 mins. 

Flatten the dough into circle shape, wrap in a piece of pastry cream filling, roll it up, seal the edge and seam site down on lined baking tray. Let it proof until double its size. Egg wash the bun dough. Pipe the pastry cream on the top of each bun in a circular motion, start from the centre top of the bun goes outward.

Bake in preheat oven at 180C for 15 mins or when the buns turned lightly brown. Let the buns cool on the wire rack.

Pork Floss Buns 肉鬆面包 (65C Tangzhong Method)

Pork Floss Bun is one of my family's favourite. There are two ways of presenting this bun, one method is by slicing open the top of the bun, apply mayonnaise and place the pork floss on top of it. (like what I did here) Second method is place the pork floss inside the bun. I'm now doing the second method.

The biggest challenge of moving house for a baker is not just packing and unpacking the kitchen but facing the new oven. Every single record I made on the oven temperature and timing may become irrelevant. I'm using my previous recipe on pork floss buns with minor changes. This recipe produces very soft bread texture.

I ate two buns straight just after taking the photos ^^

This recipe yield 12 buns.

Ingredients:
Water Roux/Tangzhong:
25 g bread flour
125 ml water

Bread Dough:
250 g bread flour
90 g cake flour (top flour)
6 g instant dry yeast
1/2 tsp salt
30 g sugar
15 g milk powder
1 egg
80 ml water
100 g Tangzhong (water roux)
45 g butter, cut in small pieces
some flour for dusting the hands and dough
some black sesame seeds (optional)

Glazing:
1 tsp golden syrup + 3 tbsp milk, mix together

Filling:
Some pork floss (~40 g) 

Method:

Prepare water roux: In a small pot, add all water roux ingredients cook and stir the mixture until thicken, remove and set aside for later use.

Prepare bread dough: In the KitchenAid mixing bowl, add bread flour, cake flour, instant dry yeast, salt, sugar, milk powder, egg, and water roux. Using low speed (speed 1), mix for a min, gradually add water. Switch the speed to 2, mix the ingredients until it comes together to form a rough dough. Add the butter pieces, let the Kitchen Aid knead the dough at speed 4 until the dough form elastic window pane. 

Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover and proof until the dough double its size. Punch down the air in the dough and divide it into the portions you like, in my case 12 portions. Roll the dough into round balls, let it rest for 10 mins. 

Flatten the dough into circle shape, wrap in a heap teaspoon of pork floss filling, roll it up, seal the edge and seam site down on lined baking tray. Sprinkle some black sesame seeds on the top of the bun. Let it proof until double its size. Egg wash the bun dough.

Bake in preheat oven at 180C for 13~15 mins. Let the buns cool on the wire rack.

Milk Bread Curry Buns 柔软咖哩面包 (65C Tangzhong Method)

I have some leftover chicken and potatoes curry filling from making Spiral Curry Puffs, this week I'm into bread baking. In fact, I have made three batches of Milk Bread Curry Buns! Some of the curry buns were given away as a present to my son's piano teacher.

When I was searching for curry buns on the Internet, I saw the lovely curry buns created by Nasi Lemak Lovers, she wrapped her curry buns with Pandan Leaves. I think this is a good way of presenting the curry buns in South East Asia style, the pandan and curry leaves give a lovely fragrance and it does make this curry buns standout a lot. I'm using the bread recipe from my Pork Floss Buns, this recipe produces a soft milky bun texture which I think is best to go with the warm chicken potatoes curry filling. 

If you didn't finish consume the buns within the same day of baking, you may place it in fridge, heat up 20 seconds in a microwave will warm up the curry filling. 

This recipe yield 10 pieces of buns.

Ingredients:
Water Roux/Tangzhong:
25 g bread flour
125 ml water

Bread Dough:
200 g bread flour
90 g cake flour (top flour)
6 g instant dry yeast
1/2 tsp salt
30 g sugar
15 g milk powder
1 egg
65 ~100 ml water (the bread dough form has to be soft and moist to touch, if not gradually add more water)
120 g Tangzhong (water roux)
45 g butter, cut in small pieces
some flour for dusting the hands and dough

Filling:
150 g chicken and potatoes curry filling

Extra (Optional):
some pandan leaves
some curry leaves

Egg wash:
1 tbsp golden syrup + 1 egg, mix together

Method:

Prepare water roux: In a small pot, add all water roux ingredients, cook and stir the mixture until thicken, remove and set aside to cool for later use.

Prepare bread dough: In the KitchenAid mixing bowl, add bread flour, cake flour, instant dry yeast, salt, sugar, milk powder, egg, and water roux. Using low speed (speed 1), mix for a min, gradually add water. Switch the speed to 2, mix the ingredients until it comes together to form a rough dough. Add the butter pieces, let the Kitchen Aid knead the dough at speed 4 until the dough form elastic window pane. 

Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover and proof until the dough double its size. Punch down the air in the dough and divide it into the portions you like, in my case 10 portions. Roll the dough into round balls, let it rest for 10 mins. 

Flatten the dough into circle, wrap in a heap teaspoon of curry filling, seal the edge and seam site down on lined baking tray. Wrap the dough loosely with a pandan leaves, place a piece of curry leaves on top of the dough. Let it proof second time, until double its size. Egg wash the bun dough.

Bake in preheat oven at 180C for 5 mins then switch the oven temperature to 150C and bake for 10 mins. Let the buns cool on the wire rack. (Oven temperature and timing may vary depends on the capacity of your oven)

Mexican Coffee Buns (Roti Boy) 墨西哥咖啡面包

This is my second time making Mexican Coffee Buns, the first time was in June 2015. The previous recipe was using water roux in the bread dough and the butter filling was with icing sugar. This time I'm trying out Savoury Days Kitchen YouTube recipe, she is not using water roux in her bread dough, inside the filling is only butter and the topping is with some cocoa powder. My personal preference is I like my previous Mexican Coffee Buns recipe more because of the icing sugar in its filling make the bun taste better. 

The Mexican Coffee Buns raised beautifully with brown, crispy round dome! The bun texture is good too. This recipe yield 12 buns.

Ingredients for bread dough:
270 g bread flour
60 ml milk
40 g sugar
60 ml milk + 1/2 tsp lemon juice (stir well and set aside)
1 egg 
45 g soft butter
1.5 tsp instant dry yeast
1/2 tsp salt

Ingredients for filling:
80 g butter (divide into 12 pcs)

Ingredients for topping:
30 g butter
2 tsp coffee powder + 2 tsp hot water
25 g icing sugar
1/2 egg
35 g all purpose flour
1/8 tsp cocoa powder
1/8 tsp salt

Step:

Prepare coffee topping: 

1. Dissolve the coffee powder in hot water. Add cocoa powder. Stir well.

2. In a bowl, Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg mixture in batches, mix well after each addition. Sieve in the cake flour, salt and add coffee mixture, mix until the mixture is smooth and combined. Keep the topping chill in fridge, remove 5 mins from fridge before used to soften the topping  a little.

Prepare bread:

1. Mix all dry ingredients for bread in the KitchenAid mixing bowl. In a small bowl, whisk egg together with milk.

2. Gradually add milk and egg mixture, and milk and lemon juice liquid to the dry ingredients, use the KitchenAid speed 1 to mix all together for 1 min before change it to speed 4 for 10 mins.

3. Add butter pieces, continue to let it knead until the dough is elastic and form window pane. The dough will pull away from the side of mixing bowl. 

4. Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl, cover and proof it to double its size. 

5. Punch down the air, divide the dough into 12 portions. Roll the dough to form balls. Let it rest for 10 mins.

6. Flatten the dough ball into a flat circle, place a piece of butter filling in the middle and wrap it up. Seal the edges and seam side down. Place the dough ball two inch apart from each other on the lined baking tray. Let it proof until double its size. Repeat for the remaining dough and filling.
7. Preheat the oven to 180C.
8. Place the coffee topping in a piping bag, pipe the coffee topping on the bun dough, start from the center then go outwards, make the topping swirl as close as possible to the swirl before it.  
9. Bake at 180C for 15 to 18 mins or when the topping turn slightly brown and a soft crust is form on the bun.

Chocolate Marble Bread 大理石面包

It has been a while since I updated my last blog post. Life is busy with kid, school, exams and after school activities. I still bakes in the kitchen, just not taking photos with my camera. This morning I made an effort to snap photos on my bake. 

I'm using the recipe from my previous bake Chocolate Marble Bread Toast (7 Dec 2011) the original recipe is from the Japanese baker Matumoto Youiti 松本洋一. This round I have modified a bit on my previous recipe by using melted dark rum chocolate instead of the unsweetened cocoa power. By using Tangzhong (water roux starter) in the bread, it produces a soft bread texture.  

Super soft bread doing yoga ^^

Recipe for 65C Tangzhong:

50g bread flour

250ml water

Method:

1. Add flour to water in a pot, keep stirring it while cook until it reached 65C. or ripples appeared on batter. Set aside to cool completely before use.

Recipe for bread dough:

400 g bread flour

6 g instant dry yeast

30 g sugar

24 g milk powder

100 ml milk

230 g Tangzhong (water roux starter)

30 g salted butter

Chocolate paste:

30 g dark rum chocolate plus a teaspoon of milk, heat up in microwave for 30 second, mashed into chocolate paste

Egg wash:
Some milk and beaten whole egg

Method:

1. Add Tangzhong and all ingredients except the liquid and butter in the electric mixing bowl, gradually add the milk and knead well. When the rough dough form, add butter. Knead until form elastic windowpane. Divide the dough into 2/3 and 1/3 portions. 1/3 portion add in chocolate paste, knead until well-blended (gradually add a teaspoon of milk if required). Knead to form elastic windowpane. The 2/3 remaining dough will be the white dough.

2. Spray a thin layer of water on both dough and place them in separate containers. Cover with plastic wrap and let it proof until the dough is double its size.

3. Punch down the dough, roll into respective balls, cover and let it rest for 10 mins. 

4. Flatten the chocolate dough into a rectangle shape 18 x 12 cm. Flatten the white dough into a rectangle shape 20 x 15 cm. Place the chocolate dough on top of the white dough. Flatten it into 30 x 20 cm. 

5. Cut into 2 equal portions. Place one piece on top of the other. Flatten the dough into 30 x 20 cm, repeat for another two times.  

6. Cut it into three strips and plait it together. Place the dough into a lightly flour-greased loaf tin. Cover with lid, let the dough proof until it reaches 90% height of the loaf tin. Open the lid. Egg wash the bread dough.

7.  Bake at 200 C for 30~35 mins. Dislodge from tin once baked. (temperature and timing may vary depends on the capacity of the oven)