Ham and Cheese Bread (tangzhong)

So.. I bought 20lbs of flour on Amazon, tried to save money with the subscribe and save option. It was only supposed to deliver the next week but I chose to deliver it early and assumed that it would cancel the next delivery but it didn’t. So now I have 40lbs of flour.. Thats 18kg so flour… ))’: Gonna be making a lot of bread in the next few weeks/months

 

Made some Ham and Cheese Bread with the basic tangzhong bread recipe. LOVE the tangzhong recipe. It makes the bread so fluffy and soft. BTW, the new flour I bought is wheat flour so the bread looks more brown than white bread.

Tangzhong

25gm bread flour
125ml water (could be replaced by milk, or 50/50 water and milk)

1. Place flour and water in a saucepan. Mix it so that there are no more lumps. Over medium-low heat, stir the mixture continuously  until the mixture becomes gooey.

2. Turn off heat and leave the mixture to cool (just a while is fine. Most websites ask you to let it cool to room temperature, but who has time for that!)

 

Ham and Cheese Bread (tangzhong)
Adapted from Christine’s Recipes

350gm bread flour
55gm  sugar
2g salt
1 large egg
½cup milk
120gm tangzhong
6gm instant yeast
30gm butter (cut into thin slices)

Filling:
10 slices of deli meet
a handful of cheddar/mozzarella cheese

1. Combine all ingredients except ham and cheese into the bowl of a mixer. If you’re using a stand mixer, knead with a dough hook on low speed for 10mins then on medium speed for another 2 minutes. Kneading by hand usually takes about 20mins.

2. Place dough a lightly greased bowl (or just put parchment paper on the bottom) and cover with cling wrap. Set aside for 45mins.

3. Turn the dough out on a clean, floured counter top (or just use the parchment paper so that you don’t have to clean up). Roll out the dough into a rectangle. Squeeze as much water out of the deli ham as possible, otherwise your bread might end up doughy where it meets the ham. Place the ham on surface of the dough, sprinkle cheese on top, and then roll the dough into a log.

 

 

 

4. Cut it into 1.5 inches (about 2 fingers) thick slices. Place them on a cookie tray. Let them rise for another 45 mins.

 

 

 

5. Preheat your oven to 350F. Bake them for about 30mins or until the top turns golden brown.

Chocolate Chip Scones

I really love this chocolate chip scone recipe of mine. You can switch it up with anything you want, i’ve tried reese chips and blueberries. It only takes up about 20mins including baking time ((:

Chocolate chip sones

Ingredients:
1½ cups plus 2 tbsp. all-purpose flour
¼ cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp. butter, melted

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375˚ F.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.  Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl; stir to combine.  Toss in the chocolate chips and stir to blend.  Add the heavy cream to the flour mixture, stirring just until a dough forms and the dry ingredients are incorporated.  Knead the dough very briefly to ensure even mixing. Guesstimate and separate the dough into 6 equal pieces and pat them down on the baking sheet. Brush lightly with melted butter and sprinkle with additional sugar/heavy cream (if using).  Bake 15-20 minutes, until lightly browned.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

Got into the mood of halloween and tried baking pumpkin stuff for the first time. Guess they turned out pretty well! 

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls (tangzhong method)

Ingredients:

2½ cups bread flour

3tbsp+2tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1 large egg
½ cup milk
120g tangzhong (recipe below)
2 tsp instant yeast
3 tbsp butter (cut into small pieces, softened at room temperature)

 

For Tangzhong – mix 1/3 cup bread flour with 1 cup water. Whisk it until there are no more lumps. Pour it into a saucepan and place it over medium heat. Keep stirring until you see that it becomes gravy like (or if you want to be more precise, when it reaches 65degree celcius)

 

1. Combine the flour, salt, sugar and instant yeast in a bowl of a stand mixer. Make a well in the center. Add in all wet ingredients: milk, egg, pumpkin puree and tangzhong. Fit the dough hook attachment on your stand mixer and begin mixing on medium speed and knead until your dough comes together and then add in the butter and continue kneading.  Keep kneading until the dough is smooth, not too sticky on the surface and elastic. I kneaded the dough for about 18-20 minutes. Each mixer may vary. When the dough is ready, you should be able to take a chunk of dough and stretch it to a very thin membrane before it breaks. When it does break, the break should be form a circle.

2. Knead the dough into a ball shape. Take a large bowl and grease with oil.  Place dough into  greased bowl and cover with a wet towel. Let it proof until it’s doubled in size, about 40 minutes.

3. Transfer to a clean surface. Divide the dough into four equal portions. Knead into balls.  Cover with cling wrap, let rest for 15 minutes.

4. Roll out each portion of the dough with a rolling pin into an oval shape.  Take one end of the dough and fold to meet the middle of the oval. Take the other end and fold to meet on top.

5. Flip dough over with the folds facing down,and flatten dough with rolling pin.

6. Flip dough over so the folds face up. Now roll the dough up. Place each of the rolls into the bread pan and put a piece of plastic wrap over the rolls. Let them rise until double the size, approximately another 40 minutes.

7. Beat an egg and brush egg mixture on top to create shiny eggwash finish (I didn’t bother since it’s just for us)

8. Bake at 350 degrees F for approximately 24 minutes.

 

pu

Labor Day Weekend

Love this labor day weekend camping trip ((: Fun and exhausting.. Got to know a lot more people beyond the work/superficial level which is nice ((:

Stayed in the entire monday, so i had the entire day to myself. Thinking and reflecting. All these missed opportunities.. I would give everything to go back in time to right the wrong. Would things have been different? I know the opportunity has passed and I can totally understand why things ended up this way. Things don’t always go the way I want it to, but thats just life ((: Suck it up and march on.

Achievement Unlocked

Got my first credit card and am starting to accumulate credit history. Finally.. ((:

And he’s leaving tomorrow )): So I would be alone after today. Spent some quality time together with bimbimbap in bed while watching trashy shows! Love trashy shows.

Rather excited for work. Can’t wait to start earning money for real and climbing up the corporate ladder. Lol. And the awesome 9-5 days and no homework weekends.

Wish me luck!

Raleighhh

Just got to raleigh 2 days ago. Loving this place already.

Its difficult not to love my new home ((: THANKS FIDELITY ((:

The kitchen is so amazing. Should have brought all my baking stuff over )):

The restaurants here are so good too! A lot better than pittsburgh definitely. We’ve tried 2 asian markets Grand Asia and S Mart and i think i can definitely survive here. ((: Gonna try more restaurants like cracker barrel and japanese hibachi later!

Hawker Heroes

http://www.hawkerheroes.com/

i guess if i just follow the list i’ll eat all the best of hawker food in singapore ((:

Hating Delta

Ugh, lousy day today. Flight got cancelled, *cried thinking i’ll miss my SIA flight because i called SIA and they said there weren’t any seats available to SG for the next 10 days*, got on a flight to la guardia that will theoretically reach in time for me to take a cab to JFK. La guardia flight delayed. Waited half an hour for baggage then realized baggage was still in Pittsburgh because they didn’t transfer the bag. Delta representative at baggage counter told me I still can get to JFK (within 15mins) and get on my SIA flight and they’ll ship my bag to singapore. Rushed to taxi line which was probably 150m long, went to the front, told them i have to catch an international flight at JFK in an hour 15mins, the first Chinese lady looked at me then went to grab the cab. The Americans behind her were like, go ahead, good luck. *hated PRCs for a while then went back to hating delta* Got to JFK at 7:52, missed the flight by 2 mins >< *cried thinking that i wouldn’t be able to go back to singapore at all (since i start work in 3 weeks)* SIA representative helped me get on to tomorrow’s flight. So i guess my day wasn’t as bad afterall.

Also, thank god for wonderful boyfriend who booked me an airport hotel right after i told him that i missed my SIA flight (i guess he got scared of me calling him crying) so i had a place to go eat dinner and crash right after :*

**don’t take delta

Transition time

Can someone tell me how do you transition smoothly from college to work?

I think im too dependent on my parents.. The only reason why I don’t want to graduate is because i don’t want to look at my bank account and think that i can’t live independently on that amount >< I want to still be able to ask my parents for money when my bank account falls below 10k because i feel “safe” that way. I seriously get panic attacks and keep thinking how do i earn more money because my bank account is below my imaginary safe amount. Ugh. I wanna buy so many things (like a work bag) but I don’t want to pay for it >< Grr. Life is tough.