Quick and Easy Foccacia

Easy Foccacia!

I subscribe to the King Arthur baking blog so I get emails daily and this one was called Blitt Bread.  I’ve never made foccacia before but I’ve always wanted to.  This was was fairly quick and easy since it was only a 2 hour rise time.  I didn’t have the pizza dough flavor or cheese powder on hand but it still turned out great!

No Fuss Foccacia by King Arthur

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 3 tablespoons olive oil (plus additional for drizzling)
• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
• 3 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 1 tablespoon instant yeast
• 4 teaspoons Pizza Dough Flavor, optional
• 1/4 cup Vermont cheese powder, optional
• Pizza Seasoning, optional

Directions

1) Lightly grease a 9″ x 13″ pan, and drizzle 1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil in the bottom.

2) Combine all of the ingredients, and beat at high speed with an electric mixer for 60 seconds.

3) Scoop the sticky batter into the prepared pan, cover the pan, and let it rise at room temperature for 60 minutes, till it’s become puffy.

4) While the dough is rising, preheat the oven to 375°F.

5) Gently poke the dough all over with your index finger.

6) Drizzle it lightly with olive oil, and sprinkle with pizza seasoning, and/or the dried herbs of your choice, if desired.

7) Bake the bread till it’s golden brown, 35 to 40 minutes.

8) Remove it from the oven, wait 5 minutes, then turn it out of the pan onto a rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Char Siu Bao – Final

My favorite dim sum item!

So I’ve been trying to find the perfect recipe for char siu bao.  I have tried many, many different recipes and have tweaked each one to get it perfect.  I really don’t know what the secret is but I think this recipe I have comes pretty close.  They are nice and fluffy right out of the steamer and even after they’ve cooled down, it’s still good.

I’ve come across recipes that don’t require a starter and some that only take about an hour of rise time but those never come out quite fluffy enough.  This is not an easy task, it takes about a couple of days because there are two rises to it.  I recommend making these when you have time, like during the weekend.

Make Starter Dough:

3 cups all purpose flour

1/8 c sugar

11 oz warm water

1/2 tablespoon yeast

1/2 tablespoon baking powder

1 tablespoon shortening

Mix everything together in a mixer and mix it until dough becomes smooth and elastic.  I used a kitchen aid mixer and mixed it for about 20 minutes.  Put the dough in a warm, draft free place until it double in size, about 3 hours or so.

After starter have doubled in size, divide into 4 oz dough and leave in fridge overnight.

Part 2:

4 oz starter dough

3/4 cup water

2 cups flour

Dissolve the 4 oz starter dough with water and mix in 2 cups of flour.  knead the dough until everything is incorporated.  Place the dough in a bowl and let it double in size, about 8 hours or overnight.

Part 3:

All of the start dough from part 2

1 tablespoon baking powder

140 g sugar (2/3 cup)

2 tablespoon shortening

3/4 cup water

2 cup all purpose flour

1 1/2 cup cake flour

Mix everything together until smooth and elastic, dough will be a bit sticky, add a bit more flour if it is too hard to handle.

Shape into balls if not using filling and let it rise a bit more, about two hours or so.

Get the steamer ready and once the water is boiling, place the steamer in the pot and steam for 10 minutes.

If you add a couple of tablespoons of white vinegar in the water, the baos will come out whiter.

Loh Bak Goh

Daikon cake served at Dim Sum

Raspberry Crumb Bar

Raspberry crumb bar

Brownie Bites

Yummy brownie bites

Rich and moist and the inside

Oreo Cupcakes

Mmmm...yummy Oreo cupcakes!

It’s been such a long time since I’ve blogged!  I had made a few new items but haven’t had the chance to update my blog with it yet.

We had a super bowl party earlier this year and I decided to make these cupcakes for the party.  They were such a hit!  Not one cupcake was left over!  They were fairly easy to make and tasted very yummy!  I would make these again for any party!

I found these cupcakes from one of my favorite bloggers, Annie’s Eats, everything on her site is so yummy!  You should definitely check it out!

Oreo Cupcakes by Annie’s Eats

Yield: 24 cupcakes
Ingredients:
For the cupcakes:
24 Oreo halves, with cream filling attached
2¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
8 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 2/3 cup sugar
3 large egg whites, at room temperature
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup milk
20 Oreo cookies, coarsely chopped (I quarter them)

For the frosting:
8 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
6 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
4 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
2 tbsp. heavy cream

For garnish:
Oreo cookie crumbs
24 Oreo cookie halves

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350˚ F.  Line the wells of two cupcake pans with 24 paper liners.  Place an Oreo halve in the bottom of each liner, cream side up.  In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt; stir together with a fork to blend and set aside.  In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter and sugar and beat together on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.  Blend in the egg whites one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Blend in the vanilla extract.  With the mixer on low speed, beat in half of the dry ingredients just until incorporated.  Add the milk and beat just until combined, then mix in the remaining dry ingredients.  Gently fold in the chopped Oreos with a rubber spatula until evenly incorporated, being careful not to over-mix.

Evenly divide the batter between the prepared cupcake liners.  Bake for 18-20 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through baking, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Allow to cool in the pans 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the frosting, combine the cream cheese and butter in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat on medium-high speed until smooth, about 1 minute.  Blend in the vanilla extract.  Beat in the confectioners’ sugar until incorporated and smooth, 1-2 minutes.  Add the heavy cream to the bowl and beat on medium-low speed just until incorporated, then increase the speed to medium-high and whip for 4 minutes until light and fluffy, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Frost the cooled cupcakes as desired.  Sprinkle with Oreo crumbs and garnish with Oreo halves.

Full of oreo goodness!

Char Siu Bao – Part 1 – The Bao

The Bao

Who doesn’t love Char Siu Bao???  It’s my favorite thing to order whenever we go for Dim Sum.  I have always wanted to make it at home but it’s so hard finding the right recipe…until now.  I have attempted these long time ago, I think I was still in high school.  I had found a promising recipe but being a novice baker, I didn’t have much experience with baking.  The first time I tried to make the bao, it was hard as a rock.  After several attempts, I just gave up.  I didn’t think I could replicate the same texture as the ones you find at the dim sum places.

I was surfing one day looking for a cake recipe and I found a site that had the char siu bao recipe.  The pictures on the blog drew me in, it looked so nice and fluffy, I had to try it out.  I decided to just try to make the bao first since I didn’t want to waste the filling in case it didn’t turn out right.  I am glad I did because this recipe turned out great!  I am still going to experiment a bit with the recipe to perfect it even more.  The taste was perfect but the texture wasn’t exactly what I wanted.  I think I will work on it a bit more and see if I can make it just as fluffy as the ones you find at dim sum.

I will post my tweaks once I’m happy with it.

Here is the link to the recipe that I used:

Char Siu Bao

The texture is almost there...it's still fluffy, but not as fluffy as I would like.