Belgian Waffle

Woke up one morning craving waffles.

Actually, I was just lying in bed looking at my sleeping daughter, thinking we've been having the same things for breakfast for days! Time for something a little different.

Googled the recipe on my iphone. Got it off this website

www.tasteofhome.com

All purpose flour           2 cups
Sugar                             3/4 cup
Baking powder              3 1/2 teaspoon
Eggs. separated              2
Milk                              1 1/2 cup
Butter, melted                 1 cup
Vanilla extract                1 teaspoon

I halved the recipe, because I didn't want to make a huge batch for just two people.

Instructions are to combine the flour, sugar, and baking powder in one bowl. Then in another bowl, lightly beat the egg yolks and add milk, butter, and vanilla extract. The wet ingredients then gets stirred into the dry ingredients until combined. The egg whites are beaten until stiff peaks form and is then folded into the batter.

To tell you the truth I've never quite succeeded in making waffles before. I've never tried making waffles from scratch.

But wow!! This was absolutely perfect!! By halving the recipe I got exactly - ONE - waffle...haha. But I was satisfied. Thanks to Taste of Home for the perfect waffle recipe!

Ham and cheese bread

One of the recipes that I've been very eager to try making.

This uses Mode 11 on the panasonic bread maker, which essentially lets me take out the dough midcycle, to manipulate as I see fit. Recipe itself is pretty easy to follow, no surprise ingredients here.

Bread flour         200g
Butter                  35g
Sugar                   17g
Milk powder        6g
Salt                      3.8g
Egg                     25g (approximately half of a medium sized egg)   
Water                  100ml
Dry yeast             3.5g

Once again I used less water than called for, about 60-70ml of iced water instead of 100ml. And I always check the consistency of the dough while it is being mixed in the machine. This way I can add more water if necessary (or add a bit of flour if dough is too wet).

 

55 minutes later...

 



Cute looking thing!
The dough is then sectioned into 12, into which goes the ham and cheese. The recipe calls for 12 x 15g for the filling. Luckily for me this worked out to be about three slices of cheddar cheese and three slices of ham in total (10x10cm slices).

 

Once the ham and cheese are wrapped in the dough, they are just placed back into the pan (with the mixing blade removed), then back into the machine for rising and baking.

 

2 hours and 15 minutes later...

 

Haha, is it me or does this look good?

Honey bread with pumpkin seeds 南瓜子蜂蜜麵包

I just cannot stop making bread!! And I keep wanting to try new recipes!

After flipping through the Panasonic recipe book, for the hundredth time, I came across a recipe for honey bread with sunflower seeds. No sunflower seeds at home, but that can easily be replaced. Everything else was available, so off I went!

Flour                 250g
Butter                15g
Sugar                 17g
Milk powder       6g
Salt                     5g
Honey                21g
Water                 180ml
Yeast                  2.8g
Sunflower seeds  20g

My modifications to the original recipe are:
140ml of water, pumpkin seeds instead of sunflower seeds. (And I didn't measure the seeds exactly, just eyeballed it)

Using Mode No.3, without the timer, light crust.

A pretty good tasting loaf! I like the light flavour and hint of honey. The rise of the bread didn't get affected by the addition of the seeds. I still wonder why store-bought bread tastes so much sweeter (and thus more appealing) and more fragrant than homemade. Is it the yeast? Is it the flour? Is it some secret ingredient? I want to know!!

Tangzhong 湯種

What is Tangzhong?

I hope I'm not mistaken in calling it an Asian or Japanese style soft milk bread. My understanding of this method of bread making is that it yields a wonderfully soft loaf which can stay soft for days! Once I read about the possibility of making such a loaf at home, with the help of my bread maker, I just couldn't wait to try.

But everyone seems to have their own recipe for their own machine...I have yet to find online someone who happens to also be using the Panasonic 105T. Looks like some experimenting is necessary.

In order to make Tangzhong bread, a mixture of flour and water needs to be prepared ahead of time, which is subsequently added to the dough. But how much tangzhong mixture should I make?

One very useful tip I found online is to add all the dry and wet ingredients of a bread recipe together, then multiply this by 0.2 (essentially taking 20% of the total weight of ingredients), and you get the net weight of tangzhong that you need for the recipe.

Then, the ratio of flour to water for tangzhong is 1:5.

For example, a recipe like the following

Bread flour            250g
Butter                       15g
Sugar                        17g
Milk powder             6g
Salt                           5g
Water                      190ml

Would require approximately 16g of flour to 80 ml of water, for the tangzhong mixture.

(Please note the above example is my own interpretation of the information I found online, so I could be completely wrong...hahaha)

This is exactly what I did for my first attempt at Tangzhong bread.

Taking 80 ml of water, I added 16g of bread or high gluten flour. The flour is dissolved in the water first before heating the mixture over the stove. It is essential to stir continuously, until a paste forms ("swirl" lines appear). Supposedly, the mixture thickens and forms a paste at a temperature of around 60 to 65 degrees Celsius. The mixture actually takes almost no time at all to thicken over heat, so it is important to keep stirring and take it off heat once the paste forms. Saran wrap is used to cover the mixture (actual contact with the mixture is necessary), so that a film does not form on top of the paste. The mixture is then refrigerated overnight, ready for use the next day.

When making the actual loaf, the weight of the tangzhong mixture is subtracted from the original recipe. So for my example, I would only use 234 g of flour (250g-16g), and 110ml of water (190ml-80ml).

In reality, I used milk instead of water, thinking it would add to the "softness" and "milkiness" of the final product. Also, I only added 70ml of milk (instead of 110ml), to compensate for the humidity. Amounts of all other ingredients stayed the same (I still added milk powder, by mistake, haha). Obviously, the tangzhong mixture is added to the dough ingredients.

I used Mode No.2 on my machine.

Hmm...I had expected more of a rise from my tangzhong...Honestly the loaf was just mediocre. Not at all the fluffy, soft, milky loaf I was expecting to see. It wasn't bad, and no one complained at home, but I was still disappointed. I think more experimenting is definitely called for.

Did the loaf stay fresh longer? I don't know, because people at home were really supportive and finished the loaf on that same day...

Brioche 布里歐麵包

I've wanted to make this ever since buying my bread maker!

The recipe calls for

High gluten (bread) flour                                170g
Low gluten (cake) flour                                  30g
Butter                                                              30g
Sugar                                                               25.5g
Milk powder                                                      6g
Salt                                                                    3.8g
Mixture of one egg, one egg yolk, and water   140g
Dry instant yeast                                               2.1g
Frozen butter                                                     40g

40g of butter has to be prepared ahead of time by freezing (at least overnight, as suggested by the recipe). They also need to be cut into 1cm cubes. These are to be added to the dough midcycle.

Anyhow, I followed the recipe as is. The egg and water mixture only came up to be about 100ml, because I actually had a little "hiccup" with the measurement. I had already cracked the eggs into the measuring cup before placing it onto my electronic scale. So technically speaking, I should have added more water to compensate for the weight of the empty measuring cup. But I decided I was too lazy to start all over and do the calculations. Plus my dough was always coming up wet, so I decided that less water wouldn't hurt.

Once again, I felt the urge to check the dough after the machine has been set in motion. For the brioche, mode No. 9 is used. No timer available for this option, because fresh ingredients such as eggs and milk might spoil if left in the breadmaker for extended periods of time.

And what do you know!! The consistency of the dough was perfect! So if I had followed the recipe EXACTLY, I would have ended up with too much water again! And here I am adding in the frozen chunks of unsalted butter.

Three and a half hours later:

Oh!!! This is by far the best loaf I've gotten out of the machine! Finally a loaf I can be proud of =) Needless to say everyone at home loved it. What a success!

Raisin bread

Now that I *think* I'm getting the hang of bread making with my Panasonic...

Let's play with some of the extra features!

Sticking with the extra soft loaf mode (No.2), I've decided to throw in some raisins. And learning from my previous mistakes, I've decreased the water from 190ml to 170ml.

I placed 100g of raisins in the top dispenser.

 

Once again, I took a peek to make sure the consistency of the dough was correct. 170ml of water was still too much!! In went another extra 1/4 cup of flour. Next time I will try only 160ml of water. Humid, humid weather!!

 

Timer on. 8am next morning...

 

Hey, not bad at all! It probably could have used less water or just a tad more flour, because the bread appears more dense on the bottom. But all in all, very happy with the result. The manual says that with added fruit/nuts, the rise of the bread can be affected. I wonder if more yeast will help? This loaf does seem more dense than a plain loaf. I think next time I will add just a tad more yeast, and I will change the 烤色 (crust?) option from standard to light.

 

Special thanks to my family who finished the entire loaf that same morning!! I feel so accomplished.

 

Cannot wait to make another loaf!

超軟吐司 Finally!

Seriously. I spent hours pondering why my bread making has been less than successful.

Then!! After hours of searching online. A revelation!! Bless the person who finally wrote, "don't be afraid to take a peek while the machine is operating"!!!!

Yeah! Why didn't I think of that?? The operating manual doesn't say I'm not allowed to lift up the lid to take a look! And what's the worst that can happen? Just another failed loaf of bread.

Wait...I could have broken the machine! Hahaha...okay, I didn't think of that. But I figure if lifting the lid while it is operating will break the entire unit, the manufacturer will probably have huge warning signs plastered all over the machine.

 

Wow! Look! As it turned out my dough did in fact appear to be WAY too wet. This is what the dough looked like AFTER I added an extra 1/3 of a cup of flour!

 

By the way, I'm making the extra soft loaf again. The recipe calls for 250g of flour and 190ml (-10ml for hot weather) of water.

 

Look at it go!!!

 

I did not use the timer option. I wanted to see the whole thing through!

 

 

And voila! FINALLY!! Waiting up until 1am was definitely worth it! Just looking at this makes me happy =)

 

Cutting into the bread the next morning. YUM.