Crispy Chocolate coated bread stick

Hubby likes Pejoy Choco stick a lot. So when I chance upon this recipe, i give it a twist by dipping the bread stick into melted chocolate. Will be sending it to him tomorrow. Hope he likes it.

Here is the recipe

250g high protein flour (bread flour), sifted
1 tsp salt
2 tsp instant yeast
1 tbsp dried mixed herbs (optional, or more if u like it)
140ml water
1 tsp sugar
1 ½ tbsp olive oil or corn oil

250g chocolate bar

Method
1. Put all ingredients (except chocolate bar) into a mixing bowl and mix well into a slightly wet dough. Knead the dough until smooth and elastic. Cover with a piece of clean damp cloth and rest it for 10 minutes
2.Knead again for 10 minutes. Divide into 10g pieces and roll into sticks (make sure not too long or u cannot find a container that can fit it)
3.Arrange bread sticks onto a greased and floured baking tray about 2cm apart, leave to rise
4.Bake in a pre-heated oven at 200C for 15-20minutes until golden brown and dry
5.Remove from the oven and leave to cool.
6.Melt chocolate bar, dip bread stick into melted chocolate and let dry

You can also coat the bread stick with grounded almonds, cheese, sesame seed...anything u like. Just sprinkle some water on the bread stick after step 3, and roll them over almonds, cheese, sesame....etc. but u might need to reduce the heat slightly or reduce the baking time, as mine (bread stick coated with grounded almond) ended up a bit burned.

Make 40 sticks

Chocolate cake

Today is my baby sister's lunar birthday. I have promised to bake her a cake :) not that i am expert in baking. i am only prelim in baking haha. my baby sister and my brother's girl friend, Yean would like to join in the baking experiment

So there we go shopping for the ingredients at Tesco. Bought baking chocolate, butter and whipping cream.

we used rice cooker to bake the cake, as we do not have a baking pan (mine is at my home in puchong, mum dun have one). unfortunately, the cake dun rise well. I guess because the temperature is not right :( so we have to make 2 of the cakes, so that we can assemble it to make a bigger cake

then something went wrong when making the chocolate icing. the chocolate seems to melt and dun blend with the whipping cream. maybe thats because we dun follow instruction:
1)leave the melted chocolate mixed with milk and butter overnight in the fridge - we only refrigerate it for 3 hours
2) whisk whipping cream till stiff, then add in chocolate - we were too excited and added the chocolate before the whipping cream is stiff.

so we ended up draining the chocolate from the cream and whisk it again...anyhow, there is still this melted unblend chocolate..sigh...

we then got our brother-in-law to layer the cake with the icing, using his cement layering techniques. During the decoration process, we have 6 people - baby sister, brother in law, elder sis, younger brother and yean...

we were laughing with all the funny suggestions and the not so perfect decoration....we have a great time though. never know baking a cake can bond a family and it is so much fun playing with it.

well, our cake looks like it is bleeding chocolate.

although the cake dun look so good, we really enjoyed ourself. well, the taste of the cake is ok, but it's a bit hard. thatz because i used rice cooker to bake the cake instead. i think it's because the heat is not high enough :P learn from lesson. will make a better cake next time. next victim will be my lil bro, his birthday is coming up next month wakaka

Spiral Teochew Mooncake (Part 2)

My 1st attempt making the Spiral Mooncake was not so successful. Mum have a mooncake festival gathering with her fellow karaoke members yesterday. So I decided to make some for her to bring along to the gathering.

It proves that my 2nd attempt is more successful. Can see the spiral lines more obvious. And the skin turned out so crispy. You need to becareful when holding it, or u might end up crushing the crust.

But after looking at what we can get in the market...hmm...i think i need more practice to master this skill.

By knowing how to make the crust, we can now try to make char siew pau, karipuff etc...so many things. you can put in whatever u want.


Below is the recipe

Makes 6 mooncakes

Ingredients
Water dough
75g all purpose flour (面粉)
20g shortening
10g icing sugar
35g water + 2-3 drops white vinegar

Oil Dough
65g plain flour
40g shortening

(1)To make the water dough:

. Rub shortening with flour until crumble (A)
. Dissolve sugar in water (B)
. Combine (A) and (B)to form a smooth dough. Cover and rest for 30 mins.
. Divide dough into 2 pieces.

(2)To make the oil dough:

. Rub shortening gradually into the flour to form a soft dough. Cover to rest for 30 minutes.
. Divide dough into 2 pieces.

(3)Wrap oil dough into water dough and flatten.

(4)Put the dough in a plastic bag/sheet and roll out into a longish flat thin piece. Roll up like a swiss roll.

(5)Flaten the 'swiss roll' and put in plastic bag/sheet measuring 3 inchx18 inch. Roll up like swiss roll

(6)Cut the lenght wise to 3 pieces.

(7)Repeat (3) to (7) for the other piece of dough

(8)With the spiral side facing down, flatten and roll. Wrap with filling of choice.

(9)Bake at 200C for 10-20 minutes until pastry is cooked or heat a pot of oil on high heat. Reduce to medium heat and deepfry till golden brown.

Note: Reason use plastic sheet when rolling is to avoid sticking to work table and so that can shape into rectangle for easier rolling to swiss roll.

Finally chopped my hair

I was thinking of cutting my hair short for a very very long time, due the hot hot weather. But each time, the hair-dressers will advised me otherwise. They will instead advise me to curl my hair. Finally today's visit to this new hair dresser introduced by dear Kai Ming suggested that i cut my hair short. Instantly I told him to just cut it! Ah...finally. My head felt so light. And he cut it real short that i can't tie up my hair...

Spiral Teochew Mooncake

Mum is teochew, but I never know how teochew mooncake looks like, until i found this :)
I dun have an oven at home, so i dun get to try out this recipe, until I am back to my hometown in Melaka. I made this mooncake for mum and she luv it. The skin is crispy and we added salted egg yolks.

but i have not master the pastry skill. the spiral is not obvious :( shall give it another try

Kickapoo Rainbow Snowskin mooncake

Had a meet up with excollegues last week. we met up at chee wai's house. since it is 8th lunar month, i decided to make some mooncake to bring along. And since he have 2 kids at home, i decided to make some it colourful, there for the rainbow coloured skin.

glad that everyone enjoyed it :)

Mooncake fever

Cheese mooncake jelly


Mocca Cheese mooncake jelly
Red dragon fruit mooncake jelly (background)


Pandan Snowskin mooncake


Red dragon fruit mooncake


Pandan jelly mooncake (green)

Vietnam Kitchen, One Utama

Had lunch with my baby sister and her bf at Vietnam Kitchen last friday. We are quite surprised with the prize. Set lunch is as low as RM9.90 each. With the ambience and type of service provided, Vietnam Kitchen is really a place to visit. Their food is tasty too.

I ordered lamp chop. For RM19.90, it comes with a glass of iced drink. And look at the deco


the 'fan' is made of fried meesua. yup the plate is too big.

Caterpillars

I was away for almost 2 weeks. When I am back home, was surprised to see 3 fat juicy caterpillars happily chewing on my lime tree. I wanted to kill them as they do look yucky. But I really dun have the heart to do so. So i decided to just keep them as 'pet'.

The very next day, 2 of them have turned to cacoon (i will call this day 2). They are hanging on the branch with only their head and tail. 1 of them is still in caterpillar stage. Now I felt so excited, as though I am still in school during my science class. All I know is that caterpillars grow to butterflies and moths.

On day 3, the other caterpillar also turn into cacoon. The first 2 caterpillars have changed their 'hanging' position. Now, they are hanging just on 1 thread. I wonder how strong is the thread as it is windy lately. I wanted to touch the thread to test the durability, but am afraid i break it and cause the death of the cacoon. Their colour also changed, from bright green to slightly light. Their apprearance have changed too.

Now on day 6, nothing changes. I am still waiting for them to grow to be beautiful butterflies.