About once a week, I sit down to a yew char kway (you tiao in Mandarin) blowout, with tau huay or sweet bean curd and gallons of green tea or black coffee to try and wash the grease and guilt away. Out,damned fat deposits! Out I say! *sigh*

These fried dough strips were created to symbolise the twin betrayals of a Chinese infidel, court official Qin Hui and his wife, against General Yue Fei, during the Song Dynasty, resulting in the execution of the innocent general.

A pastry maker who wa...

I'd been trying to think up a bread project these last two weeks that I could submit to a blogging event  but thanks to a truckload of distractions, inspiration just wouldn't come. Last weekend, whilst on a family outing, I was queueing in front of Aunty Anne's, two minutes into my usual tirade about three dollar pretzels and daylight robbery, when hubs took the five dollar bill out of my hand, slipped it back into my wallet and said, "Why don't you just make your own?" I tell you sometimes, ...

Who doesn't love a cinnamon bun, sticky bun, cinnamon roll, or cinnabon? Whatever you call them, these are just plain irresistable! I've been using this recipe for years and the results are always the same; not so much as a crumb left after 2 hours.

I did however, make one very small change to it, not with the ingredients but in the method. In all the years that I've been making bread,  I have read so much about the autolyse method, which involves leaving the flour and liquid mixture to res...

If anyone called me "crater faced", I'd likely cry, or hurl a brick at them. Actually, I'd cry, while taking aim with a brick in hand, then make an appointment with a dermatologist. For an English muffin though, it would be a compliment, rather than an insult. Those ugly craters are delightful butter traps; careful how you use this term - it's patent pending ;)





Now English muffins, let alone good, crater riddled ones that aren't doughy and undercooked inside, are harder to come by here, than ...

I had bought a box of almond powder, hoping to take the easy route to home made marzipan for a another recipe I wanted to work on, as my usual grocery haunts had not thought fit to stock marzipan for 3 months, for some reason, despite my um.... gentle reminders.

Once home, the box sat in my pantry cupboard for about 5 weeks before I decided enough procrastinating and to hell with marzipan; I'm going to dump the whole box straight into my flour. Did I ever tell you how impatient I am? Or how....

 have a dream.  A dream of a beautiful, crusty, lofty, airy and tender crumbed loaf made entirely with wholewheat flour. Close to a decade of weekly bread baking and it remains a dream. Oh well, what would we have left to hope for, if everything were at our fingertips? 





My wholewheat breads usually contain no more than 40% wholewheat and they're very pleasing loaves, but I saw Indian style, finely ground wholewheat (atta) for chapatis and thought it might make a good, fine textured wholewheat ...

When I get bored, I start to raid my refrigerator. That's how I came upon a half used and completely forgotten pack of panko. Since opening it, I had wound it in an elastic band and thrown it to the back of the fridge where it languished for um.....weeks? Worse, I had bought and used up at least 3 new packs since then! For shame.

I couldn't bring myself to toss it as a wary sniff told me it was still perfectly edible and looked fine compared to some of the psychedelically hued, fuzz covered ...

Hubs reckons I must have been a bird in a previous life, on account of my obsession with crusty seeded breads. If it's not flax, it's pumpkin, or else millet, except when I remember to buy sesame.





It was close to sunset  when I realised we wouldn't have enough bread for breakfast so I quickly started filling my mixing bowl with flour and wheatmeal, only to realise seconds later that I hadn't replenished my store of flax or any other of my favourite seeds.

Thankfully, I had one  unopened bag...

You know how everybody seems to have a wonderful banana (quick) bread recipe, I mean the kind made with baking powder or baking soda?  Ever notice though that there aren't very many recipes around for a yeasted banana bread? Why do you suppose that is?

I've been making this for a very long time and actually prefer it to a banana quick bread as it's much kinder to the hips and it's much more pleasurable to make (for me anyway). Do I really need to say too, that it tastes pretty damned good? I...

Boule really means nothing more than "ball" in French, so any dough that's shaped like a ball and baked becomes a boule. Most boules are however neutral or savoury in flavour. Marmite, if you're unfamiliar with it, is a vegetarian yeast extract that is very nutritious, richly savoury and to me at least, one of life's basic necessities. I love it diluted in hot water as a 'tea', spread on buttered bread or toast and added to soups, congee and sauces to enrich them.



red herring - when you make ...

I was prompted to post this by  a few of the comments left during the last week. Some of you admitted a fear of yeast cookery while others professed a love for home made bread and make it often but added that because of time constraints, you rely heavily on your bread machine to achieve this. Nothing wrong with that - if it prompts you to make your own bread, I say power to it. But, handy as they are, bread machines have always left me cold. I never could get into the dump everything into the...

Only a butter girl like me could love something like this. No bells, no whistles, no chocolate......just lots and lots of butter inside, folded through and just so you know this IS a butter roll, brushed on top, TWICE.

The mashed potato makes the rolls wonderfully soft and moist so it's really a worthwhile addition. Whenever I make mashed potato, I'll set aside some for making these rolls the next day, before I add any butter and salt. You don't have to do likewise; just stir up the require...

When you think of brioche, you probably think of brioche a tete, with its distinctive topknot and beautifully scalloped sides, though brioche can come in many forms, including brioche Parisienne (logs placed side by side in a loaf pan) and brioche Nanterre (rolls placed alongside each other, in two rows, in a loaf pan). 





Being the perenially lazy cook that I am, I love the ease of a single, large brioche loaf instead of fiddly individual top knots, requiring fiddly individual moulds. This loaf...

I thought the bread I make and eat almost daily would be the most appropriate choice for my inaugural post. This is a very simple and incredibly tasty loaf, brimming with fibre, crunch and a rich, nutty aroma, and, by far, my absolute favourite everyday bread.


 
last year's loaf


It makes a fantastic roast beef and mustard sandwich. But really, this tastes so good, a whole loaf disappears within minutes, once it's cool enough to slice; just thickly butter slices of it and enjoy with a cup of coff...