Mia Bakes: Kinako Applesauce Muffins

Couple months ago, I chanced upon Kinako (roasted soybean flour) at Daiso and quickly picked a pack up, planning to make myself some injeolmi or some other form of mochi/glutinous rice cake snacks....

But I never did. xp

So these happened instead.

As I also happen to have a couple more mini tubs of applesauce leftover, I decided to bake myself some applesauce kinako muffins!

So to get 8 ~ 9 small muffins, you'll need:

45g salted butter

40g castor sugar

25g kinako

100g all purpose flour

225g unsweetened applesauce

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp vanilla extract

your choice of toppings/fillings, however little or much as you fancy

(I've used dried cranberries+pumpkin seeds & mini chocolate chips+chopped peanuts)

Making these healthier (less butter & sugar?) muffins can't get any simpler for it's pretty much a one-bowl recipe, unless you're indecisive and greedy like me and wanted to bake 2 variations at the same time. 

In a clean bowl, whip up your soften butter slightly before beating in the castor sugar until it's fully combined. Then add in the applesauce and vanilla extract and give it a whisk until combined. You may find a little separation/curdling of the butter from the applesauce, but that's perfectly fine. 

Then, add in all your dry ingredients and fold until just combined (or even a few streaks of flour is also fine) before adding in however much (or little) or your favourite topping/filling and folding until just combined. 

Drop the batter into your lined or greased muffin tins until they're 80% full (they'll puff up in the oven, but will drop back down and flatten when cooled) and bake them at 180 degree Celsius for around 20 - 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean (no wet batter, just a few moist crumbs). 

The texture of these muffins made (nearly) wholly from applesauce as the wet ingredients are extremely moist and soft, nearly fudgey, almost like they're under-cooked. 

So if you're not the type who'll appreciate an (overly) moist muffin, then you might need to reduce the amount of applesauce and replace them with some milk instead. 

The addition of Kinako added a fragrant, nutty flavour to the muffins, which is soooooooo good! 

As you can see, it was go big or go home for me on the fillings for this particular bake. 

Gave 2 of each flavour to Sa and she commented: The fillings are more than flour, very shiok! 

HAHAHA!

Well, it's always my dream to bite into a muffin and be welcomed with a mouthful of chocolate chips, so.... HEH!

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: Nestum Scones

Nestum cookies were pretty much da bomb earlier this year, weren't they? They've pretty much taken over the spot of cornflakes cookies during CNY this year. And of course, I did purchase a bag of Nestum cereal back then, planning to bake some CNY treats, but just never got down to it.
Looking at the bag of Nestum collecting dust in my mum's dry food cabinet, I felt kind of sorry for it (LOL!) and yet, do not really want to bake the Nestum cookies (yet) as I'm not feeling keen on waiting for my butter to soften.... So, what can I bake with chilled, rock hard butter?

SCONES!

So let's get over with the ingredients to get started!
To get 10 - 12 scones (squares), you'll need:

160g plain flour

30g nestum cereal

80g salted butter (cubed, frozen hard)

20g plain greek yogurt

50g sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

some milk 

100g sultanas & 50g pumpkin seeds

(optional, may add whatever you fancy)

First up, in a large bowl, add in your flour, sugar, baking powder and salt and give it a quick whisk to combine. Then, throw in your cubed, frozen butter and cut them into the dry ingredients either with a pastry cutter or with a knife-and-fork until the mixture is mostly crumbly like wet sand and with bigger pea-sized bits of cold butter throughout the mixture.
Then, add in the nestum, sultanas and pumpkin seeds and give the mixture a quick toss to distribute them throughout the mixture before cracking in the egg and adding in the yogurt.
With a spatula, fold the wet ingredients into the dry until everything just comes together into a dough ball. If the mixture is too dry and doesn't hold together, add in some milk, bit by bit, until your mixture is of the correct consistency to come together. I added just a tbsp of milk to be able to press my mixture into a dough.
Then, transfer your dough onto a piece of clingwrap and you may want to roughly pat it down into a flat square before putting it into the fridge to chill for at least 1 hour (or overnight).

After the dough has been chilled, take it out from the fridge and roll it out to about 1 to 1.5 inches thick and cut them up into your desired sizes. I will recommend cutting them into squares instead of circles, so that you need not re-roll the scraps.

Then, lay them out onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and brush the top with some egg wash (egg beaten with some milk or water) if you wish to have your scones with beautiful browned top. Send the scones to bake in an oven pre-heated to 180 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes or until the surface is browned.

I've obviously loaded my scones with the sultanas and pumpkin seeds (the seeds are there, just well camouflaged). 

The addition of greek yogurt not only cut some calories from the butter (if you do not wish to use yogurt, replace it back with butter) but also added more tenderness and moistness to the scones. I've previously tried making scones with a higher yogurt:butter ratio and found the end product too moist for my liking, so I reduced it back for this trial and it's just perfect!
The addition of Nestum also added ALOT of creamy, milky sweet fragrance to the scones that made it sooooooo addictive!

Till then,
Mia Foo

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Bakestarters Christmas Edition Baking Kit: Earl Grey Dark Chocolate Babka

Yes, I've successfully made my 1st ever chocolate babka, all thanks to Bakestarters! 

Bakestarters is a local company specialising in baking and baking kits, which come with freshly packed and individually pre-portioned ingredients, along with a recipe card and detailed instructions, tips and even a QR code linking to a tutorial video. Other than eggs, Bakestarters measures and packs all the ingredients that we'll need, including fresh milk, butter and fresh fruits!

Some of the kits even come pre-packed with baking tools such as loaf pans, cookie cutters and parchment paper, offering baking enthusiasts of all skill levels a fun and hassle-free baking experience.

For this coming Christmas, Bakestarters has launched their all new festive Christmas collection comprising of 8 baking kits:

1. Gingerbread Men

2. Passionfruit Yule Log

3. Chocolate Peppermint Yule Log

4. Blackforest Brownies

5. Orange Pistachio Biscotti

6. Pumpkin Spice Biscoff Loaf

7. Earl Grey Dark Chocolate Babka

8. Tiramisu (no bake)

Initially I was thinking of giving the passionfruit yule log a go, but after realising that I actually do not have the required baking pan size, and it will probably NOT fit into my small oven as well, I decided to give babka a try! 

As you can see, the baking kit comes with individually packed and labelled,  pre-portioned ingredients in a cute box, which you will also find your recipe and instruction cards. Other ingredients that required chilling, like butter and fresh milk, were well packed into a small cooler bag, stuffed with a generous amount of ice packs to keep everything nice and cold. 

And frankly speaking, this pre-portioned, individually packed idea brought so much convenience and it took all the hassle of measuring out the ingredients one by one out of the way. It took me less than 5 minutes to get all the ingredients for the bread dough mixed up in my bowl and all I did was snip-pour-chuck. 

Well, there's just one thing I couldn't quite understand was why they need to pack the unsalted butter in resealable bags, when technically there shouldn't be anything left behind for us to reseal?

But anyway, that's hardly of any importance at all. 

Bakestarters has obviously put in a lot of effort curating and perfecting their recipes and ingredients, for I totally did not need to add in any more liquid or flour to "perfect" out my bread dough. I mean, if you do bake bread, you will probably face the very common issue of differing hydration level across different brands of flour, or even between different batches of the same brand of flour, right? There's never a time I found myself not needing to add in that extra few teaspoons/tablespoons of flour or water to my overly moist or dry dough ball. But with Bakestarters babka baking kit, I got my clean bowl and clean hands easily with less than 15 minutes of hand-kneading, and reach the windowpane stage within 20 minutes! 

However, instead of following their instruction of letting it proof till double in size for 1 to 1.5 hrs, I let my dough slow-proof in the fridge overnight (for almost 12 hours) instead, which will allow the bread to develop more (yeasty) flavour. As babka is made from enriched bread dough (brioche) which tends to be a lot softer (and harder to manage if you're not a very seasoned bread-baker), leaving the dough rest for a couple of hours in the fridge also helps with all the rolling and shaping later on. 

Since the baking kit is supposed to yield two loaves/wreath of babka, I decided to make one following their instruction to get a babka wreath, and another into a simple twisted loaf, topped with cinnamon streusels, YUMS!

And I also dropped a few pieces of the remaining streusels on the babka wreath, which I kind of regret. It'll probably look better without the random "spots"?

Look at those pretty chocolate swirls! But well, I kind of cut the wreath in the wrong direction and got a full cut across the tucked ends with no chocolate swirls instead. BOO!

But I have to say, this recipe is DA BOMBZ! The sweet brioche bread is so soft and tender, that it's almost cake-like. Even my mum and brother, who aren't fans of chocolate, loved it!

Bakestarters Christmas Collection 2018 Baking Kits is now up for preorder until 7 Dec, 2359 hr, and delivery of the kits will be from 11 to 21 Dec.
If you miss the preorder, do not worry! Bakestarters Christmas collection is still open for orders after 7 Dec, subject to availability of delivery dates. Do note that the blackout dates indicate full delivery slots so it's advisable for you guys to cart out quickly should you want to purchase any of the kits! You will also be able to get your kits in time for the New Year (if that's what you are planning for) as Bakestarters will be delivering after 25th December too!

For more information, visit their website HERE

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: ROCK CAKES!

Rock cakes, also called rock buns, are actually small fruit cake with a rough surface resembling a rock. Originated in the Great Britain, they are a traditional tea time treat. You might jolly well first heard of them through JK Rowling's Harry Potter series as Hagrid's favourite tea time snack to serve the trios, which were more of a rock than a cake, and were so hard that they could break teeth instead of being a lovely treat.

Rock cakes also happens to be one of my mum's favourite pastry-snacks (along with "old-times" butter cakes) and so let's get baking!

To get roughly 10 to 12 small rock cakes, you'll need:

115g all purpose flour

65g unsalted (good quality) butter, chopped and COLD

55g castor sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

90g dried mixed fruit (or you can use sultanas)

1 medium/large egg (mine is 50-55g out of the shell), beaten

1/4 tsp vanilla

Apparently, you can make rock cakes in a few methods, which includes the creaming method whereby you cream your butter and sugar as you would for any cakes, the melted butter method as you would for a soft cookie, or the frozen butter method as you would for a scone. As I'm hoping to get a more crumbly texture as would of a scone, I decided to go for the cold butter method. 

So, in a clean bowl, add in all your dry ingredients (except mixed fruits) and give it a quick whisk to combine. Then, throw in your frozen, chopped butter and cut it into the flour mixture in a mini food processor, or with a pastry cutter, or a simple knife-and-fork method. You may also use your hands (if you do not have hot hands) and rub the butter into the flour until it resembles bread crumbs with a little bit of bigger, pea-sized chunks. 

Then, add in your mixed fruit and give it a quick toss before adding in your beaten egg and vanilla extract. Mix until just combined and you get a slightly stiff, yet still rather moist and spoon-able dough. As different flour will have different hydration level, you may tweak your dough consistency with either some milk (if they're too dry and doesn't come together) or more flour (if they're too wet and not holding their shape). 

Then, spoon your dough evenly onto a parchment lined baking sheet, making sure they're spaced around 2 inches apart. You do not need to smooth our the surfaces, in fact, the more bumpy and 'rocky' your dough looks, the better! These are not called rock cakes for nothing! 

Then, bake them off in an oven pre-heated to 200 degree Celsius for around 15 minutes, or until they turn a lovely golden brown colour. 

Do keep a watchful eye on them to make sure that they do not burn, but you would not want them to be under-baked as well, if not you won't get the lovely slightly crisp surface on the outside.

I personally would prefer a more "dried-out" cakey texture for my rock cakes as if I crave for something more tender and moist, I should just go for scones, right? 

These tasted so good when still warm from the oven, with a crisp surface on the outside and cakey, tender and yet not overly moist texture on the inside. I've already reduced the added sugar level to the bare minimum, so unless you're using more of the dried fruit to add sweetness, I strongly suggest that you do not reduce the amount sugar any further. 

Do let me know if you've tried out this super quick and easy recipe and how these rock cakes has turned out for you!

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: HappyCall Crisp Chocolate Chip Cookies (cookies cooked on hob!)

Well, I didn't intend to put this up as a recipe post, but in the end I just decided to (for my own record's sake) so here's a super quick and short post! 

To be honest, I have no idea how many cookies I can get out of this recipe because I've not finished baking the entire batch of dough (more than half of it is currently still frozen in my freezer) even after using part of it as my baked cheesecake base. That idea came out pretty fail, by the way, because the low heat required to bake off the cheesecake is not enough to give you a crunchy cookie base, which was what I want to achieve. But if you like a soft, severely underbaked, chewy and gooey cookie base, then go for it. 

Anyway, to get at least an estimated a dozen huge (subway sized) chocolate chip cookies, you'll need:

100g unsalted butter

70g shortening (preferably butter-flavoured)

75g dark brown sugar

115g castor sugar 

(I substituted part of this with stevia)

125g plain flour

60g top flour (or cake flour)

1 large egg

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

180g chocolate chips 

(I used semi-sweet & 72% dark mixed)

recipe adapted from modernhoney.com

First up, melt your unsalted butter in a pot over the hob and let it simmer until browned. Then, take it off the heat and set it aside to cool, before beating in the shortening and sugars until creamy.

Add in the egg (at room temperature) and vanilla extract, and mixed until well combined before sifting in the the rest of the dry ingredients (except chocolate chips) in 2 to 3 batches, folding until most of the flour cannot be seen. 

Then, add in your chocolate chips (or you can use chocolate chunks, up to you) and fold until just combined. 

And I'm pretty sure nobody needs to bake off a dozen huge-ass chocolate chip cookies at one shot, unless you're having a party, so just portion out the amount of dough you wish to bake off for now, and wrap the rest tightly in clingwrap and pop it into the freezer. That should give you ready-made chocolate chip cookie dough for the next couple of weeks!

Do note that cooking time will differ depending on how big or small you portion out your cookies to be, I made mine with 3 flat tablespoonfuls of dough each. 

The cookie dough has a pretty high fat content (170g of butter and shortening!) and also because HappyCall is a non-stick pan, there's really no need for you to add in anymore butter or cooking spray. Just warm up your pan for a little (needs not be very hot, just barely warm), and then press your cookie dough (I shaped mine into about slightly more than 0.5cm thick) onto the pan. Snap your HappyCall pan shut and lower your heat down to the lowest heat and cook for about 8 to 10 minutes, or until the side has turned golden brown.

Now, the reason why I used HappyCall pan is because the cookies will still be very soft and crumbly, so flipping them will be a b*tch! With HappyCall, you simply just flip your entire pan around and set it back onto the hob! It's that easy!

Cook your cookies for another 8 mins or so, until the side turns golden brown as well. 

At this point, the cookies will be fully baked (this is a slightly crunchy, crisp cookie so you need not worry about over-baking it that much) but they will still very extremely fragile. Leave it on the pan to cool for at least 3 to 5 minutes before attempting to pick it up. The cookies will firm up and turn crisp upon cooling down. 

Till then, 

Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: Hotteok (Korean Sweet Pancakes)

So after telling myself I'm gonna try making my own hotteoks for.... MONTHS, I finally got down to it! If you have no idea what hotteok is, it's a type of Korean street food, pretty much like a pancake but with sweet, cinnamon brown sugar peanut filling inside. And it is sooooo GOOD!

And so for my first try at making my own Hotteok, I decided to follow Maangchi's recipe fully, which uses only all purpose flour for the hotteok dough. I notice that she fry her hotteok in ALOT of oil, but I wanted to cut down on the oiliness and tried with two batches, one with absolutely NO oil and one with just the bare minimum amount of oil. 

And here's my results.

The traditional cinnamon brown sugar peanut filling with NO OIL.

Kimchi-Cheese filling with LESS OIL (I used about 1 tsp of oil per Hotteok) 

The version "fried" with absolutely no oil turns out extremely flat, dry and with a crusty-bread texture. I guess it would be acceptable if you're a fan of those extremely crusty and chewy artisan bread, but if you do not have healthy teeth (like my mum) and prefers soft and fluffy bread that resembles air, you'll going to hate this version. 

In comparison, the less oil version turned out a lot better! As you can see, the hotteok turns out way thicker and more "fluffy" in the middle. The pan-fried surface was crispy, and the insides more chewy and moist. YUMS!

But still, I feel that the texture could be improved and it turns out that glutinous rice flour might be the answer as both Kimchimari's and BeyondKimchee's recipes uses them.

So here's my improved recipe for 6 Hotteoks:

For the dough:

195g All Purpose Flour

80g Glutinous Rice Flour

190ml water

1 tsp instant yeast

1 tsp sugar

3/4 tsp salt 

For the filling:

Just whatever you fancy!

I've chopped up some kimchi & mixed them with shredded mozzarella and red cheddar in roughly 2:1 ratio and used 1 heaping tablespoon for each hotteok. 

Mine ended up bursting quite a bit here and there as they cooked, so I will suggest that you decrease the amount of filling a little. 

The addition of glutinous rice flour means the dough will be extremely sticky, so I will not suggest that you mix the dough by hand. But if you're always up for a challenge, you still can, as hotteok dough need not be kneaded till windowpane stage like bread. Just make sure they're well mixed and thoroughly kneaded will do. I mixed my dough with my trusty bread machine though. :)

For my dough, I've used the overnight fermentation method, which means I left my mixed dough in the fridge overnight (about 8 hours, or at least 6 hours) in a greased bowl, covered with cling film, for the 1st proofing. But if you do not have 8 hours to spare, you may set your mixed dough at a slightly warm place and let it double in size, which should take you about 1 hour. 

After the dough has doubled in size, check that it has fully proofed by sticking a finger into the middle of the dough. If the hole remains, the dough is ready!

Turn out the proofed dough onto a well-floured surface and give it a quick knead before dividing it into 6 equal pieces. Set them aside and cover with a piece of cling film while you work on one piece. With well-oiled hands (the dough will be VERY sticky so oil your hands good!), flatten a piece of dough on your palm and spoon a tablespoon of filling onto the middle. Then, slowly gather the sides of the dough together and press them seam down and seal up the dough ball. Make sure the seam is well sealed, if not your hotteok will just split open while cooking and make a mess in your frying pan. 

You may start frying the dough as you wrap them. I'll suggest that you do not finishing wrapping all and then only start frying (unless you have a large enough frying pan to fry all 6 pieces together) as these are yeasted dough and the last few will puff up and continue to grow as you fry the others first. As my pan fits only 2 comfortably, I will finishing wrapping two, plop them into the frying pan to fry up, and then go back to wrapping the next two. 

Oh well, whatever floats your boat. :)

To fry the hotteok, place them seam side DOWN onto the oiled frying pan and fry for about 30 to 45 seconds first, just for the surface to "set". Flip the hotteok over and then immediately press them down with your spatula, or a hotteok press if you have one, to flatten them down. Then, cook on this side for about 2 to 3 minutes, until golden brown, before flipping back onto the seam side and cooking until golden brown. 

Well, because this time round I did use oil, but yet not a lot (or enough), I didn't manage to achieve the pretty, uniform golden brown surface. I'm happy with this though. HEH! 

This version turns out a lot more chewy, and with a slight rice-cakey chewy texture, which I absolutely adore. 

I even made one with speculoos filling, and it also tasted damn good! I'm now very sure it's impossible to have a speculoos-flavoured food item to taste bad. 

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: Lemon Curd Tarts

Oh well, yet another #bakingtrio project with J and CL following Cupcake Jemma's awesome recipe (for lemon curd)! But before we get to that, let's get over with the ingredients!

For 10 tarts, you'll need:

For sweet shortcrust pastry (tart shell)

125g plain flour

62g COLD unsalted butter, cubed

1 large egg yolk

1 tbsp castor sugar

large pinch of salt

milk (if required)

For lemon curd

110 ml lemon juice (about 3 lemons)

110g castor sugar

5 egg yolks

2 eggs

60g unsalted butter, COLD and (preferably) CUBED

lemon zest (of 1 lemon)

First up, let's make the lemon curd! Into a heat-safe bowl, add in the lemon juice, lemon zest, sugar, eggs and egg yolks. Give it a quick mix and set it over a bain marie (make sure the bottom of the bowl doesn't come into direct contact with the simmering water) and just keep stirring until it thickens up, which should take you at least 5 minutes. Then, take the curdled mixture off the heat and dump in the cold butter (helps to cool down the mixture) and stir until all the butter has been incorporated. The mixture may be a little lumpy, but fret not. Just push it over a sieve and tadaa~ a beautiful bright yellow and smooth lemon curd is done!

This recipe will give you way more than the amount required for 10 tarts, so do store the extra into a proper container and keep them in the fridge. You can have them with some scones, toasts, or even make some lemon curd muffins later on!

And after we have the lemon curd out of the way (and chilling in the fridge), it's time to get the tart shells done!

In a bowl, add in the dry ingredients and give it a quick whisk to make sure they're well combined. Then, cut in the cold butter cubes, either with a pastry cutter, a fork & knife combination, food processor, or simply by just rubbing with your fingertips until they resemble coarse crumbs. Then, add in the egg yolk and LIGHTLY knead/pat until the mixture comes together into a dough. If your mixture is way too dry and just cannot form a dough ball, add in just enough milk for the dough ball to form. Then, wrap the dough ball in cling wrap and set it in the fridge to rest for 20 to 30 minutes. 

After the dough has rested and get slightly chilled, roll it out to 1/4 inch thick and cut out 10 circles using a big cookie cutter (the cut-out should be bigger than your tart tins/muffin tin wells) and press them into your tart tins/muffin tin wells. The ends should preferably extend just a little beyond the edge of your tins, as they will shrink as they bake. Then, poke a good amount of holes on the base of the tart shells (with a fork) and set them to bake in an oven pre-heated to 180 degree Celsius for about 15 to 18 minutes, or until the shells turn a lovely golden brown colour. 

You may set a small piece of baking paper into each tart shell and add baking beans or rice on top to prevent the tarts from swelling up while they bake. We didn't, and they did puff up abit. But since it's going to get covered in lemon curd in the end, it really didn't bother us. 

So after all the tart shells has cooled COMPLETELY, spoon your desired amount of lemon curd into each tart shell and add any topping you desire (blueberries, mint leaves, or even just a sprinkle of icing sugar). 

And these are SO GOOD, the tart shell is extremely fragrant, crumbly and tender and yet holds up well to not just disintegrate as you bite into it. The lemon curd is smooth and with a strong sourish kick. I've used the rest of the lemon curd to make some lemon curd pound cake the following week and they were great too! 

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: Matcha Mochi Roll Bread

While the whole world is all about going dirty (#dirtybuns), I still prefer to stay clean! And after stumbling upon Amanda's youtube video recipe on her soft European bread, I decided to give it a try! 

So to get 6 buns, you'll need:

For the bread dough

50g wholemeal flour

180g all purpose flour

15g vital wheat gluten

5g green tea powder

15g sugar

25g unsalted butter (soften)

1 egg

130ml water (room temperature)

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp instant yeast (about 3g)

For the mochi

80g glutinous rice flour

20g corn flour

40g sugar

2 tsp vegetable oil

170ml milk

Filling (Optional)

Pitted and chopped dates 

(I used kurma dates)

Raisins 

Or any other fillings of your choice

I also made just 1 special bun with my leftover dark chocolate chips & salted caramel chips. 

I made the bread dough in my Mayer BM, but you can always do it by hand or in a standing mixer with a dough hook. 

Add all the ingredients (except for butter) into the machine, making sure that the yeast and salt do not come into direct contact with each other. Start the machine on mix dough function and let the machine do its work. When the dough starts to come together to form a ball, add in the soften butter and mix until the cycle is completed. 

The dough may be extremely wet and sticky (though still able to form up a shape) but that's okay. Turn the dough out into a greased bowl and cover with a clingwrap and set it into the fridge overnight (about 12 hours) for bulk fermentation. The dough should at least double in size when it's done fermenting. 

The next morning, let's start off with making the mochi! In a clean bowl, add in all the ingredients (both wet and dry) and stir to combine into a watery flour mixture. You can either microwave it (if you have one) for a few minutes or steam it for 20 minutes. When the watery mixture has solidified into a soft and sticky dough, the mochi is cooked. While it's still steaming hot, use your spatula or a wooden spoon to give it a few mix/kneads before setting it aside to cool down. 

While the mochi is cooling down, remove your overnight bread dough from the fridge and punch it down before turning it over a well floured surface. The dough should be extremely sticky (sticks ALL over your hand) so add more flour and continue kneading the dough until it warms up to room temperature comes together into a smooth dough ball. Cut the dough ball up into 6 equal pieces and set it aside for about 10 to 15 minutes to rest while you prepare your fillings. When the mochi has cooled down enough for you to handle, cut it up into 6 equal portions and set aside. You may dust your work surface with some glutinous rice flour if the mochi gets too sticky to work with. 

After the bread dough has rested, take 1 of the balls and rolled it out on a slightly floured surface to your preferred size. We're going to roll it up eventually, so the bigger you roll, the more layers you'll end up with in your bun, so just play around with the size according to your own liking. Then, take a piece of the mochi and roll it out to match the size of your rolled out bread dough. The mochi should be slightly smaller than your bread dough, with about 1/2 cm gap around the perimeter. I find it much easier to just give the mochi a few rolls with the rolling pin to roughly flatten it out, then you place the mochi over the bread dough and stretch it out to size with your hands. 

Then, sprinkle your choice of filling on top of the mochi and then starting from the end that's closer to you, roll it up into a bun. Pinch the ends together tightly to seal and set them on a baking paper lined tray for 2nd proofing in a warm place (or in your oven if yours have a proofing function) until it doubles in size. Mine took about 25 minutes in my own with a proofing setting. 

Then, send your buns to bake in an oven pre-heated to 190 degree Celsius for 25 minutes. Check that the bread is done by tapping on the top. If it sounds hollow, it's done!

You may use a sharp knife to slice out patterns on the surface of your bread after 2nd proofing before baking, but I just didn't bother to. 

And because today is Sunday and Sunday is my cheatday, I've specially made just ONE with a mixture of chocolate chips and salted caramel chips as the filling, and it's so good! The bread is soft and fluffy, mochi chewy and gooey and the chocolate filling molten and oozing. 

THIS IS JUST SO WORTH ALL THE WORK!

Do let me know if you've tried out this recipe and tell me what fillings did you use for your versions!

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: Calico Butter Chiffon Cake

Yes, when I said "Calico", I meant this cat. 

You know, I've been wanting to bake this cake ever since I watched kafemaru's video recipe of her calico cat inspired chiffon cake. And finally after finding a packet of extra dark (black) cocoa powder at Phoon Huat, I decided that it's time to do it!

Do note that I'm not following Kafemaru's recipe, but using the Roux Method Marbled Butter Sponge Cake recipe to re-create this recipe. So to get a small 5"4 chiffon cake, you'll need:

60g unsalted butter

40g all purpose flour

5g black cocoa powder

5g cocoa powder

50g castor sugar

30ml cold milk

3 eggs (whites & yolks separated)

1/8 tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp vanilla extract

a pinch of salt

1/4 tsp butter oil extract (optional)

First up, melt the butter in a pot over the hob and stir in 35g of all purpose flour until well combined. Then, take the pot off the heat and stir in cold milk (to bring down the temperature) until well combined before mixing in the egg yolks, salt and extracts. Divide the yolk mixture into 3 equal portions and set them aside.

In a clean bowl, add the egg whites and cream of tartar and beat on high until the mixture turns frothy. Then, add the sugar in 3 additions while beating on high until stiff peaks form. Likewise, divide the meringue into 3 equal portions. 

Combine each divided portion of the yolk mixture and meringue with 5g of all purpose flour, black cocoa powder and cocoa powder respectively. First, add the dry ingredient into the yolk mixture and mix well, before adding a small portion of the meringue in to loosen the yolk mixture up before folding in the rest of the meringue until just combined. The addition of cream of tartar should help to stabilise the meringue greatly, but still you should take note to not deflate your meringue while you fold the mixture. 

Then, it's time to assemble! Spoon each colour of the mixture randomly into your prepared chiffon tin (ungreased and unlined) until all the 3 colours of the mixture are used up and give the tin a few knocks against the counter to ease out any air pockets before baking in an oven that's pre-heated to 160 degree Celsius for about 25 minutes (but do start checking at the 20th minute) or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Then, invert your chiffon tin over a bottle (or anything else that can help to balance your tin at the centre tip) and let it cool down completely to minimise shrinkage before de-molding it. 

Tadaa~ Isn't it cute and really resembles a calico cat? 

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: Oreo Chocolate Stuffed Whipped Cream Mini Chocolate Cake

Haha, I know that sounds like a mouthful. But this idea came about because of the leftover whipping cream sitting in my fridge after baking off some biscoff baked cheesecakes and I didn't want to bake anymore egg tarts, so a quick search on google taught me that whipping cream may be substituted for butter as the fat component in cakes, so here goes!

For 6 servings, you'll need:

40g all purpose flour

10g unsweeten cocoa powder 

(I used black, but you can use the usual)

120ml heavy (whipping) cream (cold)

1 egg

40g baking stevia

(twice the amount if using castor sugar)

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp butter oil flavouring (optional)

1/4 tsp vanilla extract 

(using 1/2 tsp if not using butter oil)

6 cubes of Cadbury Oreo Milk Chocolate

(or any other chocolate/filling of your choice)

adapted from marthastewart.com

First up, in a clean bowl, whip up your cold whipping cream until stiff peaks form and set aside. In another bowl, whisk together the egg, extract(s) and sugar until the mixture turns pale yellow and thicken. Then, add the egg mixture to the whipped cream in 2 to 3 additions, folding lightly with a spatula to combine. 

I know the instructions on marthastewart is to continue beating in the mixer until it thickens into consistency of mayonnaise and add the sugar last, but I find that there's a high chance of overbeating the mixture and causing the whipped cream to separate and you'll end up with butter curds. 

After the wet mixture is folded until well combined, sift in all the dry ingredients and fold with a spatula until just combined. 

Prepare your 6-well standard muffin tin by spraying them with some non-stick cooking spray, or you may line them with cupcake liners if you wish. Spoon 1 tbsp of the batter into each well and drop a cube of oreo milk chocolate into the centre of each well before covering it up with the rest of the batter. Each well should be about slightly more than 2/3 filled. 

Send your cakes to bake in the oven pre-heated to 175 degree Celsius for about 18 to 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted (towards the sides if not you may pierce the melted chocolate centre instead) comes out clean.

Unlike a standard cake using creamed butter, I find these turn up way soften and finer in texture, however, lacking in the usual buttery fragrance (like DUH, there's NO BUTTER!) Perhaps using better quality flavouring essence (and more of them) can be considered, if you prefer your cakes with more flavours. However, having the stuffed chocolate centre totally made up for the lack of strong flavour in the cake itself. 

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: Sweet Potato Mochi Nian Gao Balls

On my previous post on Portuguese Nian Gao Egg Tart (HERE), I've mentioned that I've baked two different nian gao snacks and so, here is the second one, sweet potato mochi nian gao balls!

For approximately 30 mochi nian gao balls, you'll need:

Approximately 1/3 of a medium sized nian gao

200 to 225g of purple sweet potato (peeled)

100g glutinous rice flour

1 tbsp corn flour

30g castor sugar

1 tbsp vegetable oil

(or other flavourless oil)

2.5 to 3 tbsp water

a pinch of salt

(recipe adapted from msyummylicious.asia)

Cut the nian gao into small cubes to your preference, depending if you'll like your mochi nian gao balls big or small. They need not be of the same size, as you can always stack a few of the "stray corner pieces" together into 1 ball. 

First up, chop your peeled sweet potato into large chunks and steam it for approximately 20 to 30 minutes until they're cooked and soft enough to mash. While still hot, mash them up with a fork.

Add in the rest of the ingredients and mix well with a spatula or just with your hands (it's so much easier as the dough will be rather stiff) until everything comes together into a pliable dough. 

I suggest that you start off with just 2 tbsp of water first and add more if you find your dough too dry and crumbly. Final texture of the dough should be of playdough consistency, and doesn't stick to your hands at all.

If you're a little OCD, you might want to weigh your dough and divide them into equal pieces according to how many nian gao cubes you have, or you can just go free and easy like me, and eyeball everything. I even ended up with differing sizes of the mochi nian gao balls. 

So, either with your measured out portion or an eyeballed portion of the sweet potato dough, flatten it in between your palms and wrap a piece of the nian gao cube inside. Repeat until you've used up all your dough/nian gao cubes.

In a small pot, heat up some frying oil over the hob and fry the balls over medium heat until it just starts to brown. Remove from the oil and set aside to drain. After 1st round of frying, turn up the heat and re-fry the fried mochi nian gao balls over high heat for just a couple more seconds before removing from the oil. Drain off the access oil using paper towels and your fried sweet potato mochi nian gao balls are ready to serve!

These are oh-so-chewy, so sweet, and so addictive! And oh yeah, rather high in calories too, so make sure you don't over-snack on them. HEH! 

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: Banana Bread Muffin

What do you do when you can't finish your huge bunch of bananas before they go all spotted and browned?
Bake some banana bread! :)
Just a small tip: If your banana is getting too "spotty" and you aren't going to bake the banana bread until a few more days later, PEEL the bananas first, then dump them into a ziplock bag and pop them into the freezer. When you're ready to bake, just take them out and thaw them out. It'll be alot easier to mash after they're frozen-and-thawed too.

So, following Genius Kitchen recipe for a standard loaf of banana bread, I made some tweaks here and there to get 7 (small) banana bread muffins of about 152 kcals each (calories for that 6 mini chocolate chips on each muffin NOT counted).

You'll need:
55g unsalted butter, soften
110g castor sugar equivalent of zero calorie sweetener.
(this is how you get 152 kcals)
1 egg
~190g of mashed bananas
(Should be about 1.5 bananas. I've used 1 small-medium banana + 2 baby bananas)
96g all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

optional: chocolate chips/chopped nuts as toppings

First up, mash up your bananas to your preference. If you prefer to still have small chunks of bananas in your muffin, then mash them up until you still have bits of banana flesh left. If not, just mash them up until they're like fruit puree.

In a clean bowl, cream your soften butter and sugar substitute until slightly pale and fluffy. Creaming your butter and sugar substitute will give you a more tender, cakey texture. If you'll prefer a denser, heavier banana bread muffin, use melted butter instead and no creaming is required.
Then, beat in your egg and mashed banana until well combined before adding in the dry ingredients and folding until just combined.
Never, ever overmix the batter or you'll end up with rubbery and tough banana bread.
I know it's tempting to keep mixing when you see your batter still extremely lumpy, but that's how it should be. Your banana bread will be a flop if you end up with a smooth looking batter.

Next, divide your batter into 7 muffin cups, or 6, if you prefer a bigger muffin with the distinctive muffin top. As a form of calorie-control, I chose to shrink my serving size and ended up with more of a cupcake (just a slight dome-top instead of a spillover muffin-top).

Sprinkle topping of your choice over the batter (or skip it if you prefer, as the muffin itself will be sweet and tasty enough on its own) and send your muffins to bake in the oven at about 180 degree Celsius for 17 to 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
I checked mine at 15 minutes and found just a little bit of wet batter on the toothpick and then left them to bake for another 3 more minutes, checking every minute to make sure I don't overbake my muffins.
Remember, an overbaked banana bread muffin = a failed banana bread muffin!

And tadaa~

These muffins are slightly cakey, extremely moist and much lighter (in texture) compared to those typical dense and heavy banana bread (made with melted butter). Usually my bakes can last us for a few days (as my family really aren't a fan of sweet treats and baked goods in general), but these muffins just disappeared miraculously within 24 hours. 

HAHAHA!

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: Cinnamon Roll Scones

After my first (and rather successful) try with Cinnamon Rolls (recipe HERE) a while back, I've been wanting to remake somemore for my #cheatdaysunday breakfast and yet, still want to try baking something new. 

And so, I decided to google for both 'cinnamon rolls' and 'scones' and stumbled upon joyofbaking's recipe for some really yummy looking cinnamon roll scones!

But as you know, it doesn't mean we should all go crazy just because it's cheatday, so I tweaked a little on the quantities to get a more diet-friendly serving size.

For 6 scones, you'll need:

130g All Purpose Flour

15g castor sugar

(I used 1 1/2 tsp of baking stevia instead)

42g unsalted, COLD butter, cut into small cubes

90ml to 100ml buttermilk

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

a pinch of salt (or 1/8 tsp)

For the filling, you'll need:

15g soften butter

35g brown sugar

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

20g raisins (optional)

First up, add all your dry ingredients into a large bowl and whisk to combine (or you may run them through a sieve) before cutting in your cold butter. 

You may do so with a pastry cutter, a simple knife+fork combination, in a food processor, or just by rubbing the butter into the flour mixture with your fingertips until all your butter pieces are no larger than pea-sized. 

Add in your buttermilk and mix until it just comes together to form a dough. Your dough shouldn't be too wet and sticky that you cannot handle it, and neither too dry that it couldn't form a dough ball. I suggest that you only mix in 90ml of the buttermilk and see how your dough forms, before adding in the other 10ml, if you require it. 

Then, turn out your barely formed dough ball onto a clean working surface, dusted with some plain flour to prevent sticking, and give it a few soft kneads such that it comes together better, and roll it out into a rectangle that is about 9 to 10 inches long, and 5 inches wide. 

And now, it's time for the filling! You may either spread the butter over the rolled out dough and then sprinkle on the brown sugar and raisins, or you may mix your butter with the brown sugar into a paste and spread it evenly over the dough before sprinkling in your raisins (that's what I prefer to do, as it's much less messier). Be sure to leave about half an inch along the long end of the dough such that you can seal it. 

Then, roll away! Starting from the long end of the dough that's nearer to you, flip the dough inwards and start rolling it away from you until you reach the 1/2 inch of dough that's previously left bare. With a pastry brush, brush on some milk along the strip before pressing the roll down onto the ends and giving it a new light nips to make sure that it's well sealed. 

Then, cut your dough log into 6 equal, 1.5 inches thick slices and set them onto a parchment lined baking tray, spaced an inch apart. 

Brush some more milk (or egg wash, which does better with browning as compared to just plain milk) over the top of the scones and set them to bake in the oven at 190 to 200 degree Celsius for 17 to 20 minutes.

And Tadaa~

Though these aren't the most crumbly and tender scone you can get (as you require a little bit more kneading and rolling along the way), the sweet, gooey cinnamon sugar filling that's in every bite surely make up for it!

Best of all, each scone is only 154 kcals! So, eat away!

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: Chocolate Lava Salted Caramel Chips Cookie

Well, guess what? It's LAVA COOKIES, Y'ALL!

Came across the salted caramel chips while randomly browsing the baking aisle at the supermarket and just decided to pick it up without much thought initially. Hahaha, and since I've bought it, I gotta use it right? 

So yup, let's make some salted caramel chips cookies with a chocolate lava centre then!

To make roughly 20 cookies, you'll need:

125g plain flour

60g soften unsalted butter

100g brown sugar
(I've used 35g baking stevia + 30g brown sugar)

1/4 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
(omit if you're using salted butter)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 small/medium egg
90g salted caramel chips
20 cubes of your favourite dark chocolate
I used 70% dark chocolate, feel free to use milk chocolate or even white chocolate if you fancy them.

First up, cream your butter and sugar together until the mixture turns light and fluffy, then beat in your egg and vanilla extract until well combined. Sift in all your dry ingredients and fold until almost combined before folding in the salted caramel chips.

Your batter should be only very slightly sticky, but still easily pliable. Do add in some more flour along the way if you feel that your batter is too runny. Or else you'll have problems wrapping the chocolate cubes in!

Then, wrap up your batter in cling wrap and leave it to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour for it to firm up.

After the cookie dough has firmed up, take it out from the fridge and start wrapping your chocolate cubes into 1 heaping tablespoon of dough (I weighed mine and they're about 32 - 35g each). Feel free to pop them back into the fridge if you find that they've gone too soft to work with easily.

Then, place your chocolate-centre cookie dough balls on a baking sheet, spaced 2" apart and bake them at 190 degree Celsius for about 10 to 12 minutes. Keep a watchful eye on them at the 10th minute, they should just be slightly browned at the side and still pale in the centre!

When they're done, they will still be quite fragile, so do be extra careful when transferring them over to a cooling rack. These cookies are best eaten warm, so do not leave them to cool completely before tucking in!

Otherwise, you may also heat the cooled leftover cookies slightly in the microwave for perhaps 30 to 60 seconds to get the chocolate centre molten again before eating!

Look at that molten dark chocolate centre! Best #cheatdayeat ever!

Till then,

Mia Foo

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