Mia Bakes: Tofu Chocolate Bread Loaf (BM Recipe)

Haha, yet another baking post up for the week! The thought to bake with tofu started after I came across a youtube video on tofu banana baked doughnuts. And I did ended up trying a variation of it without the banana HERE. 

Then I wondered if it's possible to have tofu replacing something in our everyday bread loaf, mainly to lower the calories per slice. Well, one fine day I was bored and hence decided to calculate the calories per slice of my usual homemade wholegrain bread, and was horrible shocked to know that my homebaked version is 2x the calories of the store bought loaves. 

No wonder my weight loss has plateau off

And due to denser loaves from wholegrain flour, I usually only manage to cut 9 slices per loaf and that gives me about 176 kcals per slice! 

Okay, calories talk aside, let's first get over the ingredients so we can get the BM started.

For a 500g loaf, you'll need:

125g wholemeal flour

115g all purpose flour

10g unsweeten cocoa powder

1 tbsp vital wheat gluten

10g sugar 

(I used 5g sugarless sugar & 5ml raw honey)

150g soft silken tofu

3g salt (about 1/2 tsp)

1 tsp instant yeast

1/4 tsp ceylon cinnamon

80ml milk

First, soak your wholemeal flour in the milk for about 20 minutes before adding in the rest of your ingredients and let the dough knead on your mix dough function

Due to lower percentage of wholegrain flour in this recipe, I got slightly higher loaf (perhaps switching to bread flour will give me an even higher loaf) and managed to cut 11 slices out of this loaf. That gives me about 92 kcals per slice, almost 50% of my usual sunflower seeds & raisin loaf. 

There's hardly any tofu taste and the bread still turned out pretty soft and chewy in spite of the high wholegrain content. Pretty sure that tofu shall be one of the main ingredients for my weekly bread making from now on!

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: Soft & Fluffy Wholegrain Fruit & Nut Loaf (BM Recipe)

Despite telling myself I'm happy with my dense and heavy wholegrain loaf, I couldn't help but keep googling for 'soft and fluffy wholewheat bread recipe' and was just disappointed over and over again when all of the recipes I've clicked in with titles similar to "softest and fluffiest healthy wholemeal bread" pretty much just had 10% wholemeal flour and 90% refined bread flour.
Erm, how can you even call that a healthy wholemeal bread when by ratio, it's effectively still a refined bread?

And so (out of spite?) I decided, let me reverse that and use 10% refined flour! HAHAHA, okay I'm kidding. But I really started adding small amount of all purpose flour into my wholegrain loaf because that 3/4 full pack of AP flour has been sitting in my baking cabinet for a while now and I feel that if I don't finish it, weevils will grow soon, so.... yeah, you got it.

 

Anyway, for this SOFT and FLUFFY wholegrain loaf, you'll need:

185ml (cold) milk

28ml honey

(I wanted to put 30ml but 28ml was all I could squeeze out)

200g wholemeal flour

25g dark rye flour

25g all purpose flour

3.5 tsp vital wheat gluten
(I might have added more per 1/2 teaspoonful hence you may use up to 4 tsp)

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp apple cider vinegar

1/4 tsp ceylon cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

Abt 4.5g instant yeast

(if you're using mayer BM12, it's 1 full small measuring spoon + slightly less than 1/4)

30g unsalted butter

choice of chopped dried fruits & nuts 

(i used sunflower seeds, and a mix of raisins and cherries)

First up, add in your wholegrain flours and cold milk into the pan and let it sit for 30 to 45 minutes. 

Then, add in all your ingredients, except butter, and start your machine on mix dough function. Add in your butter only when your dough starts to form a ball. As different brands/batches of flours will have different hydration levels, do keep an eye on your dough and make sure it's hydrated enough. Eg. if it's sandy and tough like a beach ball, add in more liquid (preferably by the 1/2 teaspoonful) and if it's watery and formless, add in more flour.
Upon completion of the mix dough function, check your dough for windowpane stage, It won't stretch as thinly and beautifully as a 100% refined flour loaf, but it should stretch  and thin out quite a bit. If the dough is still lacking in elasticity, restart your machine on mix dough function again for another round of mixing.
After your dough is done mixing, restart your machine on graham or multigrain function and let the machine do the wonders! Oh, do remember to add your chopped fruit and nuts during the machine's feeding beep, too!

Giving you a 'bend test' to show that this loaf is really soft and fluffy. :)

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia's Bakes: Wholemeal Rye Bread (Mayer Bread Machine Recipe)

I've recently purchased Bob's Mill dark rye flour and buckwheat flour off iHerb (again!) to try out more variation of wholegrain bread loaves. 

However, it was really disappointing to find that the results were less than acceptable, for my bread turned out extremely short, dense and crumbly-cakey, like they've hardly risen at all. 

My wholemeal-dark rye-buckwheat loaf was made with the flour ratio of 2:1:1 (2 parts wholemeal) and with NatureGlory's organic Bonsoy and though extremely tasty with the distinctive nutty flavour from the addition of dark rye flour, the texture was just.... mehh. 

And then I realised, I might need a change of yeast.

And so, chucking Saf-Instant, I returned to Bake King's Instant Yeast and decided to give my dark rye flour another try. 

Well, I read somewhere saying that rye flour and bread machine doesn't do well together as a rye dough might be too heavy and tough for the bread machine to knead, but... let's just give it another shot!

So for my wholemeal rye bread, you'll need:

150g wholemeal AP flour

75g low-carbs flour

25g dark rye flour 

190ml milk 

3tsp vital wheat gluten

1 tsp ceylon cinnamon powder

21g raw honey

30g unsalted butter

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/4 small mayer tsp instant yeast (about 5g)

On my Mayer BM, I first added the wholemeal flour to the milk and let it sit for 20 minutes before adding in the rest of the dry ingredients and honey and starting the mix dough function, which will mix and knead the dough for 25 minutes. 

After which, I restarted the machine on multigrain setting and added in my butter cubes. And then about 75g of raisins and a few handful of chopped almonds at feeding point (which I regretted). 

Probably due to the dark rye flour, which made the dough heavier than denser than it would have been as just a wholemeal dough, the BM was unable to knead in the raisins at feeding point and I ended up with tons of raisins left behind in the bread pan and just a few of them sticking onto the surface of the bread. 

The chopped almond did get kneaded a little more into the dough, though still pretty much at the outer rim of the loaf. 

Although still denser and heavier than a refined white loaf, this time round my wholegrain loaf turned out much softer and chewier with the new yeast as compared to my previous bake(s). 

Just a reminder to self, is to add in the raisins during initial mixing whenever I add in dark rye flour to prevent high raisin wastage. 

Do you have a go-to recipe for a yummy wholegrain loaf? Do share them with me!

To get the wholegrain and low-carb flour I've used for this recipe, hop over to iHerb right now! 

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia's Recipe: Low Carb Multigrain Fruit Loaf

And so, after achieving a wholegrain (whole wheat, oatmeal) bread loaf, which is perfectly edible (my bread machine recipe HERE), my greed for something new set me going on a googling-youtubing craze again for a multigrain, possibly low carb bread recipe. 

But what came up were mostly just bread made with almond meal, which is extremely expensive and totally not sustainable for my lifestyle. 

Depending on the brand, you might need to cough up at least almost $18 SGD for a packet of almond meal that doesn't even give you 500g of the almond flour on iherb, and that's way too expensive even in the name of low-carbohydrates. Plus, having a bread loaf made mostly (or entirely, in terms of dry ingredients) from almonds actually means 1 thing. Yes, it's low in carbohydrates, but other than almond flour, you will still need to add in milk, butter (oil) and possibly eggs, which means, this is a low carb, but super high fat bread loaf! 

And so, while I was lamenting that a truly healthy low-carb bread loaf is not going to be possible, I came across this on iherb. 

Bob's Red Mill Low-Carb Baking Mix

It's not exactly the cheapest flour mix you can get on iherb (it still cost you almost $10 for this pack of 453g) but comparing this to using solely just almond meal? I'll choose this anytime. Plus, Bob's also does a low-carb bread mix so it can only get even easier for you if all you want is to make bread with it. 

The grains that went into this flour mix includes: wholegrain oat flour, oat bran, oat fiber, flaxseed meal, wholegrain rye flour, wheat bran & wholegrain soy flour. These ingredients gives you only 120 calories per serving of 30g, and 13 g carbohydrates with 5g fibre, hence giving you a net carbohydrate of only 8g per serving!

Using a mixture of this low carb flour blend and wholemeal flour, I decided to bake a loaf of multigrain fruit bread using my Mayer bread machine!

The ingredients you'll need are:

120g wholemeal AP flour
120g low-carb baking mix
15g oatmeal
200ml milk
30ml honey
35g unsalted butter
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 1/4 vital wheat gluten
1/2 - 1 tsp ceylon cinnamon
(you may add more if you like cinnamon flavour, I've started adding ceylon cinnamon to my bread mainly for its health benefits)
1 1/4 small mayer tsp instant yeast (about 4.5g)
your choice of dried fruits, amount is up to you.
(I used dried raisins and cherries)

Even though I've started using VWG, I'll still prefer to do a quick soak of the wholemeal flour in the milk for at least 30 minutes before I add in the rest of the ingredients (except butter and dried fruits) for mixing using the mix dough function. After which, I restarted the machine on multigrain function and add in butter during mixing.
Do keep a close check on the dough during mixing / 1st kneading. Add in more liquid or flour by the teaspoons if your dough is sandy (too dry) or mushy (too wet).
Dried fruits will be added in after the feeding point beep sounded on the machine. If your bread machine somehow do not have such a function, or you're making this by hand, add in the dried fruits during kneading after 1st proofing (before shaping & 2nd proofing).

Tadaa~ Here's my low-carb multigrain fruit loaf, which an acquaintance thought was panettone. 

Have you ever tried baking your own low-carb bread using a blend of flours that's lower in carbohydrates too? Do share your recipes with me in the comment board below!

To get the low-carb flour I've used for this recipe, hop over to iHerb right now!

Till then,
Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: Red Tea Chia Seed Yudane Bread (Mayer BM12 Recipe)

This is my 2nd time trying the Yudane (Utane) method and I've previously tried the famous Tang Zhong (TZ) method for a fruit loaf and I would say it yields pretty similar results, just that the yudane method does not require 'cooking' over the stove and hence I stuck to it. Both methods help to gelatinise the starch in the flour, giving it a higher moisture content which yields a softer and more elastic bread loaf. 

While the TZ method calls for a 5 - 10% of the total flour content in the recipe with 5 parts of water and then cooking the mixture over small flame to hit 65 degree Celsius, the yudane method I've used calls for about 20% of the total flour content with equal ratio of boiling water. 

Before I elaborate on how to execute the yudane method, let's first get started on the original bread recipe given in the Mayer recipe book.

250g bread flour

180ml boiling water 

(to brew a flavoured tea of your choice)

20g salted butter

3g sea salt

30g sugar

3g active dry yeast

5 tablespoons chia seeds

To "yudanish" the bread recipe, simply use about 20% of the flour content to make the yudane dough with equal parts of boiling water. 

So for an original recipe with 250g of flour, my yudane dough will make up of 50g of bread flour with 50ml of boiling water. Just add the boiling water to the flour and stir until it comes together to form a wet, sticky dough and cool it down before proceeding with the rest of the baking procedure. 

So with the yudane dough done, the flour and water content of my remaining recipe will be reduced to 200g bread flour to 130ml of brewed tea. However, being not very trusting of the Mayer's recipe book, I've decided to give the recipe and its listed procedure a little tweak to get this particular recipe I've done for this Red Tea Chia Seed Loaf.

Yudane Dough: 50g Bread Flour + 50g Water (chilled in fridge)

180g bread flour

20g top flour

130ml red tea (chilled in fridge)

20g unsalted butter

2.5g table salt 

30g sugar

3g instant yeast

5 tablespoons chia seeds (grounded)

Add in cold tea, yudane dough, sugar, salt, and flour mixture into the bread pan, followed by instant yeast. Fit the bread pan into the bread machine and start the Mix Dough function, which will mix and knead the dough for 25 minutes straight. After 25 minutes, start the Soft Bread function (500g) and add in the grounded chia seeds and butter to mix. 

At the pattern sounding beep (1:30), remove the kneading paddle and let the BM finish its job.

TADAA~ 

Fragrant and soft Red Tea Chia Seed Bread! There's hardly any tea flavour in the bread but somehow there's a nice fragrance from the bread loaf that's a lot more distinct as compared to my past bakes. It might be because the semi-grounded chia seeds got roasted and gave our the fragrance, or it might really be the red tea that contributed to the nice smell. So try it and let me know how it went for you!

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Summing up October

Well, if you didn't know, October has always been a special month for me because...

I'm a Libra baby! 

And many thanks to YS for making me this as my birthday gift this year.

And my birthday kickstart with 2 huge presents from the bf.

Yes, that's a friggin KitchenAid Food Processor in RED and Mayer's Bread Machine, which definitely didn't end up as white elephants.

My first few bread loaves turned out pretty dense and tough until I decided to ignore the steps of adding in instant yeast last as stated in the Mayer's recipe book. And tadaa, that's my coconut sweet bread! 

The food processor also has had its fair chance of working out as I've not only made myself strawberry sorbet and strawberry frozen yoghurt easily, but also helped my mum shred her vegetables and chopped her garlic. 

And of course, let the birthday feast begin! The bf started the ball rolling for my #fatdieme journey be bringing me for shark's fin soup and crab vermicelli.

Look at that huge piece of shark's fin there! Yeah, I know I should be FINished with Fins, but.... that was too yummy! So was the vermicelli! I was gorging myself on the QQ-ness and totally ignoring those fat crab pincers. 

And then the bestie took over and further oomph up my #fatdieme journey by bringing me for high-tea buffet at Rose Veranda, Shangri-La Hotel!

 Rainbow cake...

French macarons...

Creme Brulee...

Of course, it's not all just desserts. The savoury food were equally yummy as well, but just not as photo-worthy, yes?

The staff of Rose Veranda was also extremely sweet as they brought out a birthday cake for me and sang me a birthday song, and also took an instant photo of us and made it into a birthday card! 

And of course, J wouldn't really let me give up on myself and really let me die on this #fatdieme journey. She completed my gym attire (last year she got me an adidas dri-fit tank top) this year by giving me a pair of adidas gym pants! And they're so comfy! :) 

And of course, how can I not have anything for myself as a for of indulgence? My first ever paid-experience for gelish nail art manicure went to Nail Artelier, with the kind partial-birthday-sponsorship from Sa. It's Jack & Sally on my thumb, isn't that cute?

And of course, I managed to slot in USS Halloween Horror Nights 5 this year as an impromptu 'birthday treat' to myself. Well, yeah for the rides (especially The Mummy and Transformers!) but mehhhh to the haunted houses.

And to conclude my October's indulgence...

 It's Cirque Du Soleil! Oh well, it's 1st November... But they started their SG tour for Totem in October, so I guess I'm allowed to push it in too, yes?

Photography is not allowed during the show (duh!) so there's no other pictures to share. But I'm so glad I asked the bf to watch it with me! Really enjoyed a handful of their acts (actually all were awesome, but I did have my favourites), especially the acrobatic rollers couple (I still cannot understand how that much spinning was possible) and the final act of the Russian Bars.

-credits to daily49ers.com-

And lastly, to end off my random ramblings with a selfie....

There were many other prettier masks hanging on the shelves, but the bf made me use this. 

Till then,

Mia Foo

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