Juicy Lucy Cheeseburger

One of those weekends when you do not know what to prepare for lunch.  Then the hubby requested for a burger after he saw a photo of the juicy lucy burger done by his cousin. So since I am in the mood to be busy, I made this for lunch. Mince the meat using my grinder and baked the burger buns - everything from scratch .. well almost everything :)

You know I always go for easy recipe and this is easy. Very minimal seasoning required. 

This is how we had it, with potatoes and sweet potato chips.

Here is the link to the recipe I used for the patty.

http://www.food.com/recipe/jucy-lucy-cheeseburger-383042

What you need:

1 kg ground beef, chilled

1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 tsp garlic powder

150g a mix of cheddar and mozarella cheese cut into 1cm cubes

kosher salt

ground black pepper

What you do:

1. Place beef, Worcestershire sauce, garlic salt, and pepper in a bowl; mix well, portion into eight (size of lemon)

2. Flatten the the beef and stuffed the cheese into the patty

3. Preheat a cast-iron skillet or heavy-bottomed pan to medium heat

4. Cook burgers over heat 3 to 4 minutes on first side (Burger may puff up due to steam from melting cheese. This is normal. Do not be alarmed)

5. Flip, and using toothpick, prick top of burger to allow for steam escape. Allow burger to cook 3 to 4 minutes on this side.

6. Remove patties from pan or grill, place them on the burger bun, add some condiments on, and ready to be eaten

Enjoy !

Quick Rise Yeasted Rolls

I was thinking of baking bread but not in the mood to do something that takes hours. So tried this recipe because of the rave reviews. It also doesn't use huge amount of yeast considering this is a quick rise roll. Verdict: really good. Soft and delicious.

I made minor changes. Refer to the link for the original recipe. Mix the dough till slightly stretchy before the first rest. No need to knead. The dough I got was soft but manageable.  This rolls also keep well, they still stay soft the next day.

http://m.allrecipes.com/recipe/13827/quick-yeast-rolls

Quick Rise Yeasted Rolls

What you need:

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons raw sugar

1 cup hot water

7g instant yeast

1 egg, beaten

1 teaspoon salt

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

What you do:

1. Preheat oven to 220 degrees C

2. In a large bowl, mix the oil, sugar, and hot water

3. Allow to cool until lukewarm, and mix in the yeast until dissolved
4. Mix in the egg, salt, and flour, allow the dough to rise until doubled in size.

5. Divide the dough into the prepared muffin cups or tray, and allow to rise again until doubled in size.

6. Bake for 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a knife inserted in the center of the bread comes out clean.

Italian style pizza

The hubby and kids are pizza 'monsters'.  One of the ways to get them do what I want is to make pizzas for them. We like thin crust pizzas and fortunately we are not really into American style pizzas.  The girls favourite is hawaiian and magherita and mine is anything simple especially mushroom and onion.   Having said that, i have tried numerous pizza crust recipe and found an absolute favourite by husband and wife duo, Gabriele Corcos and Debi Mazar from Extra Virgin show.

Here, I used tipo 00 flour meant for pizzas which you can purchase from Phoon Huat here in Singapore.  If you don't have that, use bread flour.

What you need:
2 1/4 dry active yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm water (about 105 to 115 degrees F)
4 cups tipo 00 flour/bread flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup cold water
1/4 cup olive oil, plus more for bowl

What you do:
1. Add yeast, lukewarm water, and 1/2 cup flour into the bowl of a stand mixer . Mix well and let sit until bubbly, about 30 minutes
2. Whisk together the remaining 3 1/2 cups bread flour and salt in another bowl so it will be evenly distributed
3. Once yeast mixture turns bubbly, add 3/4 cup cold water and olive oil. With the dough hook, turn the mixer on and add the flour in increments

4. Mix the dough for about 5 minutes, until the dough starts creeping up the dough hook and comes away from the sides of the bowl.
5. Place the dough in a large bowl lightly greased with olive oil. Turn to coat all sides of the dough with oil. 6. Cover the bowl loosely with a clean tea towel. Let rise until doubled in size, about 2 hours. Punch dough down, and let rise another hour.
6. Divide the dough into 4 equal disks. Lightly flour a work surface. Using your fingers or heels of your hands to stretch the disks out to a 10-inch round.  Alternatively you can use the rolling pin to roll the crust.

Repeat with the remaining 3 pizza dough disks.  

Buttery and flaky croissants

This is definitely not quick and easy.  It's not that difficult but definitely not quick :-P  I will post the recipe in my other blog.

This is my second attempt at making these lovelies.  It was quite a daunting experience with the humidity and heat here, I had to work real fast in order to keep the butter from melting.  Nevertheless, they came out beautiful, buttery and flaky.  My family loves them, the thing is it took me hours to prepare this but took less than an hour to finish 'gobbling' them *LOL*  but it was great fun making them.  I used 100% butter and love the flavour unlike the ones I get from the supermarket which are just too waxy.  Actually I find them disgusting :-P.  I am however tempted to try with the butter meant for laminating dough.  I have seen it sold at the baking supply shop and it comes in a slab of 1kg.  I wonder if it gives the same flavour as using butter... hmm

A tray of them before the 1.5hrs rise

Oven-baked Naans

These are really great naans, chewy and soft even when they are not hot. I made this after reading so many great reviews about it. The suggested method is to cook it over the stove but instead, I used the baking/pizza stone and have it baked in the oven. If you don't have you can use a baking tray. Please check that your oven has a top grille otherwise you might risk overbaking it and will end up with hard naans.

I have also included the link to the youtube videos for your reference. If you notice, this recipe doesn't use yogurt so it is not as tangy as the ones with yogurt.

Naan

Source: Cooking for All Seasons

Ingredients:

3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tsp instant yeast
1 1/2 cup warm milk
1 tsp sugar

Butter for brushing on hot naans (optional)

Method:

1. Dissolve the yeast and sugar in the milk, let rest approximately 10 minutes till it turns frothy
2. In a large bowl, mix well the flour with the yeast/milk mixture then mix in the salt

3. Knead until soft and elastic

4. Cover with a damp towel and leave in a dark place to rise until doubled, about two hours
5. Remove the dough from the bowl, punch it out gently then divide into ten even balls
6. Roll out into triangles, dusting lightly with flour as needed

7. Preheat oven to the highest temperature your oven can take, mine is about 220C with the pizza stone in the oven for 30mins

8. Place the tray and the pizza stone close to the top grill of your oven without burning the naan during baking

9. Once it is ready, place the naans on the pizza stone and let it puff, take it out once the top puffs up and has brown spots
10. Brush it with butter once it is out of the oven and keep them warm

Here are the links for your reference:

Over the stove method: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBFOpcIkPZQ&feature=related

Oven with baking stone method which I used: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkiN7fQbHiA&feature=player_embedded

Yeast-free Banana Cinnamon Roll

Last week was a hectic one for me. The girls were falling sick one after another and I had to work from home to take care of them. It was very stressful as I could not get our of the house *LOL* Couped up with sick girls was no fun at all but I made myself happy by doing this in-between my busy schedule.

As usual, my dad bought another bunch of bananas and I got like 4 of them left and they were very ripe. I was craving from some cinnamon roll but was feeling a bit impatient to do a yeasted one. Searched the net and found this one that fit the bill. Despite it being easy, I was very happy to say that they were good !

The full recipe can be obtained from here I didn't follow the filling recipe to the T. I just estimated the amount of brown sugar and cinnamon powder to my taste.

Ingredients:

Filling
brown sugar
cinnamon powder
bananas, chopped

1. Mix the brown sugar and cinnamon powder and put aside

Dough
2C all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 Tbsp granulated sugar
1/2C (1 stick approx 110-112g) salted butter, melted
3/4C fresh/UHT milk
Flour (for rolling)

Method

1. In a large bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar
2. Mix milk, melted butter together, with a spoon, stir in the butter+milk mixture to the dry ingredients and mix for 1 minute or just until it forms a smooth dough (the dough will be a bit shaggy at first, mix it gently till the dough doesn't stick to the bowl)
4. Turn the dough out onto a floured counter and roll it into a rectangle about 9 by 16 inches.
5. Spread the filling mixture on the dough, leaving a 1/2-inch border around the edge
6. With your hands, gently roll up the dough, starting at one long side. At the end of the roll, press the seam to seal the roll and cut into 12 equal pieces with a serrated knife
7. Arrange the pieces evenly in the cake pan and bake the rolls in a preheated 180C oven for about 25-35 minutes or until firm and golden
8. Frost with icing and serve warm

Hokkaido Milk Loaf

This has been in my to-do list for quite sometime until I decided to bake it 2 weeks ago. It got lots of good reviews about it being soft even after 2 days and I have to vouch that because it is still soft even after 3 days !

The recipe is taken from here but I changed it slightly by adding more cream and reducing a little bit of the milk. This bread uses cream to replace the fat in butter/oil and I used my breadmachine to knead the dough for me. This recipe yields quite big loaf. You may want to make sure that the pan you have is big enough.

Ingredients
1 egg, lightly beaten
220g fresh milk (original is 250g)
180g whipping cream (heavy cream) (original is 150g)
9g salt
80g sugar
540g bread flour
60g cake flour (high ratio flour)
30g milk powder
10g instant yeast

Method
1. Put the ingredients to the breadmaker pan according to the list
2. Select dough function and let the machine knead the dough
3. Once the machine beeps, take the dough out onto a lightly floured table and punch it down
4. Shape the dough into a rectangular shape using your hands (try not to punch too much air out)
5. Roll it out into a swissroll and place it in a butter pan and leave it to rise till double in size
6. Brush the bread with milk or egg wash and bake in a preheated oven at 170C for about 40mins

Sweet Bun Dough (2)

I have tried numerous sweet bun dough recipe I got from the internet and this is one of the better ones that I have tried in terms of taste and softness (overnight). Looks like the trick is the amount of butter used. I have tried a similar recipe which is about the same only that it uses half cream cheese and it is as good too.

This time, I made pinwheel pizza bread. The filling is a regular pizza filling with pizza sauce, sausages, cheese and herbs.

I have to thank Lynna and also the original contributor of this recipe (Roshayati Johari). I halved this recipe and made some slight mod to the liquid.

Ingredients
(A)
250g bread flour
50g sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
15g milk powder
2 tsp instant dry yeast
(B)
100-120ml water (add 100ml first than slowly add if dough is too dry)
27g egg (if using cream cheese, omit the egg)
(C) **
20g butter 20g shortening/cream cheese

Method:
1. Mix well all ingredients in (A)
2. Add (B) into (A) and knead till smooth
3. Add (C) and continue kneading till smooth and shiny and dough does not stick to your hand. 4. Leave to prove for 60 minutes or double in volume
5. Punch down the dough lightly to let the air out
6. Divide the dough according to the weight you wish, shape into balls and leave to rest for 10 minutes
7. Shape accordingly and leave to prove for 40 minutes - 1 hour
8. Brush with egg wash
9. Bake till golden brown
10.Once taken out of the oven, brush with egg wash again for extra shine

** I have tried combination of butter+shortening and butter+cream cheese. Both yield similar softness but cream cheese give more flavour.

For those using breadmachine, put all the ingredients according to the manufacturer's instruction and select the dough cycle. Leave the dough to further proof for about 45min after the end of the dough cycle.

Garlic & Rosemary Focaccia

This is hubby's favourite bread. He likes to have his sandwich with this or have it on it's own. Focaccia is not a difficult bread to make and the ingredients used are fairly few. There are many methods to making focaccia, but I chose to use the direct dough method using my breadmaker to do the kneading work ... hehe

It would be good have holes in the focaccia. So try not to let the air out too much during shaping.

Ingredients
250ml water
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
3 cups/450g bread flour
2 tsp yeast
1/2 tbsp oregano/italian herbs

Toppings
3 tbsp olive oil
garlic powder
dried rosemary
rock salt (optional - if you don't want to sprinkle salt, up the salt in the dough a little bit)

Method
1. Place ingredients into bread pan in the order listed in the recipe
2. Select dough program and let machine runs
3. Once cycle complete, leave the dough to further proof for another 45min - 1 1/2hr (this gives a softer texture)
4. Take dough out and press into a lightly greased pan
5. Loosely cover with lightly greased cling wrap and stand in warm area for 30 mins or doubled in size
6. Remove cling wrap and use your fingers to make the depressions
7. Brush dough with olive oil and sprinkle with toppings
8. Bake in preheated oven 200 degree for about 25-30 mins or until golden brown

Mocha Bread Pudding

The original recipe of this is just a regular bread pudding using white bread and milk. Since I have some leftover coffee bread that I baked a few days ago, I decided to tweak it a little into this.

Bread pudding is one of the simplest yet delicious dessert. I don't eat it with custard because I like the way it is.

For those who don't like too sweet a dessert, you can replace the white sugar with brown sugar or use slightly less than 3/4 cup sugar.

You can also add chocolate chips if you like or replace the chocolate milk with other flavoured milk like coffee milk.


Ingredients
6-10 slices day-old coffee bread
2 tablespoons butter/margarine, melted
1/2 cup raisins (optional)
4 eggs, beaten
1 cup milk
1 cup chocolate milk
3/4 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 pcs tim tam, roughly chopped

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180 degree celsius
2. Break bread into small pieces into an 8 inch square baking pan
3. Drizzle melted butter or margarine over bread
4. Sprinkle with raisins and chopped tim tam
5. In a mixing bowl, combine eggs, milk and sugar and beat until all are well mixed
6. Pour over bread, and lightly push down with a fork until bread is covered and soaking up the egg mixture
7. Bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes, or until the top springs back when lightly tapped

Sweet Bread (Pai Pau)

This bread is my all time favourite since young. You know the kind of bread you get from the shops or confectionary shops with sugar sprinkled on it and tastes great dipping it into hot coffee or tea .. yummy

I have to thank Giselle from KC for sharing this recipe. My first attempt was a total failure because I did not have enough time to proof the dough - result was a pretty dense bread :-( My second attempt was fantastic and we finished it that night itself *LOL* talking about greedy ..

If you want to get a soft and fluffy bread minus the preservatives, please don't rush it.

I modified the original recipe slightly by increasing the amount of butter used. I used my breadmachine to knead the dough.

Ingredients
2.5 tsp instant yeast
3-5 tbsp lukewarm water
375g bread flour
105g sugar
1 egg, room temp
1 egg yolk, room temp
3 tbps butter, melted
1/2 cup milk, room temp.

egg wash: 1 egg, lightly beaten
syrup (optional : to brush on the bread right after baked, but I haven't tried this)


Method
By Breadmachine
1. Put all the ingredients into the breadmachine pan according to the machine's instruction
2. Select dough cycle
3. Once cycle is completed, take dough out and punch it out to release some air and knead it for a few minutes
4. Place dough in an oiled bowl and cover with cling wrap and leave it to proof for another 45 mins or till double in size
5. Divide dough into sizes that you like and let it rest for 20mins
6. Shape the dough and put it in a greased tray
7. Cover dough and let it proof till double in size
8. Preheat the oven to 180C, brush the egg wash on top, bake for 20 - 25 mins. Brush syrup when it just comes right out from the oven.

By mixer/hand
1. Dissolve dry yeast in lukewarm water, wait 5 - 10 mins.
2. Mix the yeast liquid with the rest of the ingredients except egg wash and syrup
3. Knead until smooth and elastic - dough supposes to be wet but not sticky.
4. Let the dough sit in a geased large bowl and cover with plastic wrap proving it for about 45 mins
5. Punch the dough to release some air, knead a few times, put back in the bowl, covered and leave it to proof again for 45 mins or double the volume
6. Divide dough into sizes that you like and let it rest for 20mins
7. Shape the dough and put it in a greased tray
8. Cover dough and let it proof till double in size
9. Preheat the oven to 180C, brush the egg wash on top, bake for 20 - 25 mins.
10. Brush syrup when it just comes right out from the oven.

Note: You can also brush dough with melted butter and sprinkle sugar before baking

Cheese Roll

Made these rolls using the cheese slices that I have stocked in the refrigerator. My dad keeps buying them for the girls and we could not keep up with the stock. Some of them ended up in these rolls and I was soo surprise with the beautiful swirl effect it gave.

The dough I used for this is the same as the sweet bun recipe. For this, you will need to roll out the dough into a square or rectangle, arrange the slices side by side till it covers the rolled dough. Slowly roll it up like a swiss roll and cut them up. Arrange them close to each other, let ir rise till double in size and bake them.

Assorted Sweet Bun

I was in a mood to bake some sweet buns after a long rest of baking. I made these buns last weekend and managed to baked 3 types of buns. I used the sweet bun recipe taken from the book 'Make Your Own Bread' by Novum Organum publication. Because I used a large egg (60gm), I reduced the water to 220ml instead of the original 260ml.

Butter buns, Sausage & Mayo buns

Top right hand : Sausage buns

The filling of the buns is entirely up to you. The following is the recipe for the dough. Unused dough can be kept in the fridge up to 4 days after the first rise. Wrap it with cling wrap or keep it in an airtight container. Thaw the dough to room temperature before use.

I used my breadmachine to knead the dough. The only difference is that I melted the butter.

Ingredients
220ml cold water (use 260ml if you are using small eggs)
1 egg, lightly beaten
50g butter
500g bread flour, sifted
7g instant yeast
100g sugar
5g salt

1. Mix bread flour, yeast, sugar and salt in a bowl
2. Add cold water and egg to mixture and mix well
3. Add butter into dough and knead dough until elastic
4. Place dough in a mixing bowl, cover with cling wrap and let it rise to double its size
5. Cut dough into small portions of about 40-60g and let it rest for another 10-15minutes
6. Shape dough into desired shapes and let it rise to double its size
7. Glaze buns with egg wash and bake till golden brown

Pizza

Pizza is my significant other's favourite food. Whenever I ran out of ideas to cook, or have some veges to clear, this will be one of our regular meals during the weekends. However, this time I took a challenge to make it on a weekday after coming back from work. Of course it took me 2 days in total to come out with this perfect pizza. I made the dough the night before and let it proof in the fridge for almost 24 hrs, the result was fantastic.

Thanks to Del (aka Hula_mom) for sharing this great recipe (It is my favourite now.) The cornmeal gives the pizza that extra flavour. Also, before putting the pizza base on the pan, sprinkle some cornmeal on the pan - makes it fragrant and lots of flavour.

The recipe is similar to the recipe that I used regularly except that this one uses bread flour instead of all purpose flour. The rest of the ingredients are the same. I used my breadmachine to knead the dough but you can knead it manually if you like.

Ingredients

Makes 2 12inch pizza base
1 cup water
2 tbsp olive oil
3/4 tsp salt
3 cups bread flour
1 tbsp cornmeal (grainy)
2 tsp instant yeast

Method

By Breadmachine
1. Dump all the ingredients into the breadmachine pan in the above order and select 'Dough'
2. Once the dough program has ended, take the dough out and punch it down
3. Lather some olive oil on the dough, wrap or cover dough with cling wrap and let it proof in the refrigerator for at least 12 hrs.

By hand
1. Mix flour, cornmeal and salt together
2. Add instant yeast and mix it well (Avoid direct contact with the salt)
3. Add water and knead the it into the dough
4. Add oil and continue kneading till the dough becomes elastic
5. Lather the dough with olive oil and wrap or cover dough with cling wrap and let it proof for at least 12 hrs.

Preparing the base
1. Take dough out of the refrigerator and leave it out till it reaches room temperature
2. Punch down the dough to let the air out but do not over punch it
3. Split the dough into 2 equal balls
4. Roll the dough out and top it with your pizza sauce and toppings of your choice. If you want a pan pizza type, let the base proof for about 30 mins before you start with the toppings.
5. Preheat oven to 200 degree celcius and bake the pizza till golden brown

Note: If you are using active dry yeast, you will need to activate the yeast with warm water before you can use it.