Class: Macarons with a Hint of Christmas
Date & Time: Friday 7th December 6-8pm
Venue: 16 Highbridge Wharf, Greenwich, London, SE10 9PS
Price: £75

We will be teaching 3 different Christmas inspired flavours as well as showing you some ideas for decorating your macaron shells (see below). If you are interested do book a place as this class only comes round once a year and there’s not much time left to snap up the last few places! Click here to book!

I recently met Daniel Stevens, the author of the River Cottage Bread Handbook who gave me a few good bread making tips and also encouraged me to buy his book (no bias there for sure! haha).

I did go and buy the book in the end and it turned out to be a wonderful read. An incredibly informative book with mouthwatering photos and anecdotes which made me smile. Dan has a certain way with words and a knack for describing certain indescribable things about the bread making process. For example writing on when the dough is proved enough:

It is hard to describe the perfect moment in words. The best I can say is that a really well-shaped, tightly moulded, perfectly risen loaf has a certain look and feel about it, as if it is just bursting to be baked.

I wasn’t planning to make brioche until much later in my bread-making adventure, but then the Bread Handbook informed me that “contrary to popular belief, as bread goes, brioche is pretty straightforward”. And who doesn’t love brioche. It’s light, bready, rich, sweet… and if that wasn’t enough it has a soft, golden brown crust.

I made the most deliciously indulgent brioche sandwich for lunch that day and then had it toasted with butter for breakfast the next morning. I’m pretty sure I can feel my waistline expanding with every slice of bread…. :s 

And whilst I’m pretty sure that many of you do “Have Internet On Your PC, Laptop or Phone” and would find earning $250 per day fairly useful, I very much doubt that you can do that by “filling out surveys and giving your opinion on today’s most popular products” as the cheeky so-and-so who decided to hack my account is claiming.

So if you saw that post, please accept my heartfelt apologies. I shall endeavour to make up for the intrusion with promises of upcoming posts including macarons for movember, brioche and sachertorte. :) see you soon!

Baguettes are one of those iconic French symbols. They conjure up idyllic scenes of the French countryside and a moustachioed man wearing a striped shirt and a beret with onions in one hand and a baguette in the other.

Nothing can beat a warm, freshly baked baguette but sadly these things only seem to exist on the Continent. In my local Sainsbury’s we have to settle for bake off baguettes which say they’re artisan, but actually are just a typical industrial loaf disguised by a deceptively rustic looking crust.

I long to be able to make beautiful baguettes, but as with the ciabatta it took 3 attempts to produce something which could acceptably be called a baguette. The first batch, we shan’t dwell on for very long, as they were so hideous I couldn’t even bring myself to photograph. My fatal mistake was using cling film to cover my lovingly shaped loaves for the final proving. As any bread baker out there can probably imagine the cling film got stuck to the dough and in the process of trying to remove it my poor baguettes were completely mangled and misshapen. I baked them anyway and whilst they tasted pretty good they looked a bit like giant, mutant breadsticks.

I’m not one to give up easily so I tried again.  The recipe which I have used for all 3 batches is from Emmanuel Hadjiandreou’s book, How to Make Bread. Baguette dough is a fairly wet dough, not as wet as ciabatta, but still more challenging to work with than your regular bread dough.

Batch 2

Meet Batch 2. This time I lightly dusted the baguettes in flour and covered them with a tea towel. The upside is that it didn’t stick, but the downside is that the dough dried out slightly. I have since learned that this is the result of having a dry tea towel on top of the dough and also leaving it too long to prove. It caused a thin crust to form on the outside of the dough, meaning that when in the oven there was no “oven spring” (the initial rapid rising of the dough as the heat of the oven gives the yeast more oomph to work). Because of this, Batch 2 had quite a tight texture and (as you can see from the photo) the slashes down the length of the baguette which are supposed to help increase the rise from the oven spring, are completely closed and kind of look like tears in the surface of the bread. Those slashes should be smooth and should begin to open up pretty much immediately, even before the bread is in the oven.

Batch 3

So, onto Batch 3. Third time lucky right? This time I covered the dough with a damp tea towel, something which quite a few recipes do, and for some reason I had never tried. But it worked a treat. After about an hour of proving the dough was risen, and still oh-so-soft and moist. I slashed the loaves and sure enough the cuts began to slowly open up. I only wish I had slashed them a bit deeper. I’ve read that when slashing loaves it pays to be confident and just cut away… I was a bit hesitant and nervous, but next time I think I’ll have the confidence to just go for it :)These are the finished baguettes. The texture is much better, but I think towards the bottom it gets a bit dense. I believe this can be rectified by a liiiitle bit longer proving, and perhaps slightly longer in the oven. You can probably also see a crack along the side of the bread. I believe this is from where I didn’t seal the seam of the bread properly, and so as the dough expanded in the oven it kind of ripped a tear in the side of the loaf.

Overall I’m fairly happy with the outcome, but being a perfectionist, there is always something that can be improved. Baguettes will be revisited again at some point in the future.

I have since ventured out further to try my hand at ciabatta ….in search of that perfect chewy, spongy texture and those elusive air bubbles.

Batch 1

My first attempt used a recipe taken from the book How To Make Bread by Emmanuel Hadjiandreou. His book teaches a kneading method whereby the bread is kneaded little by little throughout the long proving time. This is a particularly useful method when working with ciabatta dough which is very wet and cannot easily be kneaded in the conventional way.

The finished bread was ok, although the loaves needed to be in the oven for much longer. There were some large air bubbles, but not nearly as many as should be to give the ciabatta it’s unique texture.

Batch 2

I decided to try again with a different recipe.

I found this one online. It uses a different kneading method where you stretch the dough upwards out of the bowl and smack it back down onto itself which helps to create more air bubbles, a real work out for the upper arms. As you can see from the photo above this did result in a more open crumb structure (sounds like something Paul Hollywood would say!) and the loaf had a beautiful chewy crust and a soft springy inside. The one thing I did notice however was that the large bubbles were not spread throughout the loaf. The ends were nice and holey, but the centre was quite close.

Batch 3 (before baking)

At the same time as the second batch I decided to have another go at the Emmanuel Hadjiandreou recipe. These things take quite a long time to prove so why not save time and do two different methods at once!

As you can probably tell by the third attempt, I’m getting better at shaping the loaves :)

Batch 3

I was quite disappointed with the results. The loaf was dense (still soft though) and did not even look close to what a ciabatta should look like neither did not have the lovely springy texture of batch 2.

So I decided to go for batch number 4. Five stars for perseverance.

Batch 4

This recipe, from the brilliant website The Kitchn, uses a starter which is made the night before. A starter is a simple dough, which is left to ferment for a long period of time (usually between 10-12 hours) and is then incorporated into the bread dough. Because the yeast is allowed to work for a much longer time the use of a starter can create better flavour in the bread and also, with ciabatta, is meant to help with the texture as well. The starter used for Italian breads is called biga and is much drier in consistency than the French poolish,  often used for making baguettes and other French artisan breads.

Using a starter definitely helped the proving process, after only 1.5 hours the dough was tripled in size and bursting with huge air bubbles. But again, as you can see from the photo of the finished bread, the air bubbles are mostly concentrated towards the top of the loaf. This definitely was the best out of the 4, it had a lovely flavour and an incredibly soft, spongy texture, but just no air bubbles. Maybe I’ll just call it Italian bread and leave it at that…

I saw a Youtube video of a woman making ciabatta who turns the dough upside down before baking to redistribute the bubbles. Perhaps that’s what I need to try, but for now I am moving on to the next challenge and shall revisit ciabatta sometime in the future.

Ok, I admit it. I’m scared of yeast.

It’s alive. It needs looking after. It’s possible to kill it.

Eek.

Up until 2 weeks ago I hadn’t ever baked a loaf of bread from scratch and actually up until a few years ago I had a fairly strong dislike of bread.

I mean, I’m Chinese and so growing up there was a distinct lack of bread, save for soggy homemade sandwiches (with crust, oh the horror!)  for school lunch and the bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar dip which was served at the Italian restaurant we went to every now and again.

These early experiences, especially the dread of being forced to eat sandwiches at school (slightly squashed and with huge blobs of butter), left me very disdainful of bread (and indeed butter…). In fact I even remember carefully opening my sandwiches, lifting out the ham and cheese filling, painstakingly scraping off every smear of butter and then sneaking the bread into the bin without the dinner lady noticing (and woe betide you if she did notice as you’d quickly find yourself being made to eat whatever you’d just thrown away, straight from the bin).

But then about 3 years ago everything changed. A German friend of mine invited me to her house in Munich for Oktoberfest. Every morning a selection of local breads of every shape, colour and flavour appeared on the kitchen table. The first morning I ate 10 rolls piled with sliced meats and cheeses. And from that point on for the rest of the time we were there, I ate more bread than I had ever eaten before or since.

Upon returning home I finally understood why my German friend was constantly complaining about the bread in the UK. Supermarket bread is shockingly bland and proper artisan bakeries are few and far between.

Three years have passed since my eye-opening trip to Munich, and I have returned to my former ways of eating little to no bread (it’s probably better for the waistline that way). But then it dawned on me that if I could just get over my dislike of yeast then a whole new world of baking would be open to me.

So, with National Baking Week starting today I hereby end my boycott of all things which require proving and thus will I begin my adventure with yeast.

It is supposed to shorten the cooking time of food with it’s rubber seal which controls the pressure and reduces heat loss from the pan and it is also meant to eliminate oil splatter when frying.

My aunt actually passed this pan to us when we were in Singapore, thinking that my brother could have use of it whilst at uni. He decided not to take it in the end and so at home we have been experimenting with cooking all kinds of dishes in the Happycall Pan.

The great thing about it is that you can cook with both sides of the pan. So instead of having to fiddle around trying to turn your chicken, you simply close the pan and flip it over. With other dishes such as stir fries, there is no stirring involved, just close the pan and shake.

Despite being quite heavy, it is very easy to use and you would be surprised how many different dishes can be cooked in this pan. I have seen Youtube videos cooking a whole chicken, grilled fish, curries and even baking a cake!

The only downside we have discovered is that because the pan is closed there is no opportunity for excess liquid to evaporate meaning that a lot of the time you have to drain the pan before continuing to cook. It’s not too much hassle though and as you can see below we ended up with brown and crispy skinned chicken :)

Oh and I suppose another downside is washing up….. because essentially it is two pans awkwardly joined together…. but that’s what dads/ brothers/ boyfriends/ flatmates are for right? The cook doesn’t have to wash up!

Anyone else out there have a Happycall pan? I would love to hear what you think of it and what dishes you have made in it!

These are super easy bitesize choux pastry puffs topped with crunchy sugar, incredibly moreish and oh so easy to pop into the mouth.

Recipe from Rachel Khoo’s Little Paris Kitchen:

Ingredients:

170ml water
170ml milk
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
100g butter
170g plain flour
2 eggs
Icing sugar for sprinkling
Pearl sugar to decorate

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 200c. In a pan mix together the water, milk, salt and sugar. Add the butter (cubed) and bring to the boil.
2. Stir in the flour and mix until a smooth, soft dough forms.
3. Remove to a bowl and leave to cool for a few minutes, stirring to help release the heat.
4. Mix in the eggs, one at a time, until dough is smooth and glossy.
5. Place dough into a piping bag and pipe bite-sized dollops onto a lined baking tray.
6. Sprinkle with icing sugar and top with pearl sugar. Sprinkle with icing sugar again.
7. Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes or until evenly browned.
8. Allow to cool completely before packing away or covering as otherwise the steam will melt the pearl sugar.

You could also fill them with flavoured cream or drizzle with chocolate.

We ordered a selection of different Chinese/ Malay dishes, including fish curry, fried rice and cashew nut chicken. The dishes were nicely made, tasty but not too salty and most importantly, did not make me feel as though I’d just bathed in oil!

It was definitely a welcome change from all the satay and char kuay teow we’d been inhaling on a daily basis. It was wholesome, healthy food which satisfied the stomach in a way only home-cooked food can.

Disclaimer: we didn’t order any of the Western dishes on the menu, and having since seen photos from other reviewers I would probably steer clear of those! But don’t let that put you off going for some stir fried pak choi or salted egg broth.

Karen Kitchen
Lebuhraya Batu Lanchang
11600 Penang

OTHER POSTS FROM MY TRIP TO PENANG:
Satay and Ice Kacang
Cake at China House
Eastern and Oriental Afternoon Tea

As a treat we took my grandma to the Eastern and Oriental hotel for afternoon tea.

The Eastern and Oriental (fondly known amongst locals as The E&O) is a reminder of the time when Malaysia was owned by Britain. It boasts large airy corridors and rooms fitted with the typical colonial style dark mahogany furnishings set against pale coloured walls. It is refined and rather grand, what would have been a 19th century oasis of sophistication and cool in the midst of the humid Malaysian landscape.

I’m sure you all know of that holiday feeling when you have been eating foreign food for a week and suddenly you feel this urge for basic foods from home (for me it’s always a slice of buttered toast). In the absence of a good ol’ slice of Hovis I figured that English tea and sandwiches might be able to satisfy my “I’ve-been-in-a-foreign-country-for-a-while-and-need-some-familiar-food” cravings in style.

The restaurant itself offers “classical yet contemporary cuisine in an elegant environment in the finest traditions of colonial fine dining” and this indeed was reflected in the afternoon tea offerings. It costs about RM50 per person and includes all the usual afternoon tea flavours, smoked salmon, cucumber, scones and pastries, presented in a modern and inventive fashion.

The sandwiches looked beautiful and so intriguing, however I found them to be rather insubstantial and the bread was slightly dry. The scones were good, but again on the small side and a touch too crumbly and (to my horror) were served with whipped cream, not clotted cream (though perhaps I am being a bit harsh here, it is difficult to find many dairy products which we Brits take for granted in Penang).

There was also a selection of very cute petit fours which were delicious, if a little rich, especially since they were served after the savouries which meant we could not counteract the richness with a smoked salmon sandwich. Unfortunately because of this I only managed to eat 3 out of 5 petit fours and found the macaron to be extremely chewy and quite unpleasant to eat.

My overall opinion of this afternoon tea is that it’s not quite worth the money. The sandwiches, though quirky, lacked flavour and were far from filling me up. And the petit fours would have been more at home in a Parisian patisserie. From the look of the restaurant and the hotel I would expect an afternoon tea with lots of flavour and the tried and tested typical components, but whilst it does a good job in looking the part I sadly found it lacking in both substance and authenticity.

Eastern and Oriental Hotel
10 Lebuh Farquhar
10200 Penang

OTHER POSTS FROM MY TRIP TO PENANG:
Satay and Ice Kacang
Cakes at China House
Green and Healthy at Karen Kitchen