Assorted Multigrain Rice Bread (五糙米面包) and Orange Buttercake with Grand Marnier

As expected, once the kids' exams are over, I'll be again tight down other stuff. I guess any SAHM will know that it's actually more hectic when your kids are free from school work and idling at home versus them busy with studies. :) But again, I welcome this, because at least the mood is more relax and the kids can have loads of fun at home or out. I am so looking forward to our little getaways, friends to meet and places to go (not to mention all that eating and shopping, lol!) So you probably will see much less posts from me this month...I'll be lucky if I can put up another post before end of November!(*.*) BTW, this will be a super long post (greedy me), so bare with me...

Anyway, back to today's post. I have again baked another healthy bread loaf this week and very eager to share with you all (despite skipping through all those backlogs!). I got this fabulous recipe, Assorted Multigrain Rice Bread (五糙米面包), from my favorite bread recipe book, "Natural Breads Made Easy", which mainly uses the pre-fermented dough technique. Long wait of 17hours but all worth while when you taste the delicious end product.

I am such a huge fan of bread making...but mostly soft Asian breads, because of it's soft fluffy texture plus my kids love eating them. Again this technique did not disappoint, the bread was again soft, bouncy and delicious. Even with the addition of the multigrain rice, the bread texture was still light and fluffy. Although there are still bits of grains (which I think it adds wonderful texture), my kids still chow down the bread happily, not knowing the wholesome goodness it has for them.

Ingredients for Assorted Multigrain Rice Bread (五糙米面包): (Makes 2 loaves 9x4x5)
Pre-ferment Dough:
404g bread flour
231ml water
12g fresh yeast (I used 6g active dry yeast)
6g salt
12g skim milk powder

Dissolve the yeast in water. Add bread flour, sea salt, skim milk powder and knead until soft. Cover the dough in cling wrap or a big zip log bag. Refrigerate to let it prove for 17 hours.

Main Dough:
173g bread flour
6g sea salt (I added only 3g)
58g caster sugar
144ml water
3g fresh yeast (I used 3g active dry yeast)
40g unsalted butter
231g cooked multi-grain rice
Note: I bought my mutligrain rice from Sheng Siong in Singapore. Here is a picture of it. Product is from Taiwan.

Cook your multigrain rice in your rice cooker and set to brown rice option (if there is). The cooked rice should look like this:

You can very well cook this the day before and chill it together with your pre-ferment dough in the fridge. Remember not to add hot steamy rice to your dough when mixing, let it cool before use.

Method:

• Knead all ingredients of the main dough together, except the butter. Add pre-ferment dough piece by piece. Knead after each addition until soft and smooth. Add butter. Knead until stretchable and pass the window panel consistency.
•  

• Put the dough into a big bowl. Cover with cling wrap and let it prove for 30minutes till double.
• Divide the dough into 2 equal portions. Each halve should weigh about 600g. With one of the portion, divide into 8 equal rounds.  Flatten each portion and roll round, sealing any edges. Repeat for the rest of the dough portions.P lace the 8 round doughs into the loaf tin and let proof. 
• As for the other 600g dough portion, you can either bake another loaf or make egg mayo buns like me.
• I again divide 600g into 10 equal dough portions of 60++g. Flatten, roll round and seal and edges. Place in the paper liners to proof. Make an indent in the center using aluminium tins(optional). Scoop the egg mayo in to the cavity and contiue to proof till double in size.
• As for the loaf dough, let it prove for about 45 minutes or until the dough has risen to 90% of the depth of the loaf tin. You can either cover the lid or bake it open top. If open top, brush with egg wash (I didn't do that because I want it to be vegetarian version). Bake in 175C for 30 to 35minutes.

Instead of making 2 loaves, I made some egg mayonnaise buns for my parents and sisters with the other loaf portion.

I love the way I shaped the dough this time...with all the bumps on top makes the bread loaf even more "attractive", hahaha!

I think I might have slightly under baked the loaf a little this time. Perhaps another couple more minutes in the oven would have brown the sides more nicely. However the inside was still very fluffy and nice...doesn't this photo makes you want to try it out yourself? (^.^)

I am going to be a little ambitious today and post up another recipe. It's actually a simple everyday cake, Orange Buttercake with Grand Marnier. I guess the Grand Marnier part is probably not an everyday thing though, lol! Bought this large bottle of Grand Marnier at DFS and trying to find ways to use it, so decided to spike the orange buttercake!

This recipe is actually a favourite of mine which I have used over and over again. The first recipe was my Passion Fruit Yoghurt Pound Cake, which I did years back. Then I modified it to using sour cream (I only had sour cream that time!) version; Passion Fruit Sour Cream Cake. I figured replacing the passion fruit with orange will be no biggy and the texture should be equally yummy. And I was right!

Ingredients for Orange Buttercake with Grand Marnier: (makes 2 loaves of 7x3,5"x3.5")
150g plain flour
150g cake flour
170 g caster sugar
2 tsp baking powder 
220g unsalted butter, room temperature
4 eggs
100g low fat sour cream
70ml fresh milk
Zest of 1 large orange 
Juice of 1 large Navel Orange
2 tbsp Grand Marnier
pinch of salt

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 180°C. Butter and line a loaf tin with parchment paper and butter it again. (I used a 7" by 3.5" loaf tin )
• In a mixing bowl, beat butter, orange zest and sugar together till light and fluffy.
• Add eggs, one at a time till well mixed in.
• Add in sour cream and stir till incorporated. Then add in the orange juice and mix well.
• Add in flour, baking powder and salt and stir till just blend in.
• Pour the cake batter into the loaf tin and bake for 40 to 45 mins or till the cake tester comes out clean.
• Cool on rack before slicing.

With the addition of sour cream, this cake is indeed lighter then other buttercake. Fine crumbs and melt in your mouth texture is the winning points for me to go back to this recipe over and over again. Love the orangy citrus scent although not overly powering. I added bittersweet chocolate chunks into one of the loaf. Orange + chocolate = perfect marriage! No worries about the addition of alcohol in the cake batter if you are serving this to young kids, it's probably all evaporated in the baking process. :)

Okay, shan't go much further to make this any longer! Hope this two homey bakes will trigger you to bake them for your love ones over the weekend. ;) Before I forget, Happy Deepavali to all my dear Indian friends and readers out there! 

Cheers!