Peanut Butter Bread

Before I know it, the bread tin was empty again. Didn't I just baked some milk buns? Anyway, what better excuse for me to bake some more yummy bread?! This time I chose to bake Peanut Butter Bread from 孟老师的100道面包 (again). Well, because 孟老师' 's bread recipes always turns out well, so naturally that book is still currently my top choice for bread recipes. And yes, peanut butter, I love peanut butter! I remember when I was pregnant with my 2ng child, I down a 28oz jar organic peanut butter every month! I eat it with apple, crackers, bananas and of course on bread. ;) So it's not surprising my 2ng child loves peanut butter too! Anyway, this will be my first attempt in making peanut butter bread, pretty excited about it. ;)

Ingredients for Peanut Butter Bread:
Set A:
220g Bread flour
3g / 3/4 tsp instant active yeast
135ml water
Set B:
30g Bread flour
30g caster sugar
1/4 tsp salt
20ml water
Set C:
70g creamy peanut butter
Topping for bread:
30g egg white
30g confectioner's sugar
20g ground almond (I used ground roasted peanut)

Method:

• Mix all ingredients of Set A together in a large bowl. Knead till form a dough for about 2 minutes and place in a oil bowl to proof for 90 minutes.
• Mix all ingredients of Set B together with the proofed dough and knead till everything is incorporated.
• Continue to knead the dough till it is not sticky and add the butter. Continue to knead. To test if dough is ready, stretch a small piece using the finger tips of both your hands. If you can pull the dough to almost see through texture without breaking it, it's probably done.
• Add Set C, the peanut butter and knead together till everything is well blend.
• Place the dough into a greased bowl and let proof for 1hr.
• Punch out the air and divide the dough into 2 equal portions. Roll each dough into a log and sealing one end of both logs, plait the 2 dough logs together.
• Place the plaited loaf into a greased baking tray / tin to proof for 30 minutes.
  
• Preheat the oven to 180°C.
• In the meantime, make the topping. Mix all the topping ingredients together and brush generously over the proofed loaf.
• Bake the loaf in the oven for 22 minutes. If top brown too fast, cover with foil and continue to bake.
• Immediately remove from tin / baking tray after done and let cool before slicing.

It has a strong peanut butter fragrance in the taste and the sweet and slight crunch top is such a compliment to the bread. Spreading it with some jam and you already have your PB&J sandwich, cool! But guess what I spread on my slice this morning, more peanut butter, haha! Enjoy!

Chocolate Chiffon Cake

You know there are times when you have stuff that you know if you don't do it, you'll be itching to get it done...even if you know in your heart that it is not at all important? Haha, that's me alright, I knew there are stuff more important for me tend to, but somehow I kind of brush those to the back of my mind first. And I know if I don't do this bake, I'll be thinking about it for the rest of the week! *a little crazy right?* Okay, enough discussion about my sanity, here it is, the Chocolate chiffon cake that I have been wanting to make, haha!

I merely modified the pandan chiffon recipe that I made to make it into Chocolate flavor. Here is my version of my Chocolate Chiffon:

Ingredients for Chocolate Chiffon Cake:
Egg yolk mixture:
5 egg yolks
125ml fresh chocolate milk (I used Magnolia full cream)
2 tsp chocolate emuclo
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
4 tbsp corn oil
75g caster sugar
110g cake flour
20g unsweeten cocoa powder
30g dark chocolate shavings

Egg white mixture:
5 egg whites
1/4tsp cream of tartar
100g caster sugar

Method:

• In a large mixing bowl, add all the ingredients except the chocolate shavings for egg white mixture and beat till everything is blended in. Add the chocolate shavings and stir till incorporated.
  
• In another large mixing bowl, add the egg whites and beat till frothy. Add cream of tartar and sugar and continue to beat for another 4 to 5 minutes at high speed till the mixture is shiny and firm peaks. (Lift your beater to check, if the egg white stands when the beater is lifted upside down, it's good)
• Preheat the oven to 170°C.
  
• Gently fold in the egg white mixture into the egg yolk mixture in 3 separate portions.
• Pour the batter into a 9" tube pan and bake in the oven for 40 to 45 mins.
• Immediately invert the whole tube pan with the cake once out of the oven and let cool.
• Only when the cake is completely cool then remove it from the tube pan. Cut and serve.

Some how I realize that the chiffon cake always taste better the following day. The taste kind of mellow out...same for the other chiffons I made. One thing I might add into this recipe next time is some quality melted dark chocolate and perhaps more cocoa powder, that should really enhance the chocolate taste even better!
Anyway, with that done, I was pretty satisfied....but just when I thought so, my elder daughter came to me and asked "Ma, how come you never make Strawberry cake?" (she loves strawberries) Oh dear....does that mean I need to make Strawberry Chiffon now? Haha! O well...we'll see, anyway, need to catch up with my sleep, have been tending every night to my younger girl as she's got a cough going on, kept waking up. Cheerio fellows!