Vanilla pan

It's my own version to the melon pan! :D I really want to make melon pan some time, or taste it, but they just don't sell it here and they don't sell melon extract (one of the main ingredients of the melon pan) either.. So, for that part, I'm screwed, but that doesnt mean I can adjust it to something that requires ingredients they do sell around here.. So, I came up with vanilla pan! It's a small sweet bun (very delicious!!) that consists out of two layers. It was a bit awkward to make, but the result was stunning! Next time, I promised myself, we're not only going to make something delicious, we're going to make it look nice as well! I really want to turn them into little turtles!! x3



Ingredients:
Bread dough:
300 gram (white) bread flour
1 1/4 tablespoon instant dry yeast (6 grams)
36 gram caster sugar
1 teaspoon salt (5 grams)
1 1/4 teaspoon milk powder (6 grams) (I used powdered coffeemilk for this)
250 ml warm water
30 gram (unsalted) butter (room temperature)

Top layer:
80 gram (unsalted) butter (room temperature)
90 gram caster sugar
80 gram egg
200 gram cake flour
2 gram baking powder
vanilla extract (or any other extract for a different taste)

Bread dough:
1. Sift the flour and add the sugar, salt and milk powder into a large mixing bowl. Add the yeast as last and mix the mixture until everything is well blend in.
2. To let the water adjust to the texture, add the warm water a little at a time, in about 4 to 5 times (or more). Don't add it all in one time!
3. Mix the ingredients with a spoon or fork, until it is too firm to continue. Take the dough out and continue kneeding on a lightly floured surface.
4. Kneed the dough for about 5 minutes or until it no longer sticks to the surface. Add more water if the dough is too dry, or more flour if it is too wet.
5. Flatten the dough and butter in the middle. Fold the edges of the dough around the butter, to trap it inside. Start kneeding again. This will be a bit awkward (it was for me), but after a while the butter will be absorbed into the dough. This could take about 10 minutes.
6. Place the dough in a slightly butter-greased bowl and cover it with a damp towel or cling wrap. Leave it in a warm place for about an hour or until doubled in size. In the meanwhile start making the top layer.

Top layer:
1. Add the sugar and butter into a bowl. Mix these using an electric mixer until the mixture becomes creamy and pale.
2. Add a little bit of the vanilla extract and mix again.
3. Put the eggs in a different bowl and lightly beat them with a whisk or electric mixer.
4. Add the eggs into the butter-mixture, little bit at a time (about 3-5 additions). Mix well after each addition.
5. In a different bowl sift the cake flour and baking powder.
6. Add this mixture to the butter mixture in about 3-5 additions. With the electric mixer, or a spoon, mix everything well. Devide the mixture into 12 portions (this isn't neccisary). Leave the mixture in the fridge until you need it (or for half an hour).

Bread dough:
1. Kneed and punch the dough again while making sure to press all the trapped air out.
2. Devide the dough into 12 portions and shape them into little balls. Place the balls onto a lightly greased or grease-proof paper-lined oven tray. Cover with a damp cloth or cling wrap again and leave to proof for about 10 minutes.

Finishing touch:
1. Remove the top layer from the fridge and devide it into 12 portions if you have not already.
2. Take two pieces of cling wrap or plastic bags and on one put a little dough ball. Flatten it a bit and put a flattened ball of pastry layer on top.



3. Cover it with the second cling wrap or platic bag and roll the bags with dough between your hands into a ball. Make sure the two mixtures "attach" to eachother.
4. Remove the cling wrap or plastic bags and put the ball back onto the oven tray. Make sure the top layer doesn't cover the bread dough all the way down to the tray. Leave about a centimeter/inch left for the dough to be able to rise in the oven.
5. Repeat the past steps 11 times, until all the buns are done.





6. When all balls are on the baking sheet you can start decorating them. Using knives, forks, cookie cutters or anything you can find to decorate the balls as you want.
7. Leave the buns for 50 minutes to an hour. Preferably in a warm place. It's not needed to cover them this time.
8. Bake the buns in a pre-heated oven at about 170 degrees Celsius or 340 degrees Fahrenheit for about 10 minutes or until they turn goldbrown and a food pin or fork comes out dry.



There you have your delicious Vanilla pan! I really loved these breads and didn't add anything to them, but you could put sugar or jam inside or cover them with powdered sugar. I'm defenitely going to make this one again and this time make little turtles!

Rum & Raisin rocks

I've had the obsession for a few years now. Never really know where it came from, but as soon as I see something with rum and raisins I have to have it! In holland, the traditional "ontbijtkoek" (a special spiced cake usually eaten as breakfast) has a variation with rum and raisins and I simply love it! When I saw a recipe called "rum bread" I immediately had to give it a try and, of course, add raisins.
When I read the recipe I felt like there was something wrong and when I made the recipe I realised I was right: the dough that you would get from making this looked like the sandcookies I used to make when I was little and nothing at all like the dough you need for a bread. Nevertheless, I went through all the steps and changed the recipe to make turn the dough into a real cookie-dough. I split the dough in half and baked tehe cookies I made from them seperately. The first set of cookies turned out a bit hard, the reason they are called rocks. The second set, which I baked a bit shorter, turned out softer and, personally, I liked those better. My family didn't seem to be bothered by the difference and I cought my mom eating near 10 of them in one day! Needless to say, they were gone in no time and a real succes!!



Ingredients:
375 gram flour
1 pinch of salt
1 package baking powder
150 grams (unsalted) butter
150 grams sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon rum essence, or real rum
1 cup raisins

1. Sift the flour, salt, sugar and baking powder through eachother. Mix the raisins in as well. Make a well in the middle of the mixture.
2. With and electric mixer mix the butter until it's soft. One by one, add the eggs and mix them in well before adding the next. Add the rum essence as last.
3. Poor this mixture into the well in the flour. First, use a fork or spoon to mix the two mixtures, later on kneed them into eachother.
4. Spread a baking sheet out over an oven rack and roll the dough into balls, splat them and place them on the baking sheet. Or, if you have more time, use a rolling pin to spread the dough out over a lightly floured surface. Use a cookie cutter to get shapes out of the dough and place these on the baking sheet.
5. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius or 370 degrees Fahrenheit. When the oven has preheated put the oven rack in and leave the cookies in the oven for about 10 minutes. When the cookies seem dry, take them out and leave them on the counter.



There you go! Your own Rum & Raisin rocks! If you want them to have the real crumbly "rock"-effect bake them a little longer until the surface gets a bit darker colour. Make sure to not leave them in too long! They happen to burn fast. I thought the cookies went really well with milk or tea!

Yoghurtbread

Somehow lately I've really been into baking breads. Don't really know why, but it's not a bad thing I hope! My mother still had one book about making breads so I wanted to give it a try. Unfortunately the recipe was very short and didn't make much sense at all and the ingredient-list was in such an awkward order that it just pissed me off. To make it even worse, the book had no pictures except for on the cover! But sicne I really wanted to give it a try, I made one of the breads that seemed interesting: Yoghurtbread.
Making this bread was very easy and didn't take all too much time like the buns I tried to make before. All the rising tends to take a lot of time, but this bread only needed to rise twice. I had to change the recipe and some of the ingredients to make it work out, but it turned into a really nice bread! It was gone in no time!



Ingredients:
2 tablespoons butter
125 ml milk
1 teaspoon sugar
125 ml yoghurt
1 egg
300 grams fine wheat flour
1 package instant yeast (7 grams)
1 teaspoon salt

1. Start off with melting the butter on a low fire or just in a microwave and let it cool.
2. Heat the milk on a low fire and add the sugar. Stir until all the sugar is dissolved.
3. Take the pan off the fire and add the butter to the milk. Mix it with a whisk (one of the rare times I didnt use my electric mixer, but feel free to use it).
4. When the butter is mixed in, add the yoghurt and whisk it again. When the yoghurt too is mixed in, seperate the egg and add the egg yolk to the mixture. Whisk again. Keep the egg white, you can use this later on.
5. In a large bowl, whisk the flour, yeast and salt. Make a well in the middle of the mixture.
6. Poor the milk-mixture into the well and with a fork or spoon mix it into the flour. When the mixture starts getting more thick, kneed it with the hands. Add more flour if needed. Kneed it for about 5 minutes and form it into a ball.
7. Use a bit of the egg or some butter to grease a bowl and put the dough ball into it. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth or towel and leave it in a warm place for an hour or until about double the size.
8. After that hour take the dough out of the bowl and start kneeding again, pushing the trapped air out. Shape the dough into a round ball again and put it on a baking sheet or greased oven rack. Cover it with the damp cloth or twoel again and leave it for half an hour.
9. Half an hour later, grease the top of the bread with the remaining egg or extra butter and preheat the oven at 190 degrees Celsius or 370 degrees Fahrenheit. When the oven has preheated, put the bread in the oven and leave it for about half an hour.
10. When a fork or foodpin comes out dry remove the bread from the oven and leave it to cool. After the cooling wrap it in plastic or aluminium fool so the bread doesn't dry out. It's ready to serve now!

To me it tasted like just an ordinary bread, but when it's still a bit warm it tastes wonderful with a bit of jam!! :)

Marble cake

Note: I wanted to make this recipe myself again when I realised the recipe is faulty. Please refer to a more recent post Marbled Pound Cake for a correct recipe. I will update this post as soon as I remember where the recipe is from!



This is one of the few recipes that turned out great right away! Needless to say, this cake was gone in no time! This did mean, however, that I didn't get any time to make some proper pictures of the lovely cake! Something I will have to do the next time, and update this post. For the lovely shawnie and so you don't have to wait to try this recipe, I will share it before updating any pictures.
Its an easy recipe, but it does require a lot of bowls! And cleaning the handmixer every once in a while. I am really glad I have one that's for sure!!

Ingredients:
100 grams milk chocolate
1/2 cup (full cream) milk
1 1/2 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (unsalted) butter, room temperature
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Double-boil (au bain-marie) the chocolate until it has melted. Make sure to stir occasionaly.
2. Take the pan with chocolate off the pan with hot water. Add a 1/4 cup of milk and stir it in. An electric mixer is handy for this. Set the mixture aside.
3. In a sepereate bowl, whisk the flour with the baking powder and salt. Put this aside as well.
4. In another bowl mix the sour cream and other 1/4 cup of milk together. Once again, set aside.
5. Cream the butter and sugar with the electric mixer until the mixture is light and fluffy.
6. Beat the eggs in one at a time. Make sure to mix well after every egg. Once all the eggs are mixed in, add the vanilla extract and mix again.
7. Add a few spoons of flour to the last mixture (with egg and butter). Mix with an electric mixer and then add a bit of the sour cream-mixture and mix again. Keep repeating this till all the flour and sour cream are mixed in.
8. Spoon half of the batter in a seperate bowl and add the chocolate-mixture and fold it in with a spoon.
9. Grease a cake tin (or two, like I needed) or a bread tin and poor in the two mixtures the way you like. It's nice to not do a half-half cake, but have the two batters somewhat swirl together.
10. Pre-heat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius or 320 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake the cake for about 50 minutes or until the cake looks dry and a fork or foodpin comes out dry. Take it out of the oven and leave it to cool. Enjoy your cake!