Yogurt Bread

At my house, my friend and I are both bread lovers. We eat bread every single day. We might not only eat it in breakfast, but also in lunch or tea time. So, bread is very quickly to be consumed at our house. Occasionally, we are very lazy to bake breads from the scratch so that we will use “bread mix.” It is easy to knead, and it takes less than an hour. And then, you can have fresh bread to eat.

But, mostly, we still bake fresh bread from the beginning. Mix flour, sugar, salt, and knead until it becomes soft and elastic. If you don’t have dough mixer, like me, you might need around 20~30 minutes to knead the dough. I just see it as a work out.

Oven Temperature Setting: 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6

Baking Time: Around 12~15 minutes
Recipe: 9 Yogurt Bread

Steps of Yogurt Bread

(1) Add flour, salt and sugar into a big bowl. Mix a little.

(2) Add milk with instant yeast and yogurt into the bowl. Mix all ingredients well.
(Selena’s Kitchen Talk: My instant yeast’s instruction is to add yeast in the water around 5 minutes. Check the instruction before using it.)
(3) Then, move the dough into a floured table. Knead olive oil into the dough. Knead the dough until it turns soft and elastic.

(4) Add raisin into the dough. Knead around 2 minutes until it distributes evenly. Shape the dough into a ball and put back to the bowl. Leave the dough in a warm place to double its size. It takes around 90 ~ 120 minutes

(5) After the first grow-up, move the dough to the working table with light flour. Separate it to 9 small balls equally. Leave the dough in a warm place to double its size again. It takes around 40 ~ 60 minutes

(6) Brush some egg or water over the top of dough. Send it to the pre-heat oven at 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6 and bake around 15~20 minutes until the top turns golden.

 
Because of yogurt, the taste of yogurt is softer. Every bite has a very lighter flavor of yogurt. It is a good idea to mix yogurt into the bread. It sounds more health. Enjoy it.

Hungarian Beef Goulash

Recently, the weather in the UK is really weird. It is not very cold, like having single digit only. The average temperature is around 11 degree C, but it is very windy. So, you feel colder than it is shown. In such kind of weather, hot meal is your comfort food, like Hungarian Beef Goulash

Few years ago, I have eaten Hungarian Beef Goulash in a restaurant. I can’t forget the taste of Hungarian Beef Goulash. I like the spice flavor a lot. Paprika is mad by red pepper. The weird thing is I don’t like red pepper, but I like paprika.

Recipe: Serve 3~4 people

 

 

Steps of Hungarian Beef Goulash
(1) Prepare a saucepan. Add some oil in. Switch the medium heat on. Add the beef in. Fried the beef until the surfaces turn golden. Then, pour the beef into a bowl. Set aside.

(2) Use the same pan to fry chopped carrot and onion around 5 minutes. Add some oil if needed.
(3) Add beef back to the pan. Add water and beef stock in the pan. Bring it to boil.

(4) Add paprika and tomato purée. Incorporate all ingredients well. Boil it around 5 minutes. And then switch the heat off.

(5) Pour Hungarian Beef Goulash to slow cooker. Turn it to the low heat and cook around 3 hours until beef turns tender.

(6) Season with salt if it is necessary.

Slow cooker is definitely your good friend in the kitchen. In Taiwan, my mom or my aunts do all stew every meal or soup on the stove. But, actually it is easier and more convenient to cook in the slow cooker. Like Hungarian Beef Goulash or Beef Stroganof, I add everything into slow cooker, then I go and do things. Sometime, I even go to work out in the gym. So, when I come back, there is a very yum and hot meal waiting for me. Come come… it is winter now that we need such HOT food to keep warm. Enjoy it.

Rosemary Carrot Toast

Recently, I like to do some different things on my baking or cooking. Mix some weird ingredients in the bread or doing some different combination! And see how it taste is? Is it weird? For example, there were two carrots in the fridge so that I think… yesyes… there is a carrot cake! Then, why not have a Carrot bread? Then, I grabbed some fresh rosemary leaves. I was wondering do these two ingredients match? I was not sure? Any, this is my try and run

Oven Temperature Setting: 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6

Baking Time: 15~20 minutes
Recipe

 

Steps of Rosemary Carrot Toast
(1) finely chopped rosemary and graze carrot. Set aside.

(2) Add flour, salt and sugar into a big bowl. Mix a little.

(3) Add 100 ml milk with instant yeast, chopped rosemary, grazed carrot and egg into the bowl. Mix all ingredients well.
(*Selena’s Kitchen Talk: I leave ONE table spoon of egg for brushing.
**Selena’s Kitchen Talk: My instant yeast’s instruction is to add yeast in the water around 5 minutes. Check the instruction before using it.)

(4) Then, move the dough into a floured table. Knead olive oil into the dough.

(5) And then, keep kneading it until the dough becomes soft and elastic. Then, knead the dough into a ball. Put back to the bowl. Leave at warm place to double the size. It takes around 90~120 minutes.

(6) When the dough doubles the size, squeeze the air out. Equally shape the dough into two balls. Place two balls in the toast tin. Leave at warm place to double size again. It takes around 45~60 minutes.

(7) When the dough is ready, brush some egg or water over the top. Send it to the pre-heat oven at 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6 and bake around 15~20 minutes until the top turns golden and crispy.

 

 

 

Same like carrot cake, this toast with carrot in is replaced as the sugar. So, the bread is full of rosemary flavor. No carrot flavor. Actually, I quite like this flavor. I think it will encourage me to try lots of crazy ideas in the baking and cooking… Hee… So… Enjoy it..

Cheese Brownies

I have baked this cake for lots of times. At beginning, I thought that cheese cake is my favorite. But, it is really boring to bake cheese cake every time. All my friends know how much I love chocolate. So, I thought why not mix cheese cake and brownie together?? Yes, why not? I still remember how amazing this cake is when I ate it first time. Then, I talked to my friends that I found out lots of baker lover have same feelings. Hee… I think it is what we do. Baking lovers have same IDEA!!

Oven Temperature Setting:

180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 for first 10 minutes

Then, lower to 160C/325F/Gas Mark 3 after having cheese batter

Baking Time: Around 60 minutes
Recipe: A 7" Cheese Brownies

 

Steps of Cheese Brownies
(1) Melted dark chocolate and butter. When melting chocolate, don’t let the bottom of the bowl (with chocolate) touching the boiling water. It will change chocolate’s physical characteristics.
Also, it needs to cool down for a while before adding into the batter. Otherwise, the batter will be cooked before we send it into the oven.
(2) Place eggs, milk, and vanilla extract in a bowl. Whisk them.
(3) Add sugar, flour, and baking powder into the bowl. Incorporate the well.

(4) Add melted chocolate into the bowl. Incorporate all ingredients well.

(5) Pour brownies batter into the baking tin. Send it into the pre-heat oven at 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 for the first 10 minutes.

(6) Prepare Cheese filling: add cream cheese, egg, vanilla extract in a big bowl. Mix all ingredients well. Then, add sugar into the cheese batter. Mix them

(7) Take brownies out of the oven. Reserve ONE Table Spoon cheese batter for swirling, and then pour the batter over the top of brownies.

(8) Selena’s Kitchen Talk: Drawing some pattern over the top is not a necessary step that skipping this one if you don’t want to do this.

Reserve one table spoon cheese batter. Add 2 Table Spoon of chocolate powder into the batter. Mix them well. Swirl it over the top of cheese batter. Then, draw the line in vertical direction.

(9) Switch the temperature down to 160C/325F/Gas Mark 3. Bake around 45~50 minutes until it sets.

Cheese Brownies is very delicious that it is more like brownies flavor with some soft cheese on the top. If you like cheese cake and chocolate brownies, don’t forget to try this one. You will LOVE it. Enjoy it.

Pumpkin Bread

It has been a week after Halloween. Time flies, doesn’t it? Actually, all shops started to display their X’mas things on the day after Halloween. OH MY GOD…  X’mas is coming… AGAIN!! I need to start to prepare some X’Mas gifts for my friends. And, this will be the second X’Mas I will have in the UK.

After Halloween, we still left some pumpkin. But, it was too much pumpkin to eat after you ate pumpkin for all week. So, I left that little piece in the fridge. I don’t want to do any sweet thing with pumpkin so that I thought… Why not do a pumpkin bread as my breakfast?!

Oven Temperature Setting: 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6
Baking Time: 15~20 minutes
Recipe

 

 

Steps of Pumpkin Bread

(1) Add flour, salt and sugar into a big bowl. Mix a little.

(2) Add 130 ml milk with instant yeast, pumpkin puree, and egg into the bowl. Mix all ingredients well.
(*Selena’s Kitchen Talk: I leave ONE table spoon of egg for brushing.
**Selena’s Kitchen Talk: My instant yeast’s instruction is to add yeast in the water around 5 minutes. Check the instruction before using it.)

(3) Then, move the dough into a floured table. Fold olive oil into the dough.

(Selena’s Kitchen Talk: Because this dough is very wet and sticky, it is really hard to handle it. I fold it a little bit only.)

(4) Trying to shape the bread as a big rectangle on the greased baking tray. Let it grow around 3 hours at room temperature slowly.
(5) Brush some egg or water over the top
(6) Send it to the pre-heat oven at 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6 and bake around 15~20 minutes until the top turns golden and crispy.

 

LOOK… How beautiful air holes in my pumpkin bread. I didn’t knead the dough that it is too wet and sticky to manage it. Instead, I folded it after mix all ingredients well. I prolong the time of proving and skip the second grow-up process that makes bread very soft.
I love my pumpkin bread a lot. Try a different bread for your breakfast or tea time. Enjoy it.

Popcorn (Salty and Salted Caramel Flavor)

I am not sure when people would like to eat popcorn? I am not sure their answers. For me, I think the first answer coming to my mind is “watching a movie.” I remember that it was always a long queue for popcorn when I was girl. Because the popcorn machine was small and took time to pop it. But, everyone can get the fresh popcorn. Now, I find out the popcorn stand in the theater do not pop for fresh now.

Anyway, m friend and I always have movie night at home. Last week, we decided to do our own popcorn. Why not?

Recipe

                      
Salted Caramel Sauce Link

Steps of Salty Popcorn

(1) Use the middle heat to melt the butter in the saucepan.
(2) Add popcorn kernels into the melted butter. Cover the lid.

(3) Wait around 3-5 minutes then all kernels will pop.

Steps of Caramel Popcorn

(4) Melt salted caramel sauce in the saucepan.
(5) Add half amount of popcorn into the pan. Stir the popcorn until all sauce is well covered the popcorn.

 

Popping popcorn is very interesting and funny thing. I like to hear the sound when popping. So, why not pop your popcorn by yourself at next movie night?

By the way, using salted butter for popcorn already has a great flavor so that we don't need to stir extra salt in. Enjoy it. 

 

Tiger Bread

Tiger bread is very popular in the UK that all big supermarkets sell fresh Tiger Bread. And because of it, there once a little girl wrote to Sainsbury’s that it is more like giraffe bread instead of tiger bread. Then, Sainsbury’s renames it as Giraffe bread since that. So, you can see people here like Tiger bread (or Giraffe bread) that a little girl would like to give her idea about it.

Tiger bread is very easy that it just uses the basic bread dough with some topping. Let me show you :D

Oven Temperature Setting: 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6

Baking Time: Around 15~20 minutes

Recipe: 8 Tiger Bread Rolls

 

 

Steps of Tiger Bread

(1) Add flour, salt and sugar into a big bowl. Mix a little.
(2) Add 230 ml milk with instant yeast into the bowl. Knead it into the chunk
(Selena’s Kitchen Talk: My instant yeast’s instruction is to add yeast in the water around 5 minutes. Check the instruction before using it.)
(3) Then, knead olive oil into the dough.

(4) Knead the rest of milk into the dough gradually until it turns softer and more elastic.

(5) Shape the dough into a ball and put back to the bowl. Leave the dough in a warm place to double its size. It takes around 90 ~ 120 minutes

(6) Prepare the topping: Mix all topping ingredients together and then leave their 20 minutes.

(7) After the first grow-up, move the dough to the working table with light flour. Separate it to 8 small balls equally. Brush some egg or water.

(8) Then, scoop the topping over the topping of breads. Leave the bread at a warm place to double the size again.

(9) Send it to the pre-heat oven at 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6 and bake around 15~20 minutes until the top turns golden and crispy.

 

 

If you are a baking lover, you definitely want to try this. It is easy and simply that just adding one topping can make you bread a little different. So, why not?! Then, check with your family and friends what it should be named? Tiger bread of Giraffe bread?