Better bread

Finally, I did it at my 5th attempt!! Almost!! It was about time before my confidence level dropped. Lol.

I figured out the mistakes on why my bread turned out different in past attempts. On my first attempt, I may have over kneaded the dough. The yeast wasn't properly working on my 2nd attempt so my bread turned out flat. On my 3rd and 4th attempt, they weren't good either. I used the dough setting in my breadmaker but the dough was too watery, and I had to toss it away. 

I followed this recipe for this attempt. More work unlike the previous trials where I basically tossed everything and left to the breadmaker to do the magic. It didn't turned out good but much better than my other attempts. 

Why not rose and puffed properly, I wasn't too sure. Maybe I didn't kneaded properly. About 9cm tall, the texture was alright but could be better and softer.  The bottom crust was darker and harder so we peel off the crust before eating.

Baked bread using breadmaker

Ingredients:

2 cups warm water

3 tbsp refined sugar

1 tbsp yeast

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

5 cups bread flour

1tsp salt

Methods:

1. In the bowl, add in water and yeast. Stir and let the yeast dissolve for 10 minutes. 

2. In a large bowl, add in oil, 2 cups of flour, sugar and salt. Mix in yeast mixture with the flour mix. 

3. Gradually add in more flours to make a firm dough.
4. On a floured surface, knead the dough for 8 to 10 minutes, until  smooth and elastic.
5. Place dough in an oiled bowl and leave in a warn place for a hour.
6. Punch the dough to let air out abd shape it into loaf.
7. Place the dough in the greased breadmaker. Select basic or white bread setting (for 1 1/2 LB) and press start. 

8. Sit down, relax and wait for your bread to be ready in few hours later. Let it cool down before take it out from the canister into a rack.

Enjoyed my homemade bread

Conclusion: I will try to bake again in the future. For the time being, I had enough of bread making over the MCO. Buying breads from bakeries are so much easier than all the works and frustration. :) However I believe thar I will make a better (if not perfect) bread one day. *fingers cross*

We went to

We sent a couple of face masks to my SIL in Sibu on the Sunday before the Movement Control Order implemented the following week. She requested to be sent by bus, so we went to Biaramas office to drop the parcel. RM9.50 for a parcel less than a kg. She was able to collect her face masks the next morning from Sibu bus station.

Since we were at the vicinity, we went to Boulevard Shopping Mall for a dim sum breakfast in Boulevard Restaurant.

I have blogged about the dim sum here numerous times. You could guess how much we loved the dim sum here that we make it a monthly thing to have it. We didn't do it last month though but no love losts. 

The place wasn't packed. As expected because of the Covid-19 scare, the mall wasn't crowded too. Almost deserted, that was how I decribed it. 

Minced pork congee and egg tarts came first. 

Egg tart and congee

We had the usual, such as char siew pau, chicken feet in special bbq sauce, deep fried beancurd fish cake, deep fried prawns beancurd rolls, har kaw and lo mai kai. 

Har kaw and lo mai kai

Char siew pau

Chicken feet

DF beancurd fish cake

DF prawns rolls

We also tried a new dim sum that we have not tasted in the past. Salted egg pork dim sum.  I wasn't crazy about egg yolk so I didn't like it very much. 

Salted egg yolk pork dim sum

They forgot the boys' plain noodle but it came after we checked on it.

After our breakfast, we had a walk around the mall. Hubby wanted to buy some books so we went to Popular Book Store for a browse and food shopping.

Everyone bought some books except me. Nothing caught my attention.

As we headed to basement carpark, we wanted to buy some yue tiaw from I love yoo! but we noticed it was no longer there. Or rather change of business by the operator. Now it is selling porridge and fried snacks such as carrot cake, banana fritters etc.

Hakkai Porridge, the name of the shop. No, we didn't feel like buying porridge and fried snacks since we had our breakfast earlier.

We ended up with to fu fa!! RM4.20 per pack. 2 packs home to be shared around. :)

The rest of the day, we stayed at home. The kids had books to keep them occupied. And mummy had some time to practise on her baking. Lol. 

Flat!

My bread making adventure continued when I got my breadmaker. 

School holiday was spent at home, with me experimenting with the breadmaker and trying out recipes that I found online. 

For my 2nd attempt, I was following GoDairyFree's recipe. Eggless, milkless and butterless white bread. 

And my bread turned out looked like this!! A flatbread! 3cm thick loaf of flatbread.

It was a mix of emotion for me. Happy and disappointed at the same time. Happy that the bread's texture looked and tasted like bread; crust was not burnt and hard while thr inside was soft and not too dense. But disappointed that it was not thick enough, not like the normal white bread we buy and eat. 

Tasted good when it was eaten while it was warm.  We had this bread for afternoon snack. We ate it like that; it was sweet and tasty. Hubby enjoyed it with his lamb stew which I cooked for dinner.

I will keep on baking bread. As they said, practice makes perfect. Any tips and advices, I appreciate them.

I found an interesting blog on the author's baking experience and his theories on why the bread came out flat. 

When it came

I was very excited when my sister from KL sent me her breadmaker in middle of the month. She only used it thrice, so it was pretty new. She gave me as a gift since she wasn't using it anymore. 

It was delivered to my doorstep on Saturday, when the school holiday started. Ta-da!! My first breadmaker. 

My new toy

I have been considering of buying breadmaker for so long. And the desire was even higher when we discovered of Jamie's allergic to milk, egg and cheese. He loves bread and cakes so much. Most bakeries don't sell allergic-free breads, so option of making own bread is there. 

Inside canister

So when my sister learnt about that during her CNY visit to our house, she immediately offered her breadmaker. Thank you so much, Betty sis!! 

Model

When it came, I started to learn more about this model, how to use and bake with it. We surfed through the internet, Youtube etc. That very same evening, we went to a nearby bakery to buy the necessary ingredients. Yup, we were that excited!!! Can't wait to get started!

The ingredients we bought

We got a pack of bread flour, refined sugar, yeast and butter. In the end I didn't use the butter, I used olive oil instead. I ran out of olive oil (coincidently), so I got to use up the olive oil that hubby got from Spain a couple of years ago.

4 small bottles of oil

It was a lesson to make bread from scratch that evening. There was always first in everything, right??  I am never too old to learn how to bake a bread! :) 

We used the machine to knead and keep it to rise for an hour. Then took the dough out from the machine canister to knead and punch it down before putting it back into the machine to bake. 

We tried the basic bread function which took 3 hours to be ready. Of course we didn't wait as it was getting late. So the next morning, we woke up to this!!! 

A round bread??? Hmm. Looked like the dough didn't rise at all. 

The texture wasn't what we wanted. Not like bread texture. Too dense and too gummy. So it wasn't a good first attempt. Please excuse me, as I am a first timer. A novice baker tried her best to bake. We tried again that day. Guess how it turned out to be???

Stay tune for my next post. :) 

Easy way

When I don't feel like cooking lunch, I take the easy way out. Eat out! My girl wouldn't mind sometime (especially when she is bored with my cooking!). 

It was one of those days when I felt like eating out. Last Thursday to be exact. 

I got to know this eatery from social media, and photos did looked tempting. Easy Weasy Cafe. Located at the L-shaped shoplots block just after Shell Station in Jalan Tun Ahmad Zaidi Adruce. 

I never venture to that area other than the medical lab that I had been to once for a blood test when I was pregnant with Jamie 7 years ago. 

It was around 11am when we reached Easy Weasy Cafe. A big dark sliding door at the front. When we slided open, the cafe was rather empty except for an occupied table. 

The setting and decoration were simple and not overly done. A friendly man served us, spoke fluent Chinese and English. We were given menu and order chit, so we wrote and placed our own order. They have RM8 lunch promotion from 11am to 3pm, so I took the chance to try its food.

What attracted me first when I entered the cafe was the plush toys on the seats. We had a couple of big teddy bears to keep us company while waiting for our food. They also have few books and boardgames to keep you entertained and occupied. 

Both of us ordered 100Plus as it was only RM2 when we ordered the lunch promotion. Soft drink choices are 100Plus, Coca and Sprite. Steel straws were served, that not so commonly seen here. 

I went for the RM8 lunch promotion and I had the cheesy grilled chicken rice. 

A love-shaped fried egg on one corner, accompanied by fragrant rice and green salad and grilled chicken chop on one side. 

They have 3 options of gravy,  namely Thai, Berries Pepper and Chessy. Initially I wanted the berries pepper but worry I would not enjoy it so I went for cheesy sauce. Not a bad choice. Very cheesy grilled chicken chop, for those who love cheese and grilled chicken, this is a good choice.

My girl didn't find anything fancy in the lunch promotion so she had Fish N Chip (RM17) instead. 

They served Thai sweet chilli sauce instead of the usual tartar sauce. 

No complaint from her, I guess she was happy with it.

Our lunch costs RM29.

By the way, they would be doing food delivery service during this Movement Control Order period. Anyone interested, please check out their Facebook page or contact them directly. They deliver to area as far as Kota Samarahan.

Everyone, stay in and stay safe! 

Whatever we want

On one fine Saturday evening, we had our dinner in 38 Food Street. One thing about this food court was its food choices. Ample of selection. We can choose and order whatever we want to eat. 

So we took turns to go around the food court and ordered our food. Jan and I went for the same stall, the fried stall. She was ordeeing fried rice while I went for tomato crispy noodle.

Somehow, something wemt wrong. Not so wrong but it wasn't what we expected. 

Fried rice RM6.50

A plate of fried rice came to our table. The waiter did not say anything and I thought it was Jan's fried rice. A big plate of fried rice, fit for 2!

Mongul lamb RM18

Hubby ordered this Mongul lamb from New Hong Seafood and a plate of nasi lemak from Nasi Lemak Rasta. 

Nasi lemak RM8

The boys had kolo mee (as usual). They never grow tired of kolo mee. They can have it for dinner! 

Kolo mee RM3.50

It took quite sometime for my order to came and I started to feel something wasn't right. Jan's fried rice came and mine took so long. So true enough, a plate of fried rice and a plate of tomato crispy noodle came to our table soon after. 

Tomato crispy noodle

The first plate of fried rice was not meant for our table as it turned out. It was from New Hong Seafood, they miswrote the order with hubby's Mongul lamb but since Jan has eaten, we paid for it as well. As for her original fried rice order, we had it packed and ate the next day. 

That Sunday

It was a Sunday. And happened to be International Women's Day. I had a nice, relaxing day as I didn't do any cooking that day. A rare break for this mummy. Lol. 

Early start that day, we went for breakfast in Nanyang Food Court. Then crossing the road to Emart for our monthly grocery shopping. And we bumped into a group of SUPP giving out flowers to women shoppers at the entrance, and that included me!! :)  Not real flower, but it quite good to receive a flower when you least expected it, right?? 

Anyway, our list of activities that Sunday also included the girl had study session with a friend in our house, hubby treated me to a body massage in Tribal Remedy in the afternoon. And a simple dinner in Big One Food Court, MJC.

We also invited Jan's schoolmate to join us for dinner after the girls finished their revision. Hubby did the ordering from Alice food stall. Although only us that ordered from the stall that time, it took quite sometime for our food to be ready. Understandable as an old lady mend and do all the cooking at the stall. 

Anyway, after a long wait, our first dish came to our table. Butter chicken. Crispy and juicy chicken strips. 

Then came the pork belly with salted fish and fried omelette with onion. 

Both were alright, the pork belly was appetizing and went well with rice. 

Curry squids came next.  Hubby loved squids, even more fresh one. He commented the squids were not so fresh, but I thought they were fine to my standard. 

We had 2 vegetables for our dinner, namely stir fried midin and stir fried manicai with egg. Both were my favourite, well cooked. 

RM46 for our dinner plus 6 plates of rice and a plate of fried noodle (which I didn't take photo of). Cheap, cannot complained much there. 

Miscellaneous Picture #96 : eat out

Chai kueh with a glass of fresh soya milk are good combination to have in the morning (in Megabite Batu Kawa). 

Nasi lemak pack RM2 with fried chicken (RM2 each) from a Malay stall in Emart Batu Kawa for a simple lunch one afternoon. 

On a rainy morning, I have a brunch of kaya butter toast, soft-boiled eggs and a glass of teh o in 38 Food Court, MJC. 

It might not looked appetizing or presentable, but the tomato crispy noodle from Y. Y. Cafe was good enough for me. 

When my girl and I felt like having mamak, we would satisfy our craving at the Curry House, MJC.