My Promise - By Zaria

Zaria has been extremely difficult the last week, using foul language, spiting in her sister's tea just because her sister made tea without telling her (they always brew tea together), using her sharp tongue to talk back, sometimes even telling us she wished we weren't her family, she wished she was an orphan etc etc. 

This little sweetie pie has a sweet sweet sugary filling, but sometimes her temper gets the better of her. After a few 'counselling' sessions we had with her, she decided to write us her promise or her ode to her family. (She even signed it in red to indicate she's serious). 

Sweet Sweet Zaria, we all love you very much, and hope you will be able to control your temper, and outgrown this episode in life, and we hope you will keep all these promises you made to your family.

Homemade Sandwich Bread Loaf

I have bought these bread tins from Penang for more than a year and never tried using them before. Few days back, the girls requested for sandwiches for school lunch so I thought why not made a sandwich bread loaf. The girls don't like sweet bread unless it's cinnamon buns, so I tweaked the recipe I found in this recipe book, using only 1/3 of the sugar listed on the recipe. 

It takes a long time to make produce the loaf because of the ferment, but using a ferment creates a nicer flavour and softer bread, which to me, is worth the wait. ♥Recipe adapted from Carol♥ 

Ingredients: 

For the ferment： 

200g strong white flour 

135g water 

1/2 tsp yeast 

For the dough: 

210g strong white flour 

90g cake flour 

1/4 tsp yeast 

20g sugar 

3/4 tsp salt 

60g extra virgin olive oil 

145g water 

1 egg 

Method : 

For the ferment : 

1) Mix ingredients for the ferment together (I use hand) for about 5mins until you have a rough dough. 2) Place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover and leave it to rest 4hrs~6hrs. 

For the dough: 

1) Put the flour in a mixing bowl and add in the yeast. Scoop the ferment into the bowl, then add the egg, water, oil, sugar and salt, mixing well until all combined; knead for 4-5mins (I use the Thermomix and knead for 4mins; but you can use hand or a mixer with dough hoook). (Step 1, 2 at the below pix)

2) Remove the dough, and transfer to a lightly oiled bowl, forming it to a ball, cover 

3) Leave it to rest for 1.5hrs or until double in size. (Step 4 at the below pix) 

4) Sprinkle a little flour on your work surface and turn the dough out in one piece, deflate the dough slightly. Divide the dough equally into 2 portion (it's very soft but supple). Roll them into balls, cover and let it rest for 15mins. (Step 5 at the below pix) 

5) Using a rolling pin, roll the dough out into long flat strips, and then roll each of the strip up into logs. Once again, roll the dough out into long flat strips with the rolling pin, and roll them up again into logs. (Step 6 to 10 at the below pix) 

6) Place the 2 pieces of roll up dough in the bread tin. Allow it to proof for an hour. (Step 11 at the below pix) 

7) Mean while preheat the oven to 210C. When the rolls are ready (should rise to almost 90% covering the bread tin), place the lid on and put the bread tin into the oven. (Step 12, 13 at the below pix) 

8) Bake for 40mins. 

9) Once baked, remove the bread from the tin and let it cool on the rack.

Book page from Carol's 2nd book

And viola, a nice loaf of sandwich bread. It has a strong crust which holds its shape, and the bread itself is airy and soft. Note : The bread tin I have is 20cm x 12cm x 11cm. After the dough was rested, I could see that it has risen much bigger than the bread tin, hence I took about 100g dough out and formed them into buns (baked at same temperature for 12mins). It probably would have spilled out of the tin or making the loaf denser if I haven't done so.