breakfast

SCRUMMY BAKERS BAR – Recipe

Posted on by misterbowtie

MANGO MATCHA BAR Ingredients:

  • 200g Rolled Oats
  • 2 Ripe Banana / 1 Cup 256g Plain Greek Yogurt
  • 1/4 85g Cup Honey
  • Zest & Juice of 1/2 lemon/lime
  • 4-5 Tablespoons Flax Seeds / dried mangoes
  • Pinch of Salt
  • Matcha Powder (to dust) Or…
  • White sesame, toasted
  • Desiccated Coconut, unsweetened (to roll in)

 

METHOD:

  1. Toast sesame in a pan over medium heat, stirring frequently until brown and fragrant.
  2. In a bowl, combine oats, sesame, salt, chopped dried mangoes (bite size) and flax seeds.
  3. In another bowl, whisk together the yogurt, lemon juice and honey.
  4. Mix together with the dried ingredients until well combined.
  5. In a cling wrap or baking paper-lined pan, place the mixture in and press to compress into a bar of desired thickness and size.
  6. Freeze until firm enough to slice, remove from pan and slice into small bars of choice. Store in an airtight container and keep in the fridge till needed.
  7. Dust with matcha powder before serving for best presentation.

 

 

PEANUT BUTTER CHOCOLATE BITES Ingredients:

  • 40g 1/4 cup Cashew Nuts, toasted
  • 30g 1/4 cup oats
  • 100g cup natural Peanut butter
  • 20g honey
  • 2 Tablespoons Flax Seed
  • 35g Dried mulberries
  • Dark Chocolate, bittersweet 80%
  • Sea Salt

 

METHOD:

  1. Toast cashew nuts in a pan over medium heat until brown and fragrant.
  2. Add all ingredients except chocolate and salt into a processor.
  3. Blitz until a fine paste.
  4. Press into small bite sized molds, pressing firmly to ensure the mold is properly filled.
  5. Freeze until solid and pop out of the molds onto a lined tray. Allow to come to room temperature.
  6. Melt the chocolate in short 10 second intervals until smooth.
  7. Place some melted chocolate on top of each cube, and sprinkle a tiny pinch of salt over each one.
  8. NOTE: If you do it whilst the cubes are too cold, chocolate will set faster. I would recommend doing a few then adding the salt, and repeating with the rest.

 

SPICED COCOA BALLS Ingredients:

  • 100g Unsweetened Tahini
  • 70g Rolled Oats
  • 1/2 Tablespoon Ground Cinnamon
  • 1/2 Tablespoon Cocoa Powder, Unsweetened
  • 4-5 Tablespoons Uncrystallised Ginger, Chopped
  • 20g Honey
  • Extra Cocoa Powder for rolling

 

METHOD:

  1. Combine all ingredients and mix until well combined.
  2. Roll into bite sized balls and keep airtight and chilled until needed.
  3. Roll in cocoa powder, toasted sesame seeds or coconut.

SODA SCONES RECIPE

Posted on by misterbowtie

Ingredients:

  • 450g (3 Cups) Plain Flour
  • 6 Teaspoons Baking Powder
  • 240ml (1 cup) thickened cream/heavy cream  – Variation:
  • 240ml (1 cup) lemonade
  • 1 Egg Beaten
  • Splash of Milk

 

Method:

  1. Preheat oven to 200C (400F).
  2. Combine all dry ingredients in a mixing bowl.
  3. Stir to combine and add all wet ingredients.
  4. Using dough hook or beater attachment, or with your hands knead until it comes together.
  5. Begin to add handfuls of flour, mixing to incorporate until the dough comes away from sides.
  6. Add some more flour in small portion and knead just until all dough comes away from the bowl and becomes smooth in texture. Should be still slightly moist to the touch but won’t stick to your fingers.
  7. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough evenly to the thickness of 2-3 cm (1 inches) thick. The thicker the more time to cook but also taller your scone will be.
  8. Using a 6cm diameter round cutter, lightly coated with flour, cut out as many scones as you can and arrange neatly on a large baking paper lined pan. They should be just touching each other side by side.
  9. Gently press and push to bring the dough back into a smooth piece of dough of similar thickness. Cut and repeat until there’s only a thin scrap left that won’t make more scones. This should yield roughly 12 or so scones.
  10. Lightly beat an egg and add a tablespoon or so of milk and egg wash the scones.
  11. Bake them for 25-30 minutes or until they are golden brown.
  12. I like to make them at the beginning of a week, freeze them and then just microwave as needed to warm and soften.
  13. It’s super delicious halved and toasted up in the oven with garlic and herb butter that I made in my previous video recipe, again something easy to make for the rest of the week to use at leisure.

**NOTE: Process of baking scones close to each other is called batch baking. You can also separate them and bake it that way. It is believed the batch proving process retains more moisture but takes longer to bake (from my distant pastry school memory I think, at least).

 

COFFEE MOCHI BRIOCHE

Posted on by misterbowtie


Hello lovely people! I am one of those many people who are crazy about mochi, always been one of my favourite snacks growing up. It’s been a long while since I’ve wanted to fuse it with something more western in dessert, or something a little bit more unusual. Finally, the idea for what to do with it has arrived.

This is perhaps just the first step in testing the waters, but coffee and mochi is not a commonly seen combination as far as I know – though mochi is a good medium for absorbing any flavor and putting it to good use. This time I have put the mochi pieces into the brioche flavored with coffee, in the future I hope to be making a different kind of approach to adding mochi to the dessert. You will have to find out.

For now, enjoy this indulgent and fragrant bread recipe for a naughty breakfast or a quick snack in the afternoon – the COFFEE MOCHI BRIOCHE LOAF! 😀

MOCHI INGREDIENTS

= 100g Shiratamako/Mochiko – Glutinous Rice Flour
= 2 Brown tbsp Sugar
= 95-100ml Water
= Potato Starch (Katakuriko) (for dusting)

METHOD:

  1. Dust baking sheet generously with the starch.
  2. Combine sugar and shiratamako or mochiko in a non-stick, heat durable bowl.
  3. Using a spatula, gradually add in the water, stirring to combine whilst ensuring no pockets of flour are left.
  4. Steam the mochi dough in a steamer, with a cloth wrapped around the lid to prevent water dripping into the dough as it cooks.
  5. Turn off the heat when placing the dough in.
  6. Turn on the steamer to high and cook for 15 minutes.
  7. Remove the bowl and wet a rubber spatula, stir the mochi until it becomes a consistent texture and place onto the starch dusted pan.
  8. Dust the mochi and your hands with starch, particularly around between your thumb and index finger as you’ll rip the mochi from there.
  9. Separate mochi into bite sized chunks as you desire, truffle sized balls should suffice for a good dispersion in a loaf of bread.
  10. Wrap and freeze the tray of mochi tightly with cling wrap to prevent drying out whilst you prepare the bread dough.

*The chilling process will help the mochi to hinder the cooking process a little so that it won’t overcook as the bread bakes.

BRIOCHE INGREDIENTS

= Plain flour (250g)

= Butter (80g), room temperature

= 2 eggs

= 7g instant dried yeast

= 2 Tablespoon brown sugar

= Milk (80ml)

= Pinch of salt

= 2 TBSP Coffee

= Egg wash

RECIPE:

Warm the milk and dissolve the coffee granules. Allow to cool to lukewarm.

Add all the ingredients at once (flour, sugar, salt, yeast, eggs, milk and butter), keeping the salt and dried yeast in different corners of the bowl.

Knead the mixture with the hook attachment until it forms smooth and elastic dough. It will still be very sticky, but most should come out of the bowl as one piece of dough when you remove it.

Shape dough into a ball and transfer to a large bowl and cover the bowl with glad wrap, or a clean tea towel.

Prove the dough until it doubles in size.

Knock the air out of the proved dough.

Flour the working surface; roughly flatten the dough into a rectangle triple the width of your loaf pan.

From one side of the width, in the first 1/3 section scatter 1/2 of your mochi balls. Fold it over the second 1/3 section.

Sprinkle the remaining mochi and then fold the remaining half of the brioche that has nothing on it over the mochi sprinkled half.

Mix up the dough with your hand a little to distribute the mochi all over.

Place the brioche dough into the loaf pan and very gently, spread it out as evenly as possible.

Lightly grease a sheet of cling wrap, place it over the loaf tin and prove the dough until it is doubled in size again.

Preheat the over to 180 Degrees Celsius once the dough is almost done proving.

Egg wash the entire top surface, and bake the brioche until golden brown, with a hallow sound when tapped on. Should take around 30 minutes, allow to cool till lukewarm before removing from loaf to slice into pieces.

Keep airtight and freeze if not consumed within 3-4 days.

= 212 BLU CAFE BREAKFAST TIME = [AFFAIRS WITH FOOD] #2

Posted on by misterbowtie

= 212 BLU CAFE BREAKFAST TIME = [AFFAIRS WITH FOOD] #2

212blu

HOWDY! How’s everyone’s week been? I’ve been feeling generally quite ‘healthy’ in the sense of not only cooking things to have at work so I have a more balanced and nutritious intake of different food, rather than just eating pastry from work like I have done in most work days of the past two years. It’s scary thinking about how much of the puff pastry stuff I have consumed if I think about having eaten 2 per work day for most work days, and 5 work days per week!

The other thing that has predominantly made me feel ‘healthier’ in terms of my mind as well, is pushing myself to not just sleep and stay in bed on my day offs. I fill the time up more to go out and try different cafes, or buy breads or pastries from places I find online that are of interest. It stimulates this happy and exciting nerve inside me somewhere – and I’ve realised it can definitely bring out a lot of inspiration and ideas too! I mean, I do still somewhat agree with my previous thoughts that filling up your day off schedule to the point of exhausting yourself is ridiculous and somewhat morbid, but if you balance it out alright, it’s really fun and refreshing. And it does seem to act like a very effective stress relief somehow.

If you do sometimes feel bored, try incorporating different hobbies from past and present and sometimes you might be surprised how well they work together 🙂 As you can tell, I love doodling or sketching, and when I started baking two years or so ago, I initially sort of stopped doing it, but as I began to build on my own baking ideas, I started sketching them out to lay out layers and components, etc just for a clearer vision. And then somehow wound up with this blog and lots of fun times sketching at cafes. Try it out! It’s really refreshing and relaxing with a nice cup of coffee or tea and some hearty breakfast 🙂

Rambling aside, I have you all another food affair!

So a while back one of my friends from work took a bunch of us to a bar at Newtown to eat lunch before most of them started work. and the other aim for the trip was to check out BlackStar Patisserie. As a general side note, the experience wasn’t that amazing, the people there weren’t that friendly – almost borderline scary when they served you, but I’ll leave that story for another time haha, if you want to know comment below to remind me. And the products were not really worth the fuss and buzz to be honest.

Any how, we did however, walk pass a cafe that seemed to be newly opened and still adding its finishing touches. And that cafe, my friends is the one I wanted to talk about – and also how I slightly swooned over the owner there 😛 You too should visit for your own swooning moment LOL

Ok..*calms down. 212 Blu is a pretty simple, slick-clean looking cafe. White tiles, dark blue/black menu neatly printed in a almost written font on the wall tiles in categories. A beautifully designed coffee machine, simple high tables and stools and a bigger table towards the inside. The bar/counter is generally just very simply designed but well lay out. Pastries in glass display, register by the coffee machine, a decent space for the last touches of the food coming out from the chef. There seems to be more room out the back, not sure if there are more tables or not as I didn’t venture that far.

So we walked by and was obviously always interested in new cafes because the bunch of us were either baristas and foodies, or foodies in general. Not to mention a nice machine, attractive man/owner, choice of Bonsoy, and similar teapots to our store were all things that captured our attention. But as we were in a bit of a rush and the two of us that weren’t working were too full anyway, we stepped in to have a look and say hello and explain our mission of coming back on a different date to the owner. He had short hair and very cool beard/stubbles at the time, and just someone with a great smile and charisma that makes you feel a breeze when there is none. We also noticed the board had “deep fried apple pie” on it so we vowed to come back to try what that craziness is haha.

I think it was almost a month or so before I managed to finally get myself out here. I ventured out for the pop-up sale at Brewtown Newtown and then walked on over here hoping it was a little less chaotic so I could get a seat and enjoy the coffee and have a hearty breakfast to go with it. The place was quite relaxing, and still quite busy but I was lucky enough to get a seat. Took a few minutes for one of the floor staff to realise I was a bit unsure of what to do and she kindly came over to ask me if I needed help. I told her I would like to sit in and do I order upfront or sit down. She said I can take a seat and swiftly brought me the menu and table water. Service was good, and the food came pretty quickly, the lady that served me seemed a little awkward at times though. But when I made the effort to say thank you to her every time she brought something over and smiled when she walks by, she began to smile more. It just shows people who serve at cafes are also people, and a smile or two or words of thanks can really make someone’s day. After all, it is harder than most people think it is, to maintain a big smile when it gets crazy at a cafe through a long day. Not to mention people are here for their weekend but they are working on their weekend. Working in this field makes you appreciate the little things the staff do for you, even if it was just part of the service or out of habit 🙂

I ordered an espresso to start with whilst I looked over the menu for what to have for breakfast. As it was kind of borderline time suitable for lunch so I guess it was more like brunch. When I saw pour over on the coffee menu I immediately decided that I would order that too. Last time I had pour over was when a senior colleague of mine took me to Alchemy coffee and recommended that. And it was nice and cold, and really light. Mine tasted like candy and then citrus at the end, SOO delicious. As I’m still trying to get my head around all these types of filtering and coffee brews, trying as many new things was definitely on my bucket list. If you are new to pour over from what I know it seems to be an open filter brewed coffee where they pour the water over grounds of a young coffee roast at a certain timeframe. But for some reason I’m not sure of why one is served cold and the other more warm. Alchemy served their relatively cold and I loved it. The warm one was not as punchy as their one. But I would assume that its not the coffee is bad, its just a matter of personal likings, and I preferred really juicy, citrus flavours and as a dessert lover a candy tasting coffee is hard to beat. This one had a more warm, tinge thicker mouthfeel. Smooth, with a slight sour and almost orangey flavour I think from memory (it’s been a week now). There was a light sweetness to it, but to be honest I couldn’t quite pinpoint a very obvious flavour – my palette isn’t exactly that perfected yet 😛 But it was enjoyable, but I think of the two I would prefer the espresso in this case. Their espresso wasn’t as heavy and impacting as Brewtowns and that was kind of a nice difference on the same day.  It was a very well-balanced cup, almost felt like it had a lot of layers of flavour – or what you could call ‘body’ but it was all lighter and more subtle. Which worked to be a very smooth espresso. I really should have tried their flat white, would have been interesting to see how the espresso played out in the milk coffee 🙂 Oh well, next time!

For food I ordered the Smashed avocado on toast with a soft boiled egg, and chose the side of mushrooms. Initially to me it sounds delicious but it just seemed almost too simple. So it took me a while to decide. But I really love avocados and mushrooms, and its been ages since I have had either – and I can’t even remember when I last enjoyed a soft-boiled egg for breakfast (just shows how often I go out for breakfast…or eat proper breakfast at all). SO HAPPY with the food.

It was this beautifully toasted bread with a nice, crunchy crust but still slightly soft bread. The avocados were nice and ripe and mashed up, but still with texture and firmness to it so it wasn’t like a pile of mush on top. To me, was a bonus point. The mushrooms were really, really juicy and sweet, packed full of this slightly earthy, almost pan-seared flavour. On the side was a wedge of lemon and some chilli flakes. OMG, just a perfect finishing touch to complete the hearty flavours on this plate. And if there is anything, I really do enjoy lemon juice and chilli as the main two kind of compliments to my dishes most times 😛 Soft boiled egg was super yummy too, really succulent, tender flesh whites, and the yolks were just starting to hold around the edges but oozing in the middle. MMMMmmm~ 😀 And to finish it all off with a nice cup of cold water. It was actually really relaxing in there. But having not dined out that often, and also working in this industry, I kind of felt like I shouldn’t linger for too long after if I wasn’t going to eat anymore, as they seemed to get busier and I didn’t want to hog the table. I did manage to get to chat to the owner though. He was kind of busy so I got up some courage to ask him briefly about the coffee they use when I was paying. He has long hair, tied up at the back now, and it took me a bit to be sure it was him – sure helped with others calling him Boss lol. So i believe the beans they used were Ethiopian and Kenyan. Which was which I now forget, but overall the food and service and coffee were all really good. I probably should have had a quick look at their pastry display 😛 But I’m sure I’ll be back for a good food and swoon sometime soon haha.

Hope you guys enjoyed it, it feels like I rambled on forever as usual, but…

Question of the day: What’s your perfect kind of eat-out breakfast? 😀

PS: I also saw something like porridge been served. Mmm, next time 😀