I was elated!

Two weeks ago, I received an email from "Andrews McMeel Publishing" asking if I would be interested to receive a book called "Bread Matters" by Andrew Whitley. Of course I said "yes" and gave them my shipping address. I was looking forward to receive the copy of the book from them. The good catch was that, I was not even obligated to mention this in my blog, wasn't that great?

I was elated when I got this in my mail this morning. The book is a new copy, with no pictures. The book has very good theory and explanation of the ingredients being used for breads. Accordingly, it's supposed to be suitable for homebakers, which is us! I shall read through this book in detail, try the recipe, and share to you soon.


My day is very fruitful today. Very very fruitful. I woke up very early in the morning and went to the gym to exercise. Came back to prepare my dough for my focaccia. Followed by shortcrust pastry, then ingredients for my muesli bars.

The focaccia dough was actually a failure. I added too much water and instead of dough, it became a BATTER! OMG! I wondered what would happen if I proceed to let it proof. Nevertheless, I refused to throw the batter into the bin. I continued with the steps as if it was dough, even though it was really really very wet and sticky.

Finally, I baked it in the oven without sprinkling some olive oil on top. I was already disappointed by the outcome, so didn't bothered too much about it before baking. Fortunately, the focaccia turned out to be alright. I've learned my lesson well this time!


My second bake, muesli bar didn't turn out well too! What happened to me today? Wobbling hands due to exercise? Ah...no excuse no excuse! I added too little butter and light corn syrup into the mixture, so it didn't blind well when I baked it. Actually, I like my muesli bars to be natural - less sugars and less fats. It was supposed to be healthy snacks right? So in the end, I broke them up into smaller bite size pieces and name it Granola Bites!


In the afternoon, I still managed a trip out to Tampines Giant to buy groceries and other household items. Came back to prepare dinner for the family. I made chicken pies using shortcrust pastry. Fortunately, the pies turned out to be good!

All Kinds of Bakes

This week, I baked quite a lot of stuffs. However, I didn't get the chance to post them up mainly because I was really busy, a bit of lazy too! As my dad has a function on Sunday, he requested me to make the durian puffs again for his function. I made that last year and it was really very well received! As I have quite a lot of time on hand, I've decided to prepare more food for the function.


Besides durian puffs, I also made Chocolate Rice Krispies and Mini Apple Cinnamon Muffins. The Chocolate Rice Krispies wasn't very nice though as the rice krispies were a bit chewy. Fortunately the chocolate that was with it tasted good. So, there were no complaints.



I've tried this muffin recipe previously and I used it again for Apple Cinnamon. I remembered how I had my first apple cinnamon muffin from Muffin Break when I was in Melbourne more than a decade ago. To me, it was the most wonderful muffin I've ever had and from then on, it had become my favourite!




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Lately, I've also been into muesli bars. Ever since my colleague gave me a muesli bar some weeks back, I've been waiting for these to be on sales at major supermarkets. Lately, I bought some Alpen and Carmen bars when they were on sales. I also recalled that granolas given by my sister some weeks back were very similar to museli bars. Therefore, I decided to make my own muesli bars! They can really be quite expensive, so I thought if I made them myself, then it should cost slightly less. Well, at least I can control what I want for the muesli. Boy, I was really glad I tried making it, it was really nice!





Recipe for Multi-grains & Fruits Muesli Bars.
Makes approximately 21 slices.

Ingredients:
150g Multi-grains
114g Raisins and Dried tomatoes, mixed*
100g Rolled oats
80g Rye flakes*
50g Dessciated coconut*
50g Sliced almonds, toasted*
20g Rice krispies, toasted*
88g Walnuts, chopped, toasted*
50g Duo Chocolate Chips
3 tbsp Honey
15tbsp Light Corn Syrup, approximately

Method:
1. Mix all the dry ingredients well.
2. Add in honey and light corn syrup, and mix well, like lumps.
3. Pack them and arrange them on a tray, approx 14” x 8”, lined with baking paper.
4. Bake at 180C for about 15mins or until it turns brown.
5. Cooled, and sliced them according to preference.

*Note: Ingredients are up to you to add. Just make sure there are a good mix of nuts and dried fruits to have a balance in taste!