Health for life

Hokkaido milk bread, super spongy bread prepared with the famous Asian bread making method called tangzhong method. Tangzhong method goes for a water roux, this roux is the prominent ingredient to get fantastic soft breads. For our this months We knead to bake, a month baking event started by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen, she challenged us to make this Hokkaido Milk Bread which is well known for their super softy texture. Its quite popular in South Asian bakieries, some people says this is a Japanese bread, because of the milk used in this bread comes from Japan.While others says that its pure white colour and the texture resemble the pristineness of Hakkoido.

Coming to Tangzhong method, this method need a part of bread flour with 5parts of water,when cooked its forms the famous water roux. The gluten in the bread flour and water mixture absorb the moisture and create a leavening action. When Tangzhong is added to other ingredients of the bread dough, its gives a light,tender and fluffy bread.The dough prepared with tangzhong is a versatile dough, we can make palin loaf,dinner rolls or muffin like rolls. You can fill very well them with sweet or savoury filling.I prepared few mini loaves, some muffins rolls and tried my hands in making some animals. I filled my mini loaves and muffin rolls with chocolate chips and my kids just loved them.


For Tangzhong (water roux)
1/3cup all purpose flour
1/2cup Water
1/2cup Milk

For dough:
2+1/2cups All purpose flour
3tbsp Sugar
1tsp Salt
2tbsp Milk powder
2tsp Instant dry yeast
1/2cup Milk
1/8cup Cream
1/3cup Tangzhong (use half of the tangzhong )
25grms Butter (cut as small pieces & softened)
1cup Chocolate chips

Making the water-roux:


Mix the flour in water and milk well without any lumps.

Cook in medium low heat, stirring continously with a whisk to prevent buring.This mixture will becomes thickens, if you are able to see some lines for every stir you make with the spoon,your tangzhong is ready,remove it from the heat.

Transfer it to a clean bowl,cover with a cling wrap sticking on the surface of the tangzhong to pect from drying. Let cool completely.You can use tangzhong straight away once it cools down to room temperature.



Making Dough:

Put the flour,salt,sugar,milk powder and instant yeast in a stand mixer or in a food processor and mix it for a few minutes,meanwhile in an another bowl,mix the milk,cream and tangzhong until smooth and add to the mixer.

Run in slow speed until the dough comes together, now add the butter and knead it until you get a smooth and elastic dough.

Arrange the dough in a greased bowl and cover it with a towel and keep it aside until the dough double in volume. Mine took almost an hour.

Place the dough in a cleaned working surface, divide the dough to make mini loaves or muffins or else as single loaf.

Roll out each portion of the dough with a rolling pin as a oval shape, sprinkle generously the chocolate chips.

Take one end of the dough from the shorter side of the oval to fold in the middle of the dough, take the other end and fold it slightly to overlaps the other fold.

Arrange this folded dough to tha prepared pans and cover with a towel,let the dough sit again for an hour.


Preheat the oven to 325F, caully brush the tops of the rolls and the loaf with milk and bake them for 20-25minutes until they are done.

Let them cool completely in the tins and then unmould, transfer to a rack and cool them completely.

Serve the loaves or dinner rolls with your favourite spreads.

Nothing can beat the aroma of freshly baked breads at home and obviously homemade breads are the best without any preservatives. Home made breads are very much tastier than the store bought one and they are damn cheaper and doesnt take much time to prepare at home. If you ask me to bake a bread everyday, i dont hesitate a second at all. Coz bread making are definitely a stress burster, if you want to feel free from your stress just bake a bread at home.Homemade breads are more nutritious when compared to store bought ones,needless to say that we can mix and match the ingredients according to our wish.

For our this months We Knead To Bake, a monthly baking event by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen, we baked honeycomb buns aka Khaliat Nahal.This bread is very easy to make with a sweet or savoury filling in it, which is then covered with a sugar syrup, a typical Middle Eastern Confectionery. Khaliat Nahal means Bees Hive in Arabic hence these buns are baked close to each other in round pan to form a honeycomb like pattern. Traditionally these buns are made as sweet with plain cream cheese, glazed with honey flavoured syrup but Aparna suggested even the savoury ones.I chosed the sweet version and i went for semi sweet chocolate chips for the filling, trust me this chocolate stuffed buns are just fantabulous, none could stop with one. A pect evening snacks to enjoy with a cup of masal chai,these buns are seriously very addictive.


For Dough: 
1cup Lukewarm milk
1+1/2tsp Instant yeast
1tsp Sugar (for yeast)
3tbsp Sugar
2+1/2cup All purpose flour
1/4tsp Salt
40grms Butter (melted)
2tbsp Milk for brushing

Filling:
1cup Semisweet chocolate chips

For Sugar Syrup:
1/4cup Water
A pinch Saffron
1tbsp Honey
1/2tsp Lemon juice

Take the flour,salt,sugar and melted butter in a bowl, mix it for few minutes.

Combine the milk,yeast,sugar in a small bowl and keep for 5minutes.

Add this yeast mixture to the flour mixture and knead until you get a smooth,elastic dough.

The dough be soft and elastic but not sticky,if its sticky add more flour if needed.

Shape the dough as a ball and place it in a greased bowl, cover and let it rise for an hour.


Turn the dough to a work surface. Cut the dough into 2 halves and roll it as a rope, cut each rope into 1inch piece.

Take a piece and flatten it out a little, place enough chocolate chips for filling in the centre.

Bring the sides together,wrap the dough around the filling, pinching it closed at the top. Smoothen into a round ball.

Place this in a well greased round cake tin. Repeat the same process with the remaining pieces.

Arrange the filled balls of dough in a concentric cricles. Cover it with a paper towel and let it rise for about an hour.


Preheat the oven to 350F.

Brush the top with milk and bake the buns for about 20-25minutes until the crust turns golden brown.

Meanwhile take the sugar,water and saffron in a pan,bring it to boil,put the flame in simmer and cook until its turns bit thick.

Put off the stove,add the honey and lime juice.Mix well and let it cool.

Once the buns comes out of the oven, pour the syrup over the top of the buns.

If you want your honeycomb buns to be less sweet, just brush the syrup over the top.

Let it sit for a while, serve warm.

Croissants, the word itself makes me drool. Actually i tasted my first croissants the next day i landed Paris, this happened almost before 18years. This buttery flaky viennoiserie bread roll is quite famous as like the french macarons in France, you wont miss this flaky bread rolls if you live in Paris. Each and every corner of the street will have a bakery and each bakey will have this buttery bread rolls definitely with different variations, you may get them with chocolates as pain au chocolat, while some makes a almond pastry cream and call it as almond crossiants. Obviously atleast once a month for a sunday brunch we will get our crossiants from the nearby bakery. My kids love this bread rolls, i never thought of making these bread rolls until Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen challenged these crossiants for our this months We Knead To Bake challenge.

A kugelhopf which is also spelt as Gugelhupf, Kugelhupf or Kugelhoph is a yeasted sweeten brioche like cake well known in the Alsace region of France, Germany,Switzerland and Austria. Also many variation of this cake is found in some coutnries of Eastern Europe.Kugelhopf consists of a soft yeast dough which contains raisins, almonds and Kirschwasser cherry brandy. Some also contain candied fruits and nuts. Some regional varieties (Czech, Hungarian and Slovenian) are also filled, often with a layer of sweetened ground poppy seeds.

It is baked in a special circular pan with a central tube, originally made of enamelled pottery. Similar pans are used for making Bundt cakes, a cake baking pan shape in the US derived from the Kugelhopf.Since Kugelhopf is a yeasted cake, it will have a dense bread like texture and is made from an enriched dough like brioche. Its considered similar to a coffee cake that can be eaten for or with breakfast or also a part of an afternoon snack with coffee. Coming to this savoury version, this Kugelhopf suits too good for breakfast, as a snack or along with a simple soup.Usually savoury Kugelhopf goes for a kind of bacon/ham,onions, walnuts and herbs but this savoury kugelhopf goes for just veggies,if you like ham or bacon you can add them as u desire. This is our 7th challenge of this months We Knead To Bake, a monthly event by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen.


Recipe Source : Diary of Dinners
31/2cups All purpose flour
2tsp Instant yeast
1tsp Salt
75grms Butter (room temperature)
3/4cup Warm Milk
2nos Eggs (beaten lightly)
1tbsp Oil
1/3cup Green bell peppers (chopped)
2tbsp Sweet corn kernels (canned one)
1/3cup Tomato(deseeded, pulp-free and chopped)
1/2cup Cheddar cheese (diced)
1/3cup Chopped Walnuts
1tsp Black pepper (crushed coarsely)
1tsp Dry thymne leaves

Take the 3 cups of flour,yeast,salt in a bowl,add the butter and mix it well.

Slowly add the warm milk,lightly beaten eggs and knead everything as a soft and sticky dough.

Knead more, add slowly the remaining flour little at a time and just enough till the dough pulls away from the bowl.

Dough will be very soft,elastic,but bit sticky, transfer it to a greased bowl and cover it.Keep aside and let it rise until the dough double in volume.

This will take almost 1-2hours.

Meanwhile, heat half a tablespoon of oil, add the chopped green bell pepper,tomato,sweet corn kernels, salt and stir fry until the raw smell disappears, but the vegetable should be crunchy, remove and keep aside.

To the same pan, add the remaining oil, ad the chopped onions and saute until they turns golden brown.

Let the sauteed veggies gets cool completely and keep aside.

Grease a 8inch kugelhopf mould or a bundt pan or else a brioche pan.

Place the chopped walnuts in the bottom of the mould,once the dough gets risen, deflate it.

Add the cheese,stir fried onions,veggies,black pepper, thyme into the dough.

The best way to do this is to flatten the dough out and spread all this over the surface,fold the dough over and then knead it.


This will ensure a more uniform incorporation of the filling, the dough will be sticky, use a scraper to help, dont add more flour.

Roll the dough as a log,long enough to fit the mould. Lift the dough and place it in the mould in a cirle, stick the two ends together to close the circle of dough.

Cover and let the dough rise for an hour until it reached the edge of the mould.

Bake the kugelhopf at 400F for 35-40minutes until the top turns golden brown and sounds hollow when its tapped.

Unmould the kugelhopf and let it cook on a rack.

Slice and serve.

Tips:
I used the silicon brioche mould for making this kugelhopf, to give the pect kugelhopf look, i used a greased glass to give the hole in the center of my brioche mould.

Once you drop the log like dough into the greased brioche mould, just press the greased glass in the middle and press on the top tightly.

Remove the glass once the Kugelhopf gets completely cool.

Do you know National Doughnut Day is celebrated in United States on every first friday of June. As per Wikipedia,A doughnut or donut is a type of fried dough confectionery or dessert food. The doughnut is popular in many countries and prepared in various forms as a sweet snack that can be homemade or purchased in bakeries, supermarkets, food stalls, and franchised specialty outlets. They are usually deep-fried from a flour dough, and typically either ring-shaped or without a hole and often filled. Other types of batters can also be used, and various toppings and flavorings are used for different types, such as sugar glazing, chocolate glazing, or maple glazing.

There are so many stories behind the origin of doughnuts, Wiki says that Hanson Gregory, an American, claimed to have invented the ring-shaped doughnut in 1847 aboard a lime-trading ship when he was only 16 years old. Gregory was dissatisfied with the greasiness of doughnuts twisted into various shapes and with the raw center of regular doughnuts. He claimed to have punched a hole in the center of dough with the ships tin pepper box, and later taught the technique to his mother.

For this months We Knead to Bake, an incredible baking event by Aparna challenged us with baked doughts, if you are health nut and wanna a give a try to baked version of doughnuts, you will definitely love this beauties.Butter in this doughnuts turned them simply flavourful,spongy and extremely prefect as almost like the fried ones. These baked doughnuts are quite addictive and since its baked you wont feel guilty to have one more.


Adapated from  Lara Ferronis Doughnuts
3+1/2cups Cake flour or all purpose flour
3/4tbsp Instant yeast or 1tbsp Active dry yeast
1/2tsp Salt
1cup Warm milk
1/4cup Superfine sugar
2tsp Vanilla extract
100grms Butter (cut into cubes)

Lemon Cream cheese glaze:
1/2cup Cream cheese
1tsp Lemon juice
1/2tsp Lemon zest
1cup Confectioners sugar
A pinch Yellow food colour

Take the sugar,milk,yeast,salt and vanilla in a food processor and pulse it well.

Add 3cups of flour and process, add the butter pieces gradually and process, now add the remaining half a cup of flour to knead a soft,pliable and elastic dough, if the dough is sticky add few more flours.

Transfer the dough a floured surface and knead gently until the dough turns super soft.

Shape as ball and place it in a greased mixing bowl and ocover with a damp towel.

The dough will take an hour to double in volume.


Punch down the dough and roll out as 1/2inch thick circle.

Cut out the doughnuts with a doughnut cutter or else use a medium sized bottle lid and a super small bottle lid.

Place the doughnuts over a lightly greased baking sheets,leaving enough spaces between them.

Re-roll the dough and continue the same process until the dough gets finished.

Let the unbaked doughnuts rise for about half an hour or till almost double in size.

Bake at 400F, for about 7-10minutes till the crust turns golden brown,dont overbake them.

While they are baking, time to make the lemon cream cheese glaze..

Take the cream cheese,lemon juice,lemon zest,yellow food colour,confectioners sugar in a bowl,mix well to make a lemon glaze and keep aside.

Let the baked doughnuts gets cool completely, then dip one side of the doughnuts in the lemon cream cheese glaze and let it set.

Enjoy with ur favourite drink or for snacks.