Banana and chocolate bread

I made this bread last weekend using breadnaker (it can be done by hand), its a soft and delicious bread, think the sweetness level will depend on the ripeness of the banana, as the banana I used was not very ripe so the bread turn out not so sweet. It taste like cake than bread ;)

300g ripe banana, weigh with skin on
2 tsp lemon juice
500g bread flour
2 tbsp milk powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp caster sugar
2 tbsp butter
1 1/2tsp fast action dried yeast
200ml water
175g milk chocolate (I use semi sweet chocolate chip)
icing sugar and cocoa powder to decorate (I omit this)

Makes 1 extra large loaf

1. Peel the banana and mash them on a plate with a fork, then work in the lemon juice.

2. Lift the tin out of the bread machine, fit the kneader blade then add the mashed bananas, measured cold water, milk powder and butter. Spoon in the flour then add in salt and sugar, Make a slight dip in the centre of the flour and sprinkle in the yeast.

3. Insert the tin into the bread machine. Shut the lid asn set to basic white/extra large 1kg loaf/ bake and select the preferred crust setting. Press start.

4. Dice the chocolate and add to the tin when the raisin beep sounds.Shut the lid and allow the programme to continue.

5. At the end of the programme, lift the tin out of the machine with oven gloves. Loosen the bread wth spatula and turn out on to a wire rack. Dust with sifted icing sugar and cocoa and leave to cool.

Valarie's Cranberry Orange Cake

Tried made this cake couple of weeks back, I reduced the sugar as I have tried the original taste of the recipe in class and found it too sweet, also did thinner frosting compare to the original recipe just to give the cake a little extra touch.

Dutch apple cake

When I saw this little snack maker which comes with tempreture setting, immediately I bought it thought that it will be good for making small batch of cakes and cookies,

Didn't find time to use it for baking cakes till recently. Tried baking some blueberry muffins and it was quite well done although the height between the heating element and the rack is very low, well.. doing some small cakes should be just fine for me

Baked a batch of apple cake using this tiny oven again, recipe from Rachel Allen. This cake is nice, we like it.

Valarie's Kuih Lapis

Did this cake yesterday night since I have some time and there were lots of eggs in the fridge, so attempt Valarie's kuih lapis again as I have failed doing it twice months ago. This round didn't add prunes as I thought doing a plain will be easier to pass. Lukily the end result was quite ok and all like it..^_^

Pandan flavour mantou

I use this recipe and do a batch of pandan mantou for last weekend's breakfast. While kneading the dough thought that add some flavour to give the bun a twist iso of the plain version thus added a little pandan paste to half portion of the dough, then roll each portion of the dough flat with even thickness and roll it up like swiss roll.

Siew mai

Have not made siew mai for a long while, made some for weekend's dinner per the kids request...

Chicken with burdock soup

Recently the weather is so warm that everyone tend to drink more liquid to curb the heat, so boil some soup to clear the body heat else will fall sick sooner or later. Found this recipe in an old issue of Oriental magazine but instead of stew I boiled the soup.

Ingredients:

1 stick burdock
1/2 bird chicken
2 carrot
salt to taste

Method:
1. Chop chicken into big pieces and blanch in boiling water.

2. Peel burdock under running tap water then cut into wedges and soak in water. Peel carrot and cut into wedges.

3. Put all ingredients into soup pot, pour in enough water to cover the ingredients (about 2 litre) and bring to boil over high heat, then turn to weak fire and boil for another 1 and half hour. Add salt to taste.