Kawaii Panda Bread

This is a Japanese bread. It's called Kawaii Panda Bread... It looked so cute. I kept thinking about it ever since I saw the photo. Finally, I made it on last Thursday. It was quite a challenge, a lot of hard work and time consumed since it was my first time.

I found the recipe from Makansutra Blog Street!. Originally the recipe is from Taro Taro at www(.)cookpad(.)com. Thank you to Ms Lorriane Koh for the translation. Since I did not have green tea powder in hand, I substituted it with pandan essence. After all that hard work, I was very pleased with how my panda bread turned out. The bread taste really good but I feel I need to make it a little more lighter. Hubby said I did a great job and even suggested to create other animals' face... haha..

Spread butter over a slice of a warm fresh bread... ...Oooo... yummy! ;)

Ingredients:

For the dough

3 cups of all purpose flour

3 tbsp of sugar

1 cup of milk together with 1 egg yolk

¾ tbsp of salt

1 ½ tablespoon of butter

2 ½ tsp dry yeast

For the coloring of the Panda face

1 tbsp green tea powder mixed with 2 tsp hot water (I used pandan essence)

3 ½ tsp of Cocoa powder mixed with 1 ½ tsp of hot water

Method:

Warm the milk and egg mixture by placing it in the microwave for 30 seconds. Set aside.

Mix the flour, sugar, salt, butter and yeast together in a bowl.

 

Then add the milk and egg mixture. Mix together for about ten minutes. The dough should be soft but not sticky. Divide the dough into three portions – two about equal in size to each other, while the third should be sized about 1/3 of the other two. (Refer to image.)

Place one of the larger pieces in a bowl and add in the green tea. Mix together till the green is evenly spread out. Cover the green dough with cling wrap and set aside.

Take the smallest piece of dough and mix in the cocoa powder. Cover the brown dough with cling wrap and set aside. Do this for the white dough as well. Leave the dough pieces for about an hour (in a warm, covered surrounding) till they double in size.

Now it’s time to craft the panda face. Take the white dough and separate into three pieces – two about equal in size to each other, while the third should be sized about 1/3 of the other two (as you did earlier).

Take the brown dough piece and separate into four equal pieces.

Use one of the larger white pieces to form the face. Use two quarters of brown dough to form the eyes. Place the smallest white dough piece in the middle of the two brown “eyes”, to keep them in place. Flatten the other big white dough piece and wrap it around tightly. 

As for the other two brown dough pieces, roll them into “ears” and place them on top. Divide the green dough into two – the bigger piece is about 4 times the size of the smaller piece.Place the smaller green part in the middle of the ears. Flatten the bigger green part and wrap it tightly around your creation.

Place the whole piece into a lightly greased loaf pan, cover and let rise until doubled, for around 40 minutes.

Preheat the oven for half an hour at 400° F (200° C) in the meantime. Once the dough is doubled, place it in the oven for 30 minutes.

HERSHEY'S Ultimate Chocolate Brownies

I asked hubby if he wants chocolate chip cookies or brownies. He said brownies with a big grin on his face! I was looking for the recipe in my favorite recipe book and guess what! I didn't have any brownies recipes at all. I thought I might just make chocolate chips cookies but when I looked at the HERSHEY'S semi-sweet chocolate chips packet, there's a recipe for brownies. Yay! (I didn't even think about it at first) 

The brownies turned out great, not dry. I did a little change. Instead of using 2 cups of white sugar, I used 1 cup of white sugar and 1 cup of brown sugar. For the frosting; in the middle of mixing, I did not have enough powdered sugar. So I took some of the white sugar and blend in my small blender. I thought I had it good but not good enough.. When I mixed those sugar with my not-done-yet frosting, it didn't turned out so smooth, a little grainy.  Well, we enjoyed the brownies and the smell lingering within the apartment. Yum-Yum!! :)

Ingredients:

3/4 cup HERSHEY'S cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

2/3 cup butter, melted and divided

1/2 cup boiling water

1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1-1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup HERSHEY'S semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

One-bowl Buttercream Frosting

Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking pan.

Sift together cocoa and baking soda in a large bowl, stir in 1/3 cup butter. Add boiling water, stir until mixture thickens. Stir in sugar, eggs (make sure to stir quickly when adding the egg) and remaining butter. Stir until smooth. Add the flour, vanilla and salt; blend completely. Stir in chocolate chips and pour into prepared pan. 

Bake 35 to 40 minutes or until brownies begin to pull away from the sides of the pan. Cool completely in the pan on a rack. Frost with One-bowl Buttercream Frosting. Cut into squares. Makes about 36 brownies.

One-bowl Buttercream Frosting

6 tbsp butter

softened 2-2/3 cups powdered sugar

1/2 cup HERSHEY'S cocoa powder **

1/3 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

Beat butter in a medium bowl. Add powdered sugar and cocoa alternately with milk, beating to spreading consistency (additional milk may be needed). Stir in vanilla. About 2 cups frosting. 

** I did not add the cocoa powder in my frosting.

Yorkshire Puddings

My first home-made Yorkshire Puddings. It was easy to make. It was funny when I opened the oven door and saw that my Yorkshire Puddings rose on one side. hehe.. but seriously they were delicious. I used the recipe from Steamy Kitchen. :) 

Yorkshire Pudding

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour

3/4 tsp table salt

3 large eggs, at room temperature

1 1/2 cups milk, at room temperature

3 tbsp beef fat

In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, milk and salt. Sift in the flour in three stages, each time whisking until flour disappears before adding in more flour. Let rest at a room temperature for 30 minutes and up to 3 hours.

When the roast is finished, spoon out 3 tablespoons of beef fat. Turn oven to 450 degrees F. Stir 1 tablespoon of the beef fat into the batter. In a muffin pan, fill each cup with 1/2 teaspoon of the remaining beef fat. 

When oven has reached temperature, place muffin pan with fat into oven for 3 minutes until smoking hot. carefully take out pan and pour batter into each cup, filling to 2/3 full. Immediately return to oven and bake for 20 minutes. Do not open oven door during baking or the Yorkshire Puddings will collapse. Reduce heat to 350 degrees F and bake an additional 10 minutes until golden brown. Remove from oven, pierce each Yorkshire Pudding with toothpick to allow steam to escape and prevent them from collapsing.

Orange Cake

I was at a friend's home and she had baked an orange cake earlier that morning. Since I have not eaten an orange cake for so long, I gotta have a slice. OMG!! It was so so good... soft and moist.. After that day, I kept thinking about the orange cake. LoL!! So I asked my friend for the recipe. 

My first orange cake. It was easy and did not take too long (preparing). When it was baked, I was happy and cannot wait to take a bite. (I had the cake first before my dinner.. hehe) My cake turned out to be good, its soft and moist. Just two things, I think I did not use enough syrup and it was a little brown on the bottom (a little too long in the oven). I think it would better with a little bit more. Nevertheless, both of us enjoyed the orange cake very much. I'm sure I'll be baking this orange cake often next time.. (as I am writing this post, I have a plate with a slice of the orange cake here. hehe.) :)

Ingredients:

1 yellow cake mix

1 box instant vanilla pudding

4 eggs

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 cup orange juice

Orange Syrup:

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter

1/4 cup orange juice

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Mix cake mix, pudding mix, eggs, oil and orange juice together. Pour in a well-greased bundt pan and bake for 35-40 mins.

For the glaze, melt butter in a small saucepan and add sugar and orange juice. Bring it to a boil, stirring constantly.

After the cake is baked, without removing the cake from the pan, poke the cake with a fork or wooden skewer without removing it from the pan. Pour the orange syrup slowly all over the cake. Allow to set for 15-20 mins. Then invert onto a plate. 

Chocolate Glaze I

The photo on the right is a chocolate cake. Do you think it is from the box or I had made it from scratch? .....What do you think? If you guess from scratch, well I'm sorry, wrong answer. It is from the box. The cake was soft, moist and delicious. My hubby enjoyed the cake too and he was wondering what else did I put in the cake. hmm.. I've added extra ingredients to make it yummier... chocolate chips and maraschino cherries. To finish it off, topped with chocolate glaze. Yum-Yum!!!

My recipe for today is the chocolate glaze. I found the recipe from Allrecipes.com. It is super quick, easy and fast. The chocolate glaze is delicious but it was not enough so I had to double the recipe for my cake. And even though it is cold today but I just can't help it.. gotta have a slice of the cake with my Blue Bell Ice-Cream (Cookies & Cream). :)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

2 tbsp butter

1 tbsp corn syrup

In a double boiler, melt together butter, chocolate and syrup. Alternatively, you can melt the chocolate in the microwave and then blend in the other ingredients. Pour glaze while still warm over cake.