Siew Bao / Flaky Chicken Buns

I love to eat Siew Pau / Shao Bao 烧包.  Whenever I'm at a shopping mall and if I happened to across stall selling piping hot Shao Bao, I will buy one or two to enjoy.  But nowadays the Shao Bao is getting smaller and smaller and the price is getting increasing.  Sometimes I feel it is really not worth it for paying $1.70 a piece for just a tiny bao!  

I prefer to make my own Shao Bao as I can use my own healthy ingredients.

Flaky Roast Buns With Chicken Filling / Chicken Shao Bao
Recipe adapted and copy from Sonia's of Nasi Lemak Lover with slight changes 

For the Chicken filling

450g (+/-) chicken meat (I use skinless chicken thigh), cubed small

100g onion, chopped

50g frozen green peas, thawed 

Seasonings 
3 tbsp sugar

1 ½ tbsp oyster sauce

1 tbsp sesame oil

1 ½ tbsp light soy sauce

2 tsp dark soy sauce

1 tsp dark caramel soy sauce, optional (I used ABC Sweet dark sauce)

A pinch of Chinese five-spices powder 

1 tbsp corn flour + 2 tbsp water, to thicken 

Method

Mix all seasonings in a mixing bowl, set aside.

Heat 3 tbsp cooking oil in a non-stick frying pan, add in onion, sauté till fragrant.

Add in chicken meat, stir fry till the meat half cooked.

Add in seasonings, continue stir fry for few minutes till thicken.

Add in the grean peas and stir till everything incorporated in.

Add in corn flour water to thicken in, set aside to cool. 

Dough A (Water dough)

200g plain flour

60g butter (salted), at room temperature

2 tbsp caster sugar

100g water 

Dough B (oil dough)

160g plain flour

100g shortening 

Egg wash (egg yolk +water), white sesame seeds  

Method

Dough A 

Rub butter with flour and sugar, slowly add in water, combine till form dough, set aside 10mins.

Dough B 

Rub shortening with flour, combine till form dough, set aside for 10mins.

Equally divide dough A and B into 20 portions and roll into ball

Wrap dough B with dough A (that means oil dough is inside). Roll it out into long rectangle shape. Then roll up the dough like swiss roll. Repeat this step one more time. Then take the swiss roll and pinch two ends together and roll into ball shape. Set aside to rest and repeat the rest of dough till finished.

Roll it out into a circle and place a spoonful the filling in the center. Bring all edges together and pinch to seal.

Egg wash and bake in preheated oven at 180C for 15 minutes.

Take out the baking tray, egg wash again and sprinkle some sesame seeds on top (do it one by one: egg wash one sprinkle sesame seeds), and return to oven at 180C for another 15mins or till golden brown.

I have been so diligently making Shao Baos lately as this is my third  batch already!!

Cream Horns

Hi everyone,

Good day to you!

The other day went for my grocery shopping and as usual, I will usually pop in to the Value Shop (shop that sell all sort of cheap item stuffs; kitchen utensils, laundry, stationery, gifts, etc. etc. that is at cheap cheap prices).  

As I was browsing around, suddenly my eyes caught one baking item and oh my, the Cream Horn Mould and it is so cheap.  Selling at NZ$2.50 for 6 pieces.  Bought two packs and immediately I made Cream Horns today.

CREAM HORNS

Ingredients
Cream Horns 
1 store bought ready to roll puff pastry
Caster sugar  (for sprinkling on the puff pastry)
1 large egg yolk (for egg wash)
1 tablespoons water 

Cream

1 cup whipped cream
2-3 tbsp icing sugar
Some raspberries or strawberries

Method

Cream Horns 
Preheat the oven to 200C. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.

Use a pizza cutter to cut thawed pastry sheets into 2cm x 40cm. 
Wrap each of the strip around the cream horn mould, overlapping a little bit with each round. Place the mould, end of the strip side down.

Lightly whisk the egg yolk and the water together.
Brush each cream horn with egg yolk mixture. Sprinkle or roll in the caster sugar. 
Transfer to parchment paper and bake for 15-20 minutes, rotating the baking sheet halfway through baking.  Allow the shells to cool and thereafter remove out.

Make Filling 
Whipped the whipping cream with icing sugar.
Fill the whipped cream into the piping bag with a star nozzle and fill each cream horn half way and insert one raspberry or half strawberry in and fill the remaining cream to the top. Decorate with another raspberry.
Serve immediate, or chill in the refrigerator until ready to serve

Wrap each of the strip around the cream horn mould, overlapping a little bit with each round. 

                                     Once done, let cool before removing from the mould.

                                                 The mould can be easily removed!

 

                                          Dust some icing sugar for final touch!

Yummy and delicious.......I love the crunch with the added sanding sugar on the puff!

Well if you are lazy to make the whipped cream, you can always scoop in the ice cream in!

PUFF PASTRY CHEESE STICKS .....or Cheese Straws

My Sister S made this Puff Pastry Cheese Sticks the other day and thought of sharing it with you since it is so easy to make this.

These cheese sticks or cheese straws are just the right thing for children's party, TV snack time, oh....anytime of the day if you are craving for some munchies!

This photo courtesy from my Sister S

PUFF PASTRY CHEESE STICKS...
OR CHEESE STRAWS

Ingredients
2 sheets puff pastry
1 large egg, lightly beaten
40g finely grated parmesan cheese 

Method
Preheat oven to 200 Celcius,  Grease one oven tray.
Brush one pastry sheets with the beaten egg  and sprinkle the grated cheese all over.
Top with other pastry sheet  and lightly press together.
Cut into 1.5cm (1/2") strips and cut each strip into half.  
Twist the strips, and place about 2cm apart on the baking trays.
Bake for about 12 minutes or until strips are browned lightly.


Easy right?

A snap shot pic taken from the "Women's Weekly ~ Baking Day" : Puff Pastry Cheese Straws

Gougères ~ French Cheese Puffs

I have been feeling all "blues" lately, I am just not to myself and I guess it is just normal to get this kind feeling sometimes.

On and off, we do want to get motivate but somehow or rather the past week nothing had made me get my butt up.   But when Hui of Butterfly Waltz posted her Gougères, I have gotten inspired again after reading the content of her post.   The way she described it, " ^^ WE SOOOO LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE IT! ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^", I guess I shouldn't have anymore excuses to feel blues anymore.

Have you by the way heard of Gougères ?  I think I have or maybe not, even though I might have come across it previously.  
Well, Gougères, is a French cuisine.  It is a baked savoury choux pastry made of choux dough mixed with cheese.  It is very similarly like cream puff but only thing is gougères does not need any filling in it.

Gougères ~ French Cheese Puffs
Recipe adapted from Hui of ButterflyWaltz

 Ingredients
1/2 cup (125ml) water
3 tablespoons (40g) butter, salted or unsalted, cut into cubes
1/4 teaspoon salt
Big pinch of chilli powder, or a few turns of freshly-ground black pepper
1/2 cup (70g) flour
2 large eggs
1 to 2 teaspoons minced fresh thyme (I used dried parsley)
3/4 cup (90g) grated cheese (I used parmesan cheese)

1. Preheat the oven to 220C.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Heat the water, butter, salt, and chile or pepper in a saucepan until the butter is melted.
3. Dump in the flour all at once and stir vigorously until the mixture pulls away from the
    sides into a smooth ball. Remove from heat and let rest two minutes.
4. Add the eggs, one at a time, stirring quickly to make sure the eggs don’t ‘cook.’ The batter 
    will first appear lumpy, but after a minute or so, it will smooth out. (You can transfer the 
    mixture to a bowl before adding to eggs to cool the dough, or do this step in a food 
    processor or electric mixer, if you wish.)
5. Add about 3/4s of the grated cheese and mince herbs, and stir until well-mixed.
6. Scrape the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a wide plain tip and pipe the dough into 
    mounds, evenly-spaced apart, making each about the size of a small cherry tomato.
   * If you do not have a pastry bag, you can always scoop out with your small spoon.

7. Top each puff with a bit of the remaining cheese, then pop the baking sheet in the oven.
8. Bake for 10 minutes, then turn the oven down to 190C and bake for an additional
    20 to 25 minutes, until they’re completely golden brown.
    *  I baked the puff at 190C and adjust accordingly once the puff is brown on top.

For extra-crispy puffs, five minutes before they’re done, poke the side of each puff with a sharp knife to release the steam, and return to the oven to finish baking.
Serving: The puffs are best served warm, and if making them in advance, you can simply pipe the gougères on baking sheets and cook right before your guests arrive, or reheat the baked cheese puffs in a low oven for 5-10 minutes before serving. 

Original recipe from David Lebovitz

  
You may used grated cheddar cheese and top with parmesan cheese instead.

As this is a savoury puff, you can always serve with some chopped ham as filling

 I'm having it (oh, I almost finished all of the puffs by myself.....) with my frothy milk tea!

Thank you Hui..... for getting me back to my feet up and going in my kitchen again!


My dear Sister S, do try to make this for Tiffany and I am sure she will loves this too!


By the way, do you know how to pronounce "gougère" in French?  it is some like this 
                        "goo shel".  You may like to listen how it was pronounce here

Mini Kaya Puff Pastry

I have been trying various different of puff pastry for the past few months and finally I think I have decided which is the best puff pastry for me; not too soft and not too hard.  

Some recipe ingredients called for full bread flour in the water dough which I find is too hard (in terms of rolling at later stage) and some using full cake flour would result is too soft and no crisp after a day baking.

Today I have made mini Kaya Puff Pastry.  The kaya is homemade which I have made earlier.

Mini Kaya Puff Pastry

Chinese Flaky Pastry:
Water Dough:
70g bread flour
70g plain flour
25g caster sugar
55g lard or shortening
70ml water, adjust as necessary

Lard Dough:
70g cake flour
35g lard or shortening

1 egg, lightly beaten for eggwash

Kaya Filling

Please refer here my homemade kaya or use the store-bought kaya

Chinese Flaky Pastry:

 
1. For the Water Dough: Put both types of flour, sugar and lard in a mixing bowl, mix

briefly to incorporate the lard. Slowly add just enough water to form a soft but non-

sticky dough. Knead until smooth, form into a ball, wrap in cling film and put into the

refrigerator for about 20 minutes before using.

2. For the Lard Dough: Rub lard into the flour and then knead into a soft dough. If it is

too soft, chill in the refrigerator to harden a bit. If it is too hard, knead it a bit more

until you get soft dough about the same pliability as the water dough. It is important

that the malleability of the lard dough should be about the same as the water dough

when making the Chinese flaky pastry.

3. Divide the water dough and the lard dough respectively into 13 equal portions each

and round them all into small balls.

4. Wrap each oil dough with a portion of water dough, form into round shape, press lightly to 

     flatten, then roll out into thinly rectangle, roll up as swiss roll 

     (repeat 2 times).

5. Roll out the dough into oval shape. Spoon some kaya filling on one side, then fold up and

      form into puff shape and seal the edges.

6. Place the kaya puffs onto the baking pan, brush some egg wash on top.

7. Bake at preheated oven at 170C for about 20-25 minutes till golden in colour.

Do put the unfinished kaya puffs in an airtight container so it still stay crisp the next day! Or you can lightly heat it in the toaster oven.

Char Siew Soh (叉烧酥) / BBQ Pork Puff Pastry

I think I have been baking alot bakes using puff pastry method.  There are still alot more recipes I like to try eventhough it takes some time especially kneading, rolling piece by piece of the dough.

I am still trying to find the right texture of the crisp of the layer.  I saw one recipe using the water dough with full bread flour which is too hard to knead it out for me.

I have made Siew Pau just last month and that was the first time I'm trying on puff pastry.  Call that real hard work, kneading and rolling for me.  And then, I try making the Wife's Cake/Lou Poh Paeng too.  I guess I must be getting the feel of making puff pastry bakes.  Today, I am posting Char Siew Soh, and I think both this Siew Pau and Char Siew Soh doesn't have much of difference in terms of the filling or the puff pastry; it is just the shape only.

I am using the Water & Oil Dough ingredients from Sugar & Everything Nice in the puff pastry but the filling is the same as the Siew Pau I made previously.

 

Char Siew Soh (叉烧酥) / BBQ Pork Puff Pastry

 

Water Dough

200g all-purpose flour, sifted
100g water
50g vegetable shortening
50g icing sugar

Oil Dough

200g all-purpose flour, sifted
100g vegetable shortening

Method
1. Water dough
. Rub oil with flour until it looks like breadcrumbs.
. Dissolve sugar and syrup in water and add to the above. Mix together to form a

   smooth dough. Cover and rest for 15 mins.
. Divide dough into 18 pieces.

2. Oil Dough
. Rub shortening gradually into the flour to form a soft dough. Cover to rest for 15

   minutes.
. Divide dough into 18 pieces.

3. Wrap oil dough into water dough and flatten it.
4. Roll out into a longish flat piece. Roll up like a swiss roll).
5. Turn 90 degrees, and repeat the rolling up 2 – 3 times.

Filling for Char Siu Pau ~ Pork Bun Filling

Ingredients
300 gm char siew (bbq pork) (chopped into small pieces)
5 Tbsp frozen peas
chives or spring onions (optional)
4 tsp oil

Seasonings                                         Topping
6 Tbsp water                                         1 egg (beaten)
2 tsp sesame oil                                     2 tbsp toasted/fried sesame seeds
3 tsp oyster sauce
4 tsp sugar


1 1/4 tsp dark soy sauce
1 tsp cornflour
3 tsp peanut butter
dash of pepper
dash of chinese wine

Method
1. Mix seasoning together
2. Heat oil, add seasoning and simmer till gravy thickens.
3. Add bbq pork and the rest of the ingredients. Mix well
4. Remove and leave to cool before using as filling.

To Assemble

1.  Preheat the oven to 170 Celcius.

2.  With the heel of your palm, gently press the pastry down to flatten it lightly.
3.  Roll out the pastry into a flat circle. Spoon in about 1 tbsp of filling, wrap well and

      form into triangle shape.
4. Brush egg wash on the surface and sprinkle with sesame seeds.
5. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

    I've tried to form it in triangle shape but some have turned up into odd or out of shape!!

Puff Pastry Egg Tarts

When I saw this Puff Pastry Egg Tarts at NasiLemakLover , I told myself I must make this one day.  I loves Egg Tart very much, regardless whether it is the shortcrust pastry or the flaky type, as long as it is with the egg pudding in it.  Delicious!

I was a little greedy and over pour the egg filling in it and lucky me it didn't spill out.  Using the ready made puff pastry made it easier.   Why not for a change instead of making that tedious type of flaky egg tart though it may be of different texture!

 Out from oven......