Sourdough Chocolate Chip Muffins

Please bear with me as i yet again put up another sourdough recipe.

This time, i used my sourdough discard to make chocolate chip muffins.

The sourdough here acts as an acidic base for the baking soda, which made the muffins get an extra “oomph” while rising in the oven.

As always with muffins, i was extra generous with my chocolate chips. I loved picking the chips with my fingers when i eat my muffins.

Taste wise, i couldnt really taste the sour twang of the sourdough starter. Neither did Mr.Crustabakes… I know this because he didn’t complain. You see, Mr. Crustabakes isn’t a big fan of sourdough related items. He thinks they are stinky and rotting. Little did he know that he just scarfed a whole muffin of sourdough. Ha!

Sourdough chocolate chips muffins

Yields about 8 muffins

Adapted from Sourdoughhome.com

• 1 C “discarded” sourdough starter
• 1 C All Purpose flour (sift flour prior to measuring)
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 C oil
• 1/2 C sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ~1/2 C chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 425F.

Combine dry ingredients in small bowl. Stir in chocolate chips. Combine wet ingredients in medium bowl. Add dry ingredients to wet ones.

Line your muffin tins with cupcake wrappers. Mix the wet and dry ingredients quickly and spoon into your muffin cups.

Bake at 425 for about 20 minutes.

 

 

Sourdough Discard Crackers

Help. I cant stop eating these!

It may not look appetizing, but boy, does it keep you munching away!

Made from sourdough discard (I did warn you to be prepared for an avalanche of sourdough recipes ahead), seasoned just with garlic powder, cheddar cheese and salt, these nuggets really keep you coming for more!

If you had to know, these were the pretty much the only things i ate today.

Yep, I ate them for lunch, and i had them for dinner.

And i still want more!

In fact, i have some baking away in the oven as i am writing this down…. The new batch is flavored differently…. I used the leftover seasonings i had from a packet of instant noodles. So i bet they would taste good!

Sourdough Crackers

1 cup of sourdough discard, unfed

1/2 to 1 cup flour

1/4 cup oil

Seasonings of your choice (I used 1/4 tsp garlic powder)

1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

 

Mix the oil with the sourdough discard.

Add the flour to form a stiff dough

Set aside for 8 hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 180 degree celcius

Sift the baking soda into salt, the cheddar cheese and your choice of seasoning. Mix well

Knead the baking soda into the dough

Roll it into 1/8 inch thick, and cut into bite sized pieces

Bake for 15 minutes  or till they turn a pretty golden brown.

Sourdough Discard Waffles

U know those little packets of living organisms that you use to make breads? The one that spring to action when it is watered? The one responsible for making your bread expand and rise?

Well, i’ve been trying to grow my own packet of them.

Yup, I’ve been trying to grow my own natural yeast.

I’ve prowled all over internet sites and books.

I’ve joined a facebook group called the “natural homemade bread” club. I’ve asked for opinions, advise, guides from the experts in that group. And I must genuinely thank these people for offering me needed instructions and solutions to caring for my yeast.

So, a little bit about natural yeast, from my short lived “research”….

Natural yeast is a tiny organism. It exists around us. You can find them clinging on the surfaces of fruits, or even on the surface of flour particles.

By soaking your fruits/flour in water, you are giving a media for these little yeast to grow. These yeast feed on starch molecules. Be it the flour or sugar.

So like a pet, you are supposed to feed and water them at intervals to make sure they have enough water and food to thrive.

However, before you feed them, you  are supposed to throw away a good portion of it to make sure the yeast population is controlled, and there is enough food and water for the remaining yeast that you did not discard.

The thought of discarding this yeast bothers me. They were afterall good yeast, which I had cared, fed and looked after.

So again, I prowled the internet for recipes which use discard yeast.

So here I am with my first post on a waffle recipe using discarded yeast.

 

A sourdough waffle.

One of the most flavorful waffle I’ve ever tasted.

Like its name would suggest, these waffles have a slight twang of sourness to it. Just like how sourdough breads are.

These waffles were so good, I didnt really need any kind of topping to eat them with. Maybe just a slight dusting of icing sugar

 

It really depends on personal preference though.

Mr. Crustabakes on the other hand wasn’t too crazy over these sourdough waffle.

But with maple syrup, he managed to scarf down two slices without any complaints though.

With this yeast project in hand, I foresee myself posting more discard yeast recipes. I wish I could interest everyone into growing their own yeast. Because not only is it healthier, but it is also easier on the digestive system…

But if all these yeasty things arent  your thing, please do bear with me…

For instructions on how to grow your own yeast, you can refer to King Arthur Flour’s website HERE

Sourdough discard Waffles

Recipe taken from King Arthur Flour

Overnight sponge

• 2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 cups buttermilk (I used 2 cups of milk mixed with 2 cups of lemon juice)
• 1 cup sourdough starter, unfed

Waffle or pancake batter

• all of the overnight sponge
• 2 large eggs
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil or melted butter
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

1) To make the overnight sponge, stir down your refrigerated starter, and remove 1 cup.

2) In a large mixing bowl, stir together the 1 cup starter, flour, sugar, and buttermilk.

3) Cover and let rest at room temperature overnight.

4) In a small bowl or mixing cup, beat together the eggs, and oil or butter. Add to the overnight sponge.

5) Add the salt and baking soda, stirring to combine. The batter will bubble.

6) Pour batter onto your preheated, greased waffle iron, and bake according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

7) Serve waffles immediately, to ensure crispness. Or hold in a warm oven till ready to serve.

Singapore Hokkien Mee

Hokkien Mee, which translates to “Fujian Noodle” was something I grew up with in Singapore.

Fujian is a province in China. So I suppose this dish probably could trace its origins there.

I grew up in Singapore without my parents, but with a hired “nanny” to watch over us (me and my siblings). At times, this hired “nanny” would take a break from cooking. She would assign us some money, to settle lunch on our own.

I looked forward to these occasions, because back then, I didn’t like home cooking. She wasn’t the world’s best cook. And it was always the same few dishes that came out of her kitchen.

So Hokkien Mee was something i liked to order when we had the chance to eat out. I remember the stall owner would fire up his stove, make a hell lot of noise stirring his metal spatula against his giant wok. Minutes later, a plate of steaming hot, soggy noodles would appear.

I especially loved it when the noodles are extra soggy. Because it means, extra broth. This broth is the highlight of this dish. It is bursting with all the flavors from hours of simmering stock.

As a kid, I couldn’t pinpoint as to what made the broth so delicious. It was only after reading the recipes for this dish that i discovered that the stock was made of pork, chicken and prawns.

Yup, that’s three types of meat, combined to make one stock. Can i justify further?

 

Singapore Hokkien Mee

Recipe taken from Rasa Malaysia

Singapore Hokkien Mee Recipe

Ingredients:

250g Yellow Noodle
250g White thick rice vermicelli (I used dried rice vermicelli)
400g Prawn
350g Squid (Sotong) (omitted, added sliced fishcakes instead)
200g Pork Belly (omitted)
40g Green chives
750ml Chicken stock
3 Eggs
5g Chopped garlic

Seasoning:

1/2 tbsp Fish sauce
1 dash Pepper
1 dash Sesame oil

Method:

1. Peel the prawn head.  In a hot wok, add a tbsp oil and fry the prawn head until fragrant. Add fried prawn head into chicken stock and boil for 30mins to 1 hour. (I usually reserve the uncooked prawn shells and prawn heads from other dishes and keep them frozen in the freezer)
2. Add the pork belly into the stock and boil for 45mins. Take out the pork belly and cool. Cut pork belly into strips. ( I omitted this step)
3. Blanch dried vermicelli, fishcake and prawns in boiling water. Drain and set aside
4. Into a hot wok, add 1 tbsp of oil, fry the garlic until fragrant. Add in egg and scramble.
5. Add in yellow noodle and blanched rice vermicelli. Fry for a few minutes until noodles just begin to sear. (Use high heat)
6. Add 1/3 of prawn stock and seasoning. Fry until stock is almost dry. Add another 1/3 of prawn stock. Cover wok to braise the noodles on medium low heat. (5 to 7 mins) * Note: I had to add a bit of water as my stock wasn’t quite enough
7. Lastly add in prawn, squid, chives and fry together. Add remaining stock, fry for 1 min and plate. Serve with sambal chilli and lime.

 

 

Braised Pork Belly& Mushrooms in Soy Sauce

I didnt grow up with this dish, but apparently Mr. Crustabakes did.

This is a chinese dish of braised pork belly in soy sauce, or also known as the “tau yew bak”.

I’ve added dried shitake mushrooms, a hard boiled egg and some beancurd puffs. Apparently, these three are the common accompaniment to this dish.

I’ve also been bloghopping to find a recipe for this. But i couldn’t settle on one.

Some required the pork to be browned in a skillet, some don’t. Some add light soy sauce, in lieu of salt.

So I’ve decided to come up with my own recipe.

A recipe scaled for one serving.

Oh, i am also linking this post to Joyce of Kitchen flavours

She happened to be hosting this month’s Little Thumbs Up event

Little Thumbs Up, is an event organized by Zoe from Bake For Happy Kids and Doreen from my little favourite D.I.Y.

And since this month’s event happens to be “Mushrooms”, so here i go!

Tau Yew Bak

Serves one.

1 egg, hardboiled

2 Tofu puffs, cut diagonally

125 grams pork belly

2 dried shitake mushrooms

Light soy sauce

Dark soy sauce

sugar

half of a whole garlic

half a star anise

1 clove

1/8 tsp five spice powder

500 ml of water

1. Using a little oil, brown the pork belly on all sides. Rub some dark soy sauce over the browned pork belly

2. Bring the water to boil. Add garlic, 5 spice powder, clove and anise seed

3. Add the pork belly, and the shitake mushrooms, let it simmer for 1 hour, or till the meat turns tender.

4. Add the light soy sauce and sugar to taste, and the dark soy sauce for color

4. Add the egg, tofu puffs, simmer for another 15 minutes.

5. Serve with white rice

Sugar Free Raisin Banana Bread

Lots of cakes out there claim to be sugar free.

But they are laden with synthetic sugar.

I’ve seen cakes that claim to be refined sugar free.

But they are laden with a whole party of unrefined sugar.

This cake however is wholly Sugar Free.

It relies wholly on bananas and raisins to its sweetness.

Perfect for my 10 month old baby Crusta.

Yup, she is still not allowed sugar. Refined, or not refined.

My poor baby.

So till you hit your 12 month mark,

and are finally allowed a moderate amount of sugar

here is something to tide you over.

Sugar Free Banana Bread with Raisins

Makes 2 large muffins

20 grams organic raisins, chopped

40 grams boiling water

40 grams whole wheat flour

12 grams All purpose flour

1/4 tsp organic/natural baking powder

28 grams olive oil

125 grams (about 1) banana

1 egg yolk

Pour the boiling water onto the chopped raisins, set aside for half hour

preheat oven to 180 degree celcius, Grease and line the muffin tins.

Sift whole wheat, all purpose flour with the baking powder.

Drain the raisins, reserving the liquid.

Put the olive oil, banana and 12 grams of the steeped raisin water in a food processor. Process till smooth.

Pour the processed banana mixture onto the flour mixture and mix till well combined.

Add the chopped raisins and pour the batter onto awaiting muffin tins.

Egg benedict and Bacon Sandwich

It’s an Egg-citing day for me today,

Because i successly:

1. Poached an egg

2. Made hollandaise sauce.

Yay Me!

For tips and instructions to make these two, i refer to KitchenRiffs, here

Steamed Strawberry Cupcake

As mentioned in my previous post, i am attempting to employ my gas stove more instead of my power draining oven.

This cupcake here, is a strawberry fanta flavoured steamed cupcake.

As with butter cakes, the surface of this cake is supposed to “break open”, indicating that the cake has fully risen.

And if you are wondering what the black stuff on it is, they were shredded chocolate.

I love how the strawberry fanta imparts the pretty pink colour.

Not to mention a slightly strawberry flavour.

Fanta Steamed Cupcakes

2 eggs

200 grams sugar

275 grams AP flour

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

175ml Fanta

50 grams thick coconut milk

Some shredded chocolate

 

 

Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl, set aside

Beat eggs till pale and fluffy (about 10 mins)

Fold in the sifted flour alternately with the fanta and coconut milk

Pour onto cupcake molds which have been prelined.

Sprinkle chocolate over the cupcakes

Lower cupcakes into a pre-heated steamer, and heat with high heat for about 10 minutes.

 

 

Another type of cheesecake

This cake…

I don’t even know how to title it.

It has cream cheese in it.

It has white chocolate,

It has butter.

Yet it’s not exactly a cheesecake,

nor is it a buttercake,

and definitely not a blondie.

Oh, and did i mention that it was steamed, not baked?

But if i were to have a go at this cake,

I would say this is a cake between a sponge and a butter cake.

It’s light and soft, yet it’s “bulky”.

It’s sweet, but not sponge-cake sweet.

Its rich, but not buttery cake rich.

Oh well, whatever the case, i think it’s a pretty good cake, considering that it’s steamed.

Which brings me to another point.

Admist rising electrical bills (Having a baby really jacks up your bills!), and a full force electrical oven which drains 2200 watts each time i fire it, I decided that i should steam more often and bake less.

So here it is!

Steamed cheesecake with white chocolate

Taken from Cake Kukus (Sedap)

(Makes 5 cupcake size)

38 grams cream cheese (double boiled till melted)

4 egg yolks

2 egg whites

63 grams sugar

1/8 tsp salt

63 gram AP flour

10 gram milk powder

1/4 tsp baking powder

50 grams butter, melted

38 grams white chocolate (melted with butter)

Beat eggs, sugar and salt till light and fluffy. Add melted cream cheese, mix till well combined.

Fold in flour, milk powder and baking powder

Add melted butter and white chocolate slowly, and fold till evenly mixed

Pour into cupcake tins that have been lined with greased baking paper.

Steam for 30 minutes or till cooked.

Singapore Rojak

“Rojak” which is Malay for “mixture”, is a salad dish of vegetables and fruits.

It seems to me that some countries have their own versions of “Rojak”. . I’ve heard of the Singapore Rojak, the Indian Rojak and the Indonesian Rujak (Notice the different spelling here?)

While being completely ignorant about the Indian Rojak, I do think there is a fair resemblance between the Singapore and the Indonesian Rujak i both grew up with.

Both of them came served with a thick, dark, sweet sauce which looks like this:

The sauce for the singapore rojak however, is more pungent. The indonesian rujak sauce is milder, sweeter, and spicier.

The three main ingredients in both rojaks are the same. Shrimp paste, palm sugar, and tamarind and sometimes chilli.

I guess you can play around with the proportions and come up with your own recipe that suit to your personal taste.

Sauces aside, we come to the “bulk” of the rojak

You can pretty much use every “dry” fruit, such as green apples, rose apples, jicama, under ripe mangoes … etc

But unlike the Indonesian rujak which use only fruits, its singapore cousin likes to add a bit of fried beancurd and youtiao in it. Nothing to complain about. It’s great!

Not forgetting the ground peanuts, which again, the Indonesian rujak lack of.

Toss your choice of fruits, fried stuff, peanuts in a bowl, with your sauce, and your rojak is ready to serve.

And dont forget your skewers !

Singapore Rojak

The bulk:

Here are the list of choices you can choose to add form

Jicama (Mangkuang)

Cucumber

Rose Apples

Green Apples

Pineapple

Tau pok

You tiao

Kangkung

Bean sprout

Dried Cuttlefish

The sauce:

1 tsp of shrimp paste (belacan)

2 tbs tamarind (mixed with a bit of water to “dissolve the flesh”, discard seed)

one block of palm sugar

Mix all ingredients for the sauce, and bring it to a boil over low heat. Keep stirring till it gets syrupy. Off heat, set aside to cool, and drizzle over the “bulk”

 

 

 

Indonesian Layered Cake

I’ve recently joined a facebook group called the “Indonesian Foodblogger”

Like most groups you see on the internet, this group aims to bring together Indonesian foodbloggers around the world. It is a place where you can share or question anything food related.

To further engange its members, the Indonesian Foodblogger (IFDB) puts forward a challenge each month. And for the month of May, the theme is “layered cake”.

However, there is a catch.

The challenge does not accept cakes that are baked, and then LAYERED with buttercream, ganache and the likes.

It accepts cakes which are layered WHILE they (the cake) is cooking..

Which pretty much means you gotta stand around, fiddling your thumbs while you pour your cake batter and watch it cook layer by layer. It involves a great deal of time.

So, i set aside an evening for it.

I carried baby Crustabakes on my hip as i started weighing my ingredients.It’s crazy, but I have developed some kind of superpower whereby i can balance baby Crustabakes on my left hip and still be completely functional with my right arm.

Like a good trade off, this cake is fairly simple to execute. A time consuming, but minimal labor kinda cake.

All you need is a simple whisk, and a lot of bowls.

Three bowls, for the three different colours on the cake.

I’ve chosen pink and green for this cake.

Because those are the colours stated in the recipe.

Also because those were the only food colorings i had at home. Yes, unfortunately, i used food coloring for this cake.

I may be functional with my right arm, but i am not THAT functional to be pounding at leaves or fruits to get natural food dye.

So off i go, steaming this cake, layer by layer.

8 minutes per layer.

Alternating the layers between white, green, then pink and repeating the sequence over and over again till the batter gets used up.It took a total of about 2 hours.

By the end of it, i had put baby C to sleep, took a shower, brushed my teeth and got ready for bed.

All while cooking a cake.

Talk about multi-tasking!

Lapis Beras

Loosely translated from 52 Resep Kue Berlapis

1.5 Litres coconut milk, squeezed from 2 heads of coconuts

3 blades of pandan leaves

1 tsp salt

300 gram rice flour

85 gram sago flour

300 grams granulated sugar

6 drops green food coloring

6 drops red food coloring

1. Bring to boil coconut milk, pandan leaves and salt, all the while stirring. Strain, and discard the pandan leaves. Set aside to cool.

2. Sift the rice flour, sago flour and the sugar.Slowly whisk warm (not hot) coconut milk into the flour mixture.

3. Divide the batter into 3 bowls. Drop green food coloring into one bowl. Drop red food coloring into another bowl and leave the third one white.

4.Pour 100 ml of white batter onto a greased square tin (18cm x 18cm x 7 cm). Steam for 8 minutes.

5. Pour 100 ml of green batter over the white batter, steam for 8 minutes

6. Pour 100 ml of red batter over the white batter, steam for 8 minutes.

7. Repeat the sequence of white, green and red, till all the batter gets used up.

8. For the last layer, steam for a final 30 minutes. Let cool before serving.

 

My very first Fondant Cake

The reason why you’ve never seen a full fledged fondant cake on Crustabakes, is because i have a mortal fear of fondant.

I’ve heard all about it being sticky, and uncooperative to work with.

It cracks, it sweats, it tears, and the list of troubles goes on and on.

I’ve also never cared about its taste.

And the fact that everyone just tears out the decorative fondant after they’ve sung the birthday song and blown the candles didn’t help either. Imagine, all those endless hours shaping the fondant defunct in just a split second.

But something spurred me.

Baby Crustabake’s first birthday.

Her birthday is just in a little over more than two months.

And I would love to make something “passable” to celebrate that special day.

So today, i start practicing.

My very first full fledged fondant cake.

A simple cake with a bow of pastel colors.

The fondant did sweat, and it has fine “wrinkles”

I need to troubleshoot on that. It’s really a long, arduous journey ahead.

Me vs fondant.

Bread Pudding with Brown Sugar Crumbles

Using yesterday’s swirled sweet potato sandwich bread, i made this bread pudding, with brown sugar crumbles.

It’s a recipe re-visited, from HERE

Happy Friday everybuddy!

Another potato bread, this time, swirled.

I know I just posted a purple sweet potato bread yesterday. But the truth is, the bread was made last week. And we finished it.

And I just had to make another one.

This time however, i used two types of sweet potatoes. The regular orange skinned, white flesh sweet potatoes and the purple ones.

Then i swirled them together.

It takes a little bit more effort making this, I had to divide everything into two. Which means double the dirty bowls, double the kneading process, double almost pretty much everything.

But I wanted to see how it would swirl so badly, that i decided to go ahead and did double duty on this bread.

So here it is, the bread swirled.

And here it is, as a ham sandwich. Whoopee!

Swirled Sweet Potato Loaf
(adapted and modified from Jess of J3ss Kitch3n)

Recipe


Starter Dough Ingredients
200g bread flour
1/2 tsp instant yeast
65 cooked purple sweet potato (mashed)

65 cooked white sweet potato (mashed)
Water

• Combine bread flour, instant yeast and mashed PURPLE sweet potato in a mixing bowl, add in sufficient water to form a soft pliable dough, cover with cling wrap or a wet cloth and prove for 1hr or until double in size.
• In another bowl, Combine bread flour, instant yeast and mashed WHITE sweet potato in a mixing bowl, add in sufficient water to form a soft pliable dough, cover with cling wrap or a wet cloth and prove for 1hr or until double in size.

Main Dough Ingredients
15g bread flour
25g all purpose flour
33g cooked PURPLE sweet potato (mashed)
10g sugar
20g olive oil

15g bread flour
25g all purpose flour
33g cooked WhITE sweet potato (mashed)
10g sugar
20g olive oil

• Combine all of the PURPLE Main Dough Ingredients with the PURPLE starter dough ingredients in your bread maker machine or stand mixer and knead till the window pane stage, cover with cling wrap or wet cloth and prove for 1hr or until double in size.
• In a separate bowl, do the same for the White main dough and white starter dough ingredients.
• Punch out the air from the proofed dough and divide the dough into 2 equal parts, cover and rest the doughs for 15mins.
• Punch out the air from the rested dough, wrap the white dough in the purple dough, roll it up swiss roll stylea nd shape into rounds, place into bread tin and prove for 1hr.
• Bake in preheated oven of 170C for 38mins or till golden brown, remove bread from tin immediately once done and cool completely on a cooling rack before slicing.

Purple Sweet Potato Bread

Some of you are probably sick of the babyfood posts that i’ve been putting up lately.

Today, I shall suspend baby-related activities and return to regular Crustabake-y kinda post.

“Back to basics” as everyone would say.

Basics, in Crustabakes, would probably be baked goods.

While still on a “healthy” strike,

I bring you this Purple potatoes sandwich swirled bread.

No, its not gluten free, and yes, there is sugar involved in making this.

But it’s low gluten, due to the potatoes.

And no artificial coloring was used to get this beautiful hue.

It’s all natural from the pureed purple sweet potatoes.

Purrty ain’t it?

Sweet Potato Loaf
(adapted and modified from Jess of J3ss Kitch3n)

Recipe


Starter Dough Ingredients
200g bread flour
1/2 tsp instant yeast
130g cooked purple sweet potato (mashed)
Water

• Combine bread flour, instant yeast and mashed sweet potato in a mixing bowl, add in sufficient water to form a soft pliable dough, cover with cling wrap or a wet cloth and prove for 1hr or until double in size.

Main Dough Ingredients
All of Starter Dough
30g bread flour
50g all purpose flour
65g cooked purple sweet potato (mashed)
20g sugar
40g olive oil

• Combine all of the Main Dough Ingredients in your bread maker machine or stand mixer and knead till the window pane stage, cover with cling wrap or wet cloth and prove for 1hr or until double in size.
• Punch out the air from the proofed dough and divide the dough into 2 equal parts, cover and rest the doughs for 15mins.
• Punch out the air from the rested doughs and shape into rounds, place into bread tin and prove for 1hr.
• Bake in preheated oven of 170C for 38mins or till golden brown, remove bread from tin immediately once done and cool completely on a cooling rack before slicing.