German Rye Bread 田园稞麦面包

This is my favorite German Rye Bread. It reminded me when I was first tasting a rye bread in Berlin hotel for breakfast. I just miss it so much until I found a recipe from the book that my mum gave to me weeks ago. This is quite a dense and solid bread containing with 1/3 of rye flour and again, it is a healthy version of bread.

I followed exactly the same recipe from the book to make this rye bread. I mixed these ingredients in my dough mixer: 200g bread flour, 100g rye flour, 5g instant dry yeasts, 5 g salt, 190g slightly warm water and 10g of molasses. Then I placed it in a grease bowl and covered with cling film to rest for 30 minutes. Punch it down after the resting and roughly shape it into a ball by simply tighten it up and let it face up rather than the smooth part face up as the book had mentioned to give it a rustic look. I covered it with a damp towel and let it proof for about 30 minutes before baked it in the oven at 230'C about 25 - 30 minutes.

I really like this rustic look and it shows a very homemade country bread. My hubby and I was very enjoying the rye flavor and we hardly taste the yeasts on this bread. I shall put this recipe in my regular breakfast menu.

Matcha Red Bean Rolls

So, I continued with my red bean paste that had stored in the freezer days ago. I've used some of them to made few chinese red bean pao by using some premix pao flour from Phoon Huat. The others I used it for matcha red bean rolls. This is my first time to match this matcha sponge dough with red bean paste as I think red bean always go very well with green tea. Anyway, the dough is quite soft, but the problem is I was too greedy when wrapping too much red bean in the dough and finally the red bean paste is much prominent than the dough. What a good lesson for me not to be greedy next time. I followed the sponge dough recipe from an old recipe book. This book has been with my mum about 20 years, and now she passed it to me as she mentioned she had already retired from the kitchen. This book immersed in the water when our house flooded by a heavy rain many years ago. But my mum tried to dry it as I think she also loves this book very much. It really put my mood down for making bread when I was first looking at this book. But after read through it I really falled in love with it. The recipe book contains lots of old fashion recipe especially those European bread and rolls that my hubby and I love to have every morning. I shall keep this book as it is just so meaningful for mum and I.

I followed a plain sponge dough recipe from this book to make the green tea rolls and I've just added a tablespoon of matcha into it, however, I hardly taste the green tea flovour. I shall say my skills of making bread is still not up to the standard as you can see the rolls doesn't look in good round shape. If anyone have a good skills please please teach me and I will try to improve next time.

I used half of the original recipe to make 9 rolls and add 1 tablespoon of green tea powder. I put together all the ingredietns to my dough mixer except butter. Knead for about 15 minutes then I add butter and continue kneading until the dough well developed. I rest it in a grease bowl with cling film for about 40 minutes at room temperature then I divided it into 9 balls and rest for another 25 minutes covered with damp towel. I flatten each small dough to add in a red bean paste (don't be greedy like me) then covered with damp towel for another 60 minutes proofing before bake in a 200'C about 20 minutes.

Original sponge dough recipe from the book:

350g bread flour

6g instant dry yeast

18g sugar

7g salt
7g milk powder

230g slightly warm water

18g butter

** I added 1 tablespoon green tea powder

Red Bean Paste

I bought a pack of red bean quite some time ago but only this time I have mood to made something with red bean. I might use it for red bean pao or red bean bun or just spread on a piece of bread for breakfast. Well, I normally cook quite a lot as it could store very well in the fridge for 2 to 3 days or 3 weeks in the freezer. Of course I could easily get it from supermarket or bakery shop, but today I really have the mood to do it myself. I roughly washed 300g of red bean then cooked with 600ml of water at high heat with the lid on. It tooks about 10 minutes until the water bubbles up then I added 250ml of water (I've just added drinking water which is not hot or cold). I put the lit on again and cooked for another 5 minutes until it bubbles up again. I roughly washed it through a drainer again then put back to the pan and cook with 800ml of water until the red bean swelling but not breaking. Then roughly wash through a drainer again. This time I cooked with 850ml of water with Pandan Leaves at medium heat for 40 to 60 minutes with lid on. In between, I added some water (just drinking water) 2 to 3 times to prevent drying out and make sure the water cover up least 2 to 3cm from the top of red bean. Then I check whether it's soft enough by using a spatula to scraped a few bean before drained it and took away the pandan leave. I let it cook about 30 minutes before blend it in a food processor until it became a paste.

I cooked the bean paste with 150g of sugar with low medium heat and keep stirring with wooden spoon until I could draw a "1" in the pan. I divided it 8 or 9 portion by a big spoon to let it completely cool.After it completely cool down I made it into 18 little balls about 40g each and store some in the fridge and some in the freezer. I think I shall use it for a red bean pao soon.