Homemade English Muffins

Hi Everyone I'm back today with a recipe for English Muffins. They are so easy to make at home, and I believe after reading you'll want to make them yourselves too!

I came up with this idea of making English muffins myself when I was (honestly) bored at home and wanted to do some baking. And who would have thought of making them at home? Just when I came across this blog The Wok of Life and thought to myself "Maybe I should make them for something different for breakfast?". And you don't need any fancy ingredients either, pretty much what everyone has in their pantry.

What we need:
3 2/3 cups plain flour
Little bit of semolina flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 packet of dry yeast
1 tub (175ml) yoghurt
1 cup (250ml) warm water (around 40oC - 110oF)

Mix water and sugar together. Sprinkle the yeast in water then stir, let the yeast bloom for 5 minutes until the surface foams up.

Put the rest of the ingredients and the yeast/water mixture in a stand mixer with dough hook attachment, then let the machine knead away! Lots easier, it takes around 7-8 minutes. You can also mix and knead by hand, it takes around 10 minutes.

The dough smells really good because of the yoghurt. I actually used strawberry yoghurt (hehe) because that was what I had in the fridge, but you can use pretty much any type of yoghurt.

After kneading, let the dough rest for 5 minutes. During that time lightly dust a baking tray with semolina flour (or polenta up to you). This is to give the muffins that sandy crust.

Then roll the dough out about 3/4 inch or 1cm thick...

I find it a bit hard to roll out, since the dough is quite elastic. Remember to lightly flour your benchtop so it won't be sticky.

Then use a cookie cutter or anything round (rice bowl, round drinking glass etc.) to cut out rounds like this...

My cookie cutter is around 9-10cm (around 4") round. But I guess you can use any size depending on how big you want the muffins to be.

Then put the cutout dough into the prepared baking tray. Put the damp towel over the tray and let rise in a warm spot for an hour.

This is what it looks like after rising

Heat up your favourite frying pan. Brush a thin layer of butter or oil, reduce the heat to medium and put the cutout round doughs in. Cook for 5 minutes each side, turning once only.

Pretty puffy little rounds... They puff up further when you heat them up :)

Then flip!

Look at the lightly charred muffins! Almost like store bought already (only healthier and better, he-he)
After cooking transfer them to a wire rack and let cool.

Or you can slice them hot and slather them with butter! They taste amazing when hot. We like it hot!!

Store them in a airtight container or ziplock bag for few days on benchtop. Please don't put them in the fridge, they will dry out. Or you can wrap them individually in plastic wrap and freeze. Just bring to room temp & toast before eating.

Happy baking everyone!

Baked cornflake crust chicken nuggets

Chicken breasts at Woolies are on sale yay!! $7.99 for 1kg so I bought 2kilos (hehe). I don't normally eat chicken breasts because I prefer meat cooked on the bones. But this is quite cheap comparing to normal price :D.

My hubby likes McDonalds chicken nuggets, you know the processed type with all the bad stuff for your health. So I decided I should make him stop eating fast food nuggets and never buy nuggets outside again.

And so he did. And I bet after you try this recipe you'll never eat chicken nuggets outside, or buy the frozen types again ^^.

The chicken was very tender and flavorsome, even though chicken breasts tend to get dry if slightly overcooked. However with the marinade, you can be rest assured that there won't be any leftovers :D.

Baked chicken nuggets
Ingredients:
1kg chicken breasts
400ml full cream milk
Salt & Pepper
Few dash of fish sauce
300gr cornflakes
Spices (garlic powder, paprika, cayenne pepper, black pepper)
Cornflour

Directions:
 Preheat oven to 200 degree Celcius.
Slice chicken breasts into cubes. Mix chicken with milk, some salt, pepper and fish sauce. Cover and leave to marinade for at least 20 minutes.

In a food processor, process cornflakes until fine. Combine with spices and cornflour.

Take chicken cubes out of the marinade straight into the cornflake mix. Roll chicken pieces over few times to make sure they are well crumbed.

Put the crumbed chicken pieces on lined baking tray and bake it preheated oven for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Enjoy your healthy chicken nuggets!! Any leftovers can be frozen, just reheat in microwave for for minutes for a quick snack!

Happy weekend everyone :*

How I came to love baking...

I have to admit, I am not a big fan of eating dessert. But the thing is I love baking, and making beautiful cakes. I know it sounds weird to most people, but I believe most bakers can relate to this.

I didn't start baking cakes because I want to eat them, it's just something about all those pretty and colorful sweets that got me really excited. Every time I get to bake, I feel like a kid again. To be able to play with flour, eggs, butter and vanilla extracts. Who would have thought all those simple ingredients result in magical things like cakes? (cliche' isn't it, but doesn't mean it's not true).

I grew up in Vietnam, a southeast Asian country, where people don't generally have ovens in their kitchen. Yep, and neither was my family's kitchen. I would sit in front of TV watching cooking shows and feel fascinated by all the cakes and food. And how I wished to someday, someday... to finally be able to bake my first cake.

When I moved to Australia, EVERY single kitchen had an oven. I was over the moon, thinking of all the possibilities, all the sweets, cakes, cupcakes, bread pudding etc. that I can create. My first baked good is a bread pudding (hehe) because we had lots of leftover bread. I lived with 5 housemates, so they would finish the sweets I made in no time. I found a job while studying to fund my baking, and I made my friends' birthday cakes too, as practice cakes. They didn't mind being my guinea pigs, hehe.

Right now I am practicing with fondant cakes, hoping one day I can open my own wedding cake shop. Gotta dream big, right?

Hopefully I will have plenty of nice cakes to show for in this blog.

Happy baking everyone!!

Banana cranberry cookies - Dairy free

Welcome to my first post everyone.

Adelaide was windy & raining today, so naturally I chose to stay home for the whole day. I also chose to bake cookies :)

I was after a simple recipe for cookies, rampaging through my bookmarks and found a really (really) simple one. It was actually a recipe for choc chip cookies, but I changed a few ingredients and tada!!! Banana cranberry cookies ^^.

These cookies smell wonderful while baking, and I made them on the softer side, just because I like soft cookies. But if you prefer a more crunchy texture then simply bake them about 5-10 minutes longer. They are also dairy free, but still taste great because of the mashed banana.

Anyway, I won't stall you any longer. Below is my recipe:

Ingredients:

125gr unsalted butter (1/2cup), softened
3/4 cup light or dark brown sugar
1 ripened banana, mashed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
1 1/4 cups plain flour
1 cup dried cranberries

Directions:

Line your baking sheet/pan with baking paper. Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celcius.

Using your mixer, beat softened butter and brown sugar until combined, light & fluffy (about 2-3 minutes on medium).

Add mashed banana and vanilla extract, beat to combine.

Add salt, flour and dried cranberries all at once. Use your spatula to fold and mix through, until just combined. You don't want to over-mix because that will result in tough cookies, or they might spread too much while baking.

Drop heaped tablespoon of dough on baking pan. I used 1-tablespoon ice cream scoop for this.

Bake in preheated oven for 10-15 minutes. Cool in pan for 10 minutes before removing.

Make 20 small cookies.


Let me know how they turn out! Happy baking everyone !