Pumpkin Brioche Loaf with Hershey Chocolate Filling

After I saw the Foodiva on her nutella stripe bread, I thought I copy her idea on baking a twisted loaf of bread too, I will be making a brioche bread. Here is Foodiva Nutella Strip Bread 

This will be a sweet bread for this Sunday's Coffee hour, it is the pumpkin brioche bread filled with Hershey Chocolate spread (instead of nutella... just a different brand). I am using fresh roasted pumpkin. I had blended the pumpkin and have freezed it awhile ago, it is good to have frozen prepared pumpkin at hand for any baking needs any time. 

Since I also have a jar of Hershey Chocolate spread, it will compliment well with the brioche. Just for fun, loaf bread makes for easy handling, I can cut up the brioche loaf in nice serving slices..... hmmm hope it will be interesting and inticing :)

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp yeast
1/4 warm water
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup margarine
2 eggs
1 cup homemade crushed roasted pumpkin
4  1/4 cup flour

Directions:
In a mixer, add warm water and yeast, let it stand for 5 mins till it gets foamy.
Add melted margarine and sugar, stir well.
Add one egg at a time and mix well.
Add 2 cup flour, mix well
Add pumpkin and mix well.
Attach hook to mixer, continue to mix well.
Gradually add the rest of the flour and mix well.

Pick up dough from mixer and knead dough into a ball.
Place dough in a dry bowl and cover dough with dry towel and let it rise for at least an hour.
Dough will rise and double in size.
Punch down dough, place dough on a lightly floured smooth surface.
Using a rolling pin, roll dough into rectangle and flat to least than 1/2 inch.
Spread the Hershey chocolate in the middle section of dough, fold in 1/3 over.
Spread hershey chocolate on top on the half section of dough, fold the 1/2 over.
And again and fold another half.
Using rolling pin, roll dough to flatten in one direction to make dough longer.
Using a pairing knife, cut dough into 4 long stripe.
Braid dough intertwined and tuck the top and bottom inside.
Place braided dough in a loaf pan, let dough stand for at least 30 mins.
Heat oven at 350 degree, bake for 35 mins.
Let bread cool and slice with bread knife and serve warm with more hershey spread or jelly (optional)

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs up organised by Doreen from my little favourite DIY and Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids, hosted by Eileen from Eileen's Diary at this post.

 

For October 2014, Eileen has requested her Little Thumbs Up event with PUMPKIN theme to starts on 1st October and will end on the last day of the month. Please join us! To join, simply cook or bake any recipe with PUMPKIN for October 2014 and link with us at this post anytime until 31st October 2014.

Banana Apple Bread

Late on a Saturday afternoon, it darn on me that there will not be any treats for our 8:30 Sunday Coffee fellowship. Now, I should see if I have anything I can bake with what I have in the kitchen. Bananas and apples were 2 obvious ingredients that popped up, and so I baked these mini loaves.

Ingredients:
5 bananas ( all I have, riped and perfect for baking)
3 little apples, chopped
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cup sugar plus 5 tsp sugar
2 tsp baking soda
2 eggs
6 Tbs margarine

Directions:
In my kitchen aid mixer, mix sugar, margarine and eggs until well incorporated.
Break in pieces bananas and add to mixture and continue to mix well.
Measure flour and mix in baking soda in a bowl.
Gradually add to mixture and mix well.
Add a handful of apples to the mixtures and mix well.

Lined 5 mini loaf pan with parchment paper at the bottom.
Scoop to each mini pan 1/2 full of dough mixture .
Sprinkle a big tablespoon of apples to each mini pan.
Scoop the other 1/2 of dough mixture to mini pan.
Sprinkle the rest of the apples to each of the mini pan.
Sprinkle 1 tsp of sugar on top of apples.

Heat oven at 350 degree.
Bake for 35 mins.
Cool slightly and slice and serve.

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs up organised by Doreen from my little favourite DIY and  Bake for Happy Kids, hosted by Kit from I-Lost in Austen at this post.

 

Yeasted Carrot Cake Bread

The classic carrot cake is usually topped or frosted with cream cheese icing, for what ever reason, carrot cake seems to go hand in hand with cream cheese, seems to me they both are in separable. So, I am not going to divorce this perfect pair and thus, I am baking my Carrot Cake Bread filled with cream cheese frosting :)

This carrot cake bread can be served as breakfast, meal time, dessert or as tea time treats, it is an all around / purpose cake/bread.

Cream Cheese Filling Ingredients:
In a mixer, mix well all the below ingredients for about 5 to 8 mins, store in air-tight container in fridge until ready to use.
8 oz cream cheese
1/3 cup corn flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Carrot Cake Bread Recipe

Tangzhong Starter:
1 cup water ( I use 1/2 cup water + 1/2 cup milk)
1/3 cup flour

Heat up water, add flour and stir till mixture incorporates and thicken. Turn off heat, let starter cool to just warm to the touch or cool completely. Starter can be stored in refrigerator for later use.

Dough:
A:
1/2 warm water (can substitute for milk) - (if you are not using sweet potato, increase water to 1 cup)
1 tbs yeast
1/2 cup flour

B:
5 - 6 cup flour
3 eggs
4 tbs butter or margarine (soften)
3 cups shredded carrots
1/2 baked sweet potato  ( optional , note and adjust A: above on water volume used )
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup sugar

In a small bowl, stir yeast and water and flour, let mixture stand and proof for 5 mins, should be foamy.

In a mixer bowl,  mix eggs + sugar.
Add in foamy mixture A to mixer bowl, gradually add flour. ( use 2 to 3 cups )
Add in potato and then butter.
Mix in rest of starter and flour gradually.
Mix in carrots and raisins, mix well.
Total mixing time should be  around 10 to 15 mins.

Fold in dough a few times into a smooth ball.
Cover dough with towel and let dough stands in a dry warm place until dough double in size (at least hour ++).
Punch down dough. Divide dough into desired sizes.
Divide and form each size dough to preferred sizes, roll each dough out and spread a generous amount of cream cheese on dough, roll up and tuck into shape, set aside
Let prepared dough stands for another 30 mins or more.

Bake in heat up oven at 350 degree for 20 to 25 mins.

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs up organised by Doreen from my little favourite DIY and me, Bake for Happy Kids, hosted by Alice from I Love. I Cook. I Bake. at this post

 

Baked Mini Spring Rolls with hint of cream cheese fillings

These treats were a lot of fun to make. Though I had to admit these mini rolls were very time consuming but the results were worth the time put in. I recently baked a carrot yeasted bread filled with cream cheese and I thought I tried using the same cream cheese filling to fill these mini spring rolls. I first tried a few mini spring roll samples before I ventured into working on the entire batch.

I also dipped a small batch of the mini spring rolls with melted chocolate, hmmmm they are pretty tasty too. That will be my next batch with better preparation on the right chocolate chips ingredient. For now, I focused on the cream cheese fillings.

BTW: I am not a big fan of deep frying therefore I opted to bake these rolls and they are as crispy as those of deep fried.. hey don't need the extra calories :)

Here is the recipe.

Cream Cheese Fillings:
4 oz cream cheese
2 1/2 Tbs corn flour
6 Tbs sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Spring Roll Pastry
1 package of Spring Roll Pastry Sheets (store bought). Package contains 25 sheets of 8 inch by 8 inch square sheets.
3 Tbs of flour. (for sealing of mini rolls on pastry )

1. In a mixer, mix all the cream cheesse filling ingredients for about 10 mins until well blended. Stored in air tight container in fridge until ready to use.
2. In a small small, mix flour with water to make a wet flour paste, sticky to the touch but not too watery.
3. Cut each sheet in 4 quarters. Keep pastry in covered containers while working on each individual mini spring roll.
4. On each quarter sheet, spoon 1/2 tsp cream cheese mixture and smears on the pastry sheet, fold and tuck roll into mini roll. Seal end with a tiny dab of wet flour. Store each mini roll in container with lid.
5. Heat up oven at 350 degree F.
6. Line all the mini spring rolls on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
7. Bake for 20 minutes or until mini rolls are golden.
8. Let mini rolls cool and store in air-tight containers.

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs up organised by Doreen from my little favourite DIY and me, Bake for Happy Kids, hosted by Alice from I Love. I Cook. I Bake. at this post

 

Cherry Tomato Couscous

I thought I make couscous with cherry tomatoes for dinner tonight. This dish will go well with Ham or anything savory dish. This is a very easy and quick recipe to make as well as healthy and tasty. Couscous is the easiest/simpliest pasta or grain dish to prepare. You just add couscous to hot boiling water, cover pan and remove pan from heat and let it sit/cool for 10 minutes, and couscous is ready to be used with your recipe. Sometimes I  try different variations of ingredients to go with the couscous, depending on what I have available in my pantry and/or refrigerator. Couscous is always Thumbs up in our household dinner table :)

Cherry Tomato Couscous Recipe: (my own recipe from scratch)

2 cups cooked couscous
3/4 cup of cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered
3/4 cooked chickpeas
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
1/4 cup dried cranberry

juice of 1 lemon
pinch of salt
freshly ground pepper

Couscous Preparation:
Cook couscous according to package instructions.
In a pan add water and add in dried cranberry.
Bring water with cranberries to boil.
Add couscous, stir. Cover couscous with pan lid and remove from heat.
Let it cool down for 10 minutes.

Direction:
Combine the couscous, tomatoes, cilantro, and chickpeas in a large bowl.
Squeezes the lemon juice directly into the bowl.
Add salt and pepper. Toss well, taste, and adjust with more of the above until it tastes just right.
Toss in cilantro until it is evenly dispersed.
Serves 4 - 6.

I am submitting this Cherry Tomato Couscous dish to the Little Thumbs Up event hosted by Doreen from  my little favourite DIY and organized by Zoe from Bake for Happy Kids.