sour-paus

As some of you guys knew, I went for a 9km marathon with hubs this morning. So, last night, I thought of a brilliant idea to make Red Bean (tausa) Pau for all of us for breakfast.

So what I did was, I prepared the tausa dough last night, left it in the oven to proof. Thougt I should only line the paus in the steamer this morning so that all of us would have a nice piping hot tausa pau for breakfast.

However, when I went down this morning at 6 to steam the paus, to my horror, I saw these awful, ugly, flat and bubbly pau dough sitting on the oven tray starring at me! THEY LOOKED SICK!!! Immediately, I darted over to my computer to google why my sweet looking tausa pau turned into an ugly-sick looking pau this morning. URGH….

Answer is: I over-proofed my paus.

Gee. So I learned a lesson not to over proof dough(s) for paus, breads etc. Here I thought it would be an intelligent idea to let it sit and to serve it fresh the next day. Not so intelligent after all. ?!

So, I came across some tips when making dough/bread/pau/buns or rather what went wrong when…

Crust is Too Thick
• Too much flour
• Insufficient rising
• Oven temperature too low

Baked Loaf Crumbles
• Dough not well mixed• Too much flour added
• Rising place too warm
• Dough allowed to rise too long
• Oven temperature too low

Bread has Sour Taste
• Rising place too warm and dough rose too fast
• Dough rose too long before being baked

Dough Does Not Rise
• Water temperature too cool for dissolving yeast• Dough to stiff – reduce flour
• Rising place too cool – raise in warmer area

Bread has Dark Streaks
• Uneven mixing or kneading
• Bowl greased too heavily
• Dough not covered during rising

Bread has Holes in it
• Air not completely pressed out of dough during kneading and shaping
• Dough rose too long before baking

Tops of Bread Cracks
• Bread cooled too rapidly – probably in a draft
• Dough too stiff – reduce flour
• Dough not well mixed

Bread Doesn’t Rise in Oven
• Rising place too warm
• Yeast weak or old
• Dough allowed to risk too long

Bread is Heavy and Compact
• Too much flour added
• Dough not allowed to rise long enough
• Certain flours create heavier products (whole wheat and rye)

Bread Doughy Inside and Coarse Grained
• Loaf under baked
• Insufficient rising

Bread Falls in Oven
• Dough rose too much before baking

Bread Does Not Brown on Sides
• Pan too bright which reflects heat away from sides
• Overcrowding in oven
• Poor pan placement – try a different area of the oven

Bread Smells and Tastes of Yeast
• Rising time too long
• Rising place too warm

Bread is Doughy on Bottom
• Bread left in pans to cool. Remove from pans and cool on rack

My goodness. Its not all that easy to make a nice tausa pau isn’t it?

Anyways, all of us ate the ugly looking paus. They tasted a little sour, but the tausa taste manage to cover-up the sour dough. And so, should you want to try making sour paus, ladies and gentlemen, just overproof your paus!

Banana, oats and raisin muffin

I’ve wanted to be adventurous in introducing new food into Ethan’s diet. Not too long ago, I made muffins; some form of ‘baby muffin’. To my surprise, when I first baked the “so called baby muffins”, my aunt gobbled all of them down. “I like it a lot” she exclaimed. Frankly, she is a very fussy and picky eater. And I was flabbergasted when she hinted me to bake this type of muffin when she comes visit. As I ponder on it further, I realized that the reason she fell head over heels over these muffins because they weren’t sweet but full of flavor… How silly of me. I should have realized this as they were meant for baby, and obviously, minimal sugar was my aim.

Well, not to mention, everyone loves this, even the daddy!

Banana, oats and raisin muffin

Ingredients
2/3 cup of self raising flour
½ cup plain flour
¼ cup caster sugar
1 ½ cups of oats ( I used the fashion old quaker oats)
3 ripened bananas
a handful of chopped raisins
½ cup milk (low fat cows milk)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
¼ cup canola oil

1. Preheat oven to moderate 180 C. line 12 muffin cups.
2. Place flour, sugar, into a large mixing bowl.
3. Make a little whole in the centre, add fruit. Combine eggs, oil and milk. Using a wooden spatula, stir for a minute or until all ingredients are just combine; do not overbeat.
4. Spoon mixture into prepared muffin cups, filling 2/3 full.
5. Bake for 25 minutes or until puffed and lightly golden.
6. Take out, leave to cool and serve.