Milk Loaf

Hello again! It has been a very long time since I last baked something. I promise it was not intentional. Quite a story to it actually. I was diagnosed with a spinal injury, a slipped disc to be exact. It's a real pain in the ass (literally).

For about two months I had been unable to walk and sit properly. Hence, me not being able to bake as well. Nevertheless, I am on the road to recovery now. I went to see this orthopedic specialist at Tung Shin hospital. He gave me an injection to shrink the disc and on that day itself I felt much better. So, cheers to good doctors like him!

I don't know if it's just me but when I'm sick or feeling unwell, I crave for bread. Especially plain white bread. It feels comforting, chomping on the slightly chewy and fluffy texture. I think it also helps that its's easy to swallow. 

So, anyway the other day I was at a bakery and I bought this milk loaf. (Oh, another thing about me is that I love anything with milk and cheese.) I thought it tasted pretty good and decided to try making my own. 

For a first time, I think it turned out pretty nicely. Here are the pictures:

I got the recipe from here http://happyhomebaking.blogspot.com/2007/08/almost-square.html.

Garlic Breadsticks

Mmm, if you were to ask me I'd say garlic and bread is one of the best food combinations. Nothing beats the garlicky aroma wafting from freshly baked bread. I'm also a huge fan of bread. Any sort of bread. Whenever I eat bread it gives this homey sort of feeling. I reckon this is perhaps because my mom used to bake wholemeal bread almost every other day. Waking up each day to the smell of bread baking in the oven definitely beats having to wake up early for school.

Breadstick or grissini are thin sticks of crispy, dry bread. They originate from Turin areas in Italy. They serve wonderfully as appetisers. I made this batch as an accompaniment to the chicken pizza for my friend's BBQ dinner.

Recipe from here Paula's Breadsticks.

Onion and Cheese Loaf

The other day I was at my college's library leafing through a Donna Hay magazine, and this particular recipe caught my eye. I didn't want to borrow the magazine as I have a bad habit of always exceeding the borrowing period and have thus far accumulated quite an amount of late penalty fees.


Anyway, I didn't have a single scrap of paper with me. So I spent five minutes furiously typing the recipe into my phone. The original recipe called for streaky bacon. But I omitted it from the recipe because I thought it would taste weird. 

Ingredients

1 tablespoon oil

2 medium-sized onion, halved and sliced

2 teaspoons yeast

1 teaspoon sugar

250ml lukewarm milk (more may be added if required)

320g all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon olive oil

100g sliced cheddar

Method

Preheat oven to 180 Celcius

1. Heat a pan and cook onions until golden brown.

2. Mix yeast, sugar and milk and set aside for 5 minutes.

3. Mix flour, salt, olive oil and yeast mixture to a dough.

4. Cover dough and set aside for 20 minutes.

5. Knead in half of onions and cheese.

6. Place in greased tin and top with remaining onions and cheese.

7. Bake in preheated oven for 35 minutes.

Cinnamon Roll

Well hello again. It has been a while, I've just started classes for this semester. Hence, the long breaks between posts.

Anyway, today I made cinnamon rolls! I love anything with cinnamon in them. Especially hot chocolate sprinkled with a little cinnamon. Mmm yum. =D

Note: I know the rolls look a bit er...yucky. But it's only because I put too much of the cinnamon and sugar filling. It kept spilling out when I cut it. So my advice would be to halve the recipe for the filling.

And yeah, I also added chocolate chips =).

Recipe adapted from Clone of a Cinnabon.