Popiah Skin

This project has been put on hold for a long time and finally, I bought the Lodge raw cast iron pan and thought of giving it a test run with this recipe. And it is absolutely fantastic.. it works.

Ingredients:

• 100g sourdough discard
• 100g flour
• 105g water
• a pinch of salt

Steps:

1. Mixed the ingredients well and stir it hard up and slam it down. Do this till you see the mixture begin to form "fibre". If too tired or lazy, just use the mixer with the dough hook, that should just take bout 1-2mins, but iIjust needed some hand exercise so i used the hand and the spoon. 
2. Cover well and store in the fridge to rest over night. you may use the dough once warm to room temperature.
3. Heat up the pan at medium heat and lower it once you can start to feel it out of it when u place your hand above it.
4. Use the hand to grab the dough mixture and dollop it to the pan. for reference, you can youtube the instruction how to it. However I had done a shortcut/lazy job and used the ladle instead for this task. I drop bout half a dollop on top the pan and quickly spread it out to as thin as I can.
5. Once done you may peel it off (I had timed mine at 2mins each) and let it warm up another 20seconds before doing the next sheet. Refer to the video below of me peeling it off and almost burnt my fingers... hehehe

Note: The skin will be rather crispy/tough when you peel it off. Place it on a plate and cover with a piece of cloth. It will soften once it cools down.

Sourdough Soft Bun

I love those cotton like texture from bread and buns and had hope to be able to make it without the use of commercial yeast. After some thought.. I tried substituting the yeast with the sourdough starter and see if it works. I had used the recipe that required poolish starter for the bread. And indeed, it works marvellously.

Ingredients:

• 310g sourdough starter that has been fed and is bubbly and ready to use
• 100g plain flour
• 15g milk powder
• 45g raw sugar (you can substitute with caster sugar)
• 5g salt
• 1 egg lightly beaten
• 70g water
• 50g butter

Steps:

1. Place all the dry ingredients in the mixing bowl and stir it. 
2. Then add in the rest of the ingredients except the butter.
3. Use the dough hook and knead the ingredients with medium low speed till it forms a dough shape.
4. Increase the speed and slowly add in the butter little by little in small cubes size.
5. Knead till the dough reach window pane stage (it took bout 10mins with the Kenwoood at high speed).
6. Set aside to rest for about 1hr to 1.5hr (it is ready when u poke a finger on it and the dough does not bounce back up).
7. Punch and shape the dough according to your preference, you may even fill it with your favourite filling.
8. Let it rest for another 20-40mins (it won't rise as much as those using commercial yeast) till almost double in size.
9. Brush some egg wash on the surface of the bread.
10. Bake at preheated oven at 180c for 28mins (for my oven, you may need to test and trial with your oven setting).

Sourdough Chocolate Brownies

As the sourdough starter is being fed, it gets more and more and I need to use it or discard it. As usual, I try to avoid wasting so I googled up for some usage and decided to make brownies with it instead.

Ms No 2 loves it so much coz it is all chocolate... yum

Ingredients:

• 170g dark chocolate chips
• 113g unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 80g sugar
• a pinch of salt
• 1tsp vanilla 
• 1 egg
• 20g cocoa powder (I used milo coz my girls love it)
• 113g of matured sourdough starter (I used it on the 5th day)

Steps:

1. Place the chocolate and butter in a microwave safe bowl. Heat it up at high for about 1min.
2. In a separate bowl, mix the cocoa powder and sugar. Then stir in the chocolate and butter mixture.
3. Next stir in the egg followed by the sourdough starter and the rest of the other ingredients.
4. Lightly greased the baking pan and pour the mixture into it.
5. If baking in the air fryer, just bake for bout 20mins on 180c. If using normal oven, preheat the oven at 200c. Then bake for 30-40mins. The outer layer of the brownie should be set but still looks wobbly.
6. Let it cool before removing to cut and serve.

First Successful Rustic Sourdough

This is my first successful sourdough bread. It is not a 100% sourdough bread though as it contains 2g of commercial yeast.

Personally, I don't quite like the taste (maybe I didn't put enough of salt in it) coz it is quite bland. The skin of the bread it crusty though and the inside is quite fluffy and soft.

Ingredients:

• 227g levain (the one that is fed and has bubbled up and spongy
• 340g lukewarm water (I used half hot and half cold as it is winter here)
• 7g or 2 tsp of instant yeast
• 14g sugar
• 2.5tsp salt
• 600g all purpose flour

Steps:

1. Place all ingredients in the mixing bowl and knead it to form a smooth dough.
2. Allow the dough to rise in a lightly greased covered bowl until it's doubled in size. It took mine bout 1hr and 5mins.
3. Gently divide the dough in half. It is ok if it deflates.
4. Gently shape the dough into two oval loaves or long loaves and place them on greased parchment lined baking sheet.
5. Cover and let it rise until very puffy, roughly bout an hour. 
6. At the end of the second proofing, preheat the oven to 210c.
7. Spray the loaves with water then make two deep diagonal slashes in each with either a serrated or very sharp knife.
8. Then bake the bread for 25-30mins, depending on your oven until it is deep golden brown.
9. Remove and cool on rack.

Sourdough Starter

I remember bout a year or more back, I had attempted to make sourdough but failed terribly. This time, not sure what got into me, I decided to retry again.

The starter took bout 6days (winter now) to be ready.

So, what I did was stir 113g of flour with 113g water (warm). Cover it loosely. This time, I used all plastic, plastic container and plastic spoon (I think it makes a difference. Do not use metal).

Place it by the windowsill in the afternoon and in the evening, put it near any warm source.
Next day, add another 113g flour with 113g warm water, continue for 5day.

By the 5th day, I took out 113g of the bubbly starter to add in 113g of water and 113g of flour in a separate container and place near to a warm source.

By the next morning, the levain has doubled and looks really fluffy and spongey. This is ready to be used.

According to many websites, the bubbly starter is ready  to be used when it can float on the water. I was so happy when mine manages to float.