Last shot for Magic Bread

I felt myself falling out of crush with Alex Goh's Magic Bread but as with breaking crunches, it's a little hard to let go. I wanted to give this crush one last go. Just to see. Is it really over?

Since I am moving away from white bread, I chose to bake Rye Bread.

At first I thought rye bread meant 100% rye flour but it's only 70g rye flour with the rest (170g) being bread flour.

I used Bob's Red Mill light rye flour. I bought it at Cold Storage and there was only one kind of rye flour. In Singapore you can find white flour everywhere but rye flour? I really wonder where other bakers in Singapore go to get their "specialty" flour.

As is typical of Alex Goh's magic bread recipes, this Rye Bread uses a gelatinised dough but this time, no overnight sponge. I expected the bread to be soft on the inside. It was. The crust wasn't crusty. My rye bread tastes almost like white bread. I barely tasted the rye.

I'm afraid it is truly over. The passion for Alex Goh's soft bread is gone. It was good while it lasted and I did learn a thing or two. Now I need to seek out new (bread) thrills.

Has the magic gone?

Recently I was crushing on Alex Goh's baking books. I went on to bake twice more using his recipes. The first one was French Baguette from his The World of Bread book. My girl likes to eat baguette with chicken curry and I bravely ventured to bake baguettes for her dinner.

My mother would laugh her head off if she saw these loaves of bread. I had no baking stone and I did not use water bath to create steam. The baguette turned out not great looking as my oven has uneven heating. Taste wise, it's just okay. The dough was made using straight dough method. I've come to realise that bread made using sponge dough and/or gelatisnised dough tastes a lot better.

The kids weren't crazy about the bread. We had leftovers. I had baked each of us one loaf! What was I thinking?

After the slight disappointment from the baguettes, I decided to seek out Alex Goh's other book, Magic Bread. By the way, when I was raving to you guys in this post about Magic Bread by Alex Goh, did you think such a book actually existed? I mean magic bread sounds so um, fake, made up, right? I looked for the book in the library and managed to get a copy!

The best part? The instructions are in English and Chinese!

from Magic Bread

Magic Bread has a recipe for a basic sweet bread dough and I decided to bake Butter Sugar Bread. This recipe uses gelatinised dough together with the main dough.

in goes the gelatinised dough

My sweet buns looked nothing like what was shown in the book. But I love the taste. So good. So addictive.

I used some of the dough to make a loaf bun and it came out very soft inside.

So in conclusion, Magic Bread beats World of Bread, taste wise. In terms of softness, magic bread does have a bit more fluffiness. Magic Bread is no longer sold in Singapore and it is very unlikely you can get it anywhere except Malaysia. If you live in Singapore you can borrow it from the library. Just give me a chance to return the book first!

To be honest, I'm not a big fan of soft white bread. Singaporeans love soft white bread. I prefer the tougher, wholegrain bread. I feel the direction of my learning journey needs to go towards rustic wholegrain.

On Your Mark

On the third last day of 2016, I cut my finger with a knife. I had baked a loaf of bread and wanted to eat luncheon meat sandwich. Demmit! Luncheon meat addiction. While I was slicing the luncheon meat, my fingers slipped and skin met knife. When I finally calmed down enough to take a closer look at the cut, I measured it and it was around 1cm (about 0.4inch). The cut bled for a long time and for a while I wondered if I have to go to the hospital to get it stitched up. Eventually the bleeding stopped and I was left with nothing but self pity.

The last two weeks of 2016, I was mostly drugged due to my sinus issues. Not being able to breathe through both nostrils at the same time suddenly became the norm. Each nostril took turns to go AWOL. I think it was due to the erratic weather.

So that was how my year ended. Not very impressive. Before the sinus and knife cut, I had thought about writing a last post for 2016, a what you might call round up or show-off of the creations I had made through the year. Then I realised I pretty much spent the first 8 months of 2016 dealing with my digestive health and the last 3 months baking my head off. In between, I ran and did very, very little creative anything. So nothing much to crow about.

I only released one bag pattern in 2016 which technically was done in end 2015! I think I released a few applique patterns and 3 embroidery patterns.

I won't apologise for my lack of new bag patterns. I had the intention to get at least one done but the first 8 months of 2016 was a real struggle for me health wise and finally I ended up having my gallbladder removed. Now looking back, I wished my gallbladder problem had been detected way earlier. Because having it removed improved my digestive health tremendously. I no longer have to depend on oats anymore. Good grief. How on earth did I ever survive on oats? No more bloating! I can eat most food although I still can't eat rice. I'm Chinese! I have to eat rice. It's a mystery to me why my stomach reacts to rice and I no longer care to understand why. It's not as if I have nothing else to eat. There's always noodles and bread. (My mother thinks I'm hungry all the time because I can't eat rice!) It would have been nice if removing my gallbladder cured me of all my ailments. Nope. The headaches, chronic muscle pain and nose/ear/eye sensitivities are still there. Still clinging on. Bastards!

After I recovered from my gallbladder surgery, I dived straight into baking. The opportunity was there. I have wanted to be competent in baking for so long and finally it came true. To go to baking school and learn from professionals - I can't even describe how wonderful it was. I feel so lucky, lucky, lucky. Which Singapore minister should I thank for the opportunity and funding? Now I'm on a bread baking streak. I'm really enjoying this learning journey! There's so much to learn. I don't even mind that I'm not very good at making bread yet. It's a slow and steady kind of pace and I love discovering something new each time I bake.

So here we are in the year 2017. As I grow older, I am starting to appreciate getting through each year alive. I won't look back and think of the things I shoulda, coulda, woulda. In 2017, I'm going to just go with the flow. No big plans, no promises, no resolutions. All I ask is that I get through 2017 without losing any more organs.

I will continue to run.
I will continue to bake.
I will continue to rant. But less. Now and then. When necessary.
Will I sew? Actually, I have. I sewed three items recently. Show them to you soon. One of the items is quite hideous according to hubs. He said it's too embarrassing to show anyone! Sounds like a dare!

And I will continue to blog. So keep coming round. Have an interesting year my friends!