Monday, March 28, 2011

A-Level at Taylor's College

First off, I'm very grateful for getting straight A's in SPM 2010 - 6A+ 3A to be exact. Alhamdulillah. Deep down inside, I'm quite sad and disappointed for not getting 9A+ but I guess my result isn't that bad at all. :)

I already applied for MARA scholarship but we will be notified about the interview somewhere in mid-April. Since I'm not sure whether I'll be getting the scholarship or not, I decided to do A-level in Taylor's College Subang Jaya Campus.

So here I am, just finished the orientation and currently updating my blog from this "new" apartment I'm staying in. I have to say that this apartment (I only rent one single room, not the whole apartment) is not worth the money. We paid RM700 for a small single room where the fan makes an annoying noise, the furnitures are old and the mattress is rock hard.

However, since we could not find other places near the college, so we just took it anyway. If I don't get the scholarship, I'm not sure whether I'll still be renting here or looking for some other places. The contract is only until June, so I can stay anywhere else later. :D

My class starts tomorrow and since I'm here for the March intake, I have a pretty pack schedule. Class normally starts at 8 and ends at 4 with only 1 hour break, except for Friday which ends at 2pm. I think for the clubs & society, I might be joining the Pre-Med Society. Even though it is not compulsory but I think it would look good in my resume when applying for universities later.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Honey And Vanilla Buns

I am feeling very nervous as SPM results will be announced on this coming Wednesday (23rd March). Yes! There's only a few days left. It's hard for me not to think or care about it. I really need to get straight A+'s in order for me to be given a scholarship by the government.

I want to go to UK or Ireland to do medicine. One thing that I am not very sure about is whether I should do my A-level first or wait for the scholarship. If I wait for the scholarship and end up not getting one, I have to go through matriculation which makes it even harder for me to go to oversea. I'm in a dilemma! Help me! :(


Moving on to our main topic, I made some bread again today. I actually wanted to bake muffins for Hani today so that she can bring some to school tomorrow. But I'm not sure what muffins to bake. So I ended up baking bread instead. The recipe is from JMC. The buns are cottony soft, maybe because it uses water roux or tangzhong method. I'm submitting this to Yeastspotting.



Honey and vanilla buns : (I halved the recipe and got 12 buns)
Source : Kak Rosmarlina
  • 500 g high protein flour
  • 3 tablespoon honey
  • 3 tablespoon milk powder
  • 3 tablespoon vegetable shortening
  • 1 egg
  • 3 tablespoon sugar
  • 220 ml warm water
  • 6 g instant yeast
  • 4 tablespoon water roux
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • few drops of vanilla
1. Put everything in the mixing bowl and knead using a dough hook for about 7-10 minutes. If kneading by hand, it will take a longer time. (The dough is a bit sticky)

2. Let the dough rise until doubled (about one hour). Punch down the dough and divide into 24-26 equal parts.  Use whatever filling you like - I used nutella. Plain ones are equally good. Shape into dinner rolls and leave to rise again until doubled.

3. Brush the buns with some milk and bake in a preheated oven at 180C for 15-18 minutes.



Saturday, March 19, 2011

My first yummy story :D

Hello there. Since this is going to be my first post ever in this new blog I created, I was thinking of posting my favourite recipes. However, considering that I don't have any pictures to post along with, I decided to post a recipe which I just tried today.

Well, at first I wanted to bake some dinner rolls but thinking that I had baked some yesterday, I finally decided to make some sweet buns. I randomly read a few blogs just to get some ideas - more like a recipe, actually. And I've came across this recipe from here and the original recipe is from here. The buns I made are slightly green but I guessed the colour didn't show up on camera. These buns are soft and fluffy - just how I like it. :)



Instead of using pandan paste as called for in the recipe, I blended some pandan leaves with a little bit of water - 100 ml to be exact, to get the juice out of it. We used to have a lot of pandan trees before we decided to remove some of them because we seldom use them. And now, we only have one fairly big pandan tree.



Pandan Buns :

  • 350 g high protein flour 
  • 200 ml cold water (I used 150 ml cold water + 50 ml coconut milk)
  • 50 g sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
  • 3 teaspoon instant yeast
  • 1 teaspoon bread improver (optional)
  • 1 tablespoon powdered milk
  • 20 g coconut milk powder (I omitted this)
  • 1 small egg 
  • 30 g butter
  • 1 teaspoon of pandan paste (I used two pandan leaves)


1. If you're not using pandan paste, blend pandan leaves with 100 ml of cold water. Then pour the pandan juice through a sieve. Add the coconut milk and enough cold water to the pandan juice, so that they total up to 200 ml. If you're using pandan paste, just skip this step and continue with the rest.

2. Put all the ingredients except for butter into the mixing bowl and by using a dough hook, mix it on a medium speed until it starts to resemble a dough. Add the butter and knead it again until the dough become smooth and elastic. It will take about ten minutes (or more if you're kneading by hand).

3. Let the dough rise until doubled (45 minutes - 1 hour). Punch the dough down and divide the dough into 16 equal parts. You can use whatever filling you like (kaya, coconut, read bean paste) - I used coconut filling. Shape into dinner rolls and leave it to rise again until doubled.

4. Brush with some milk before baking it in a preheated oven at 180C for 20-25 minutes.

Well, for the coconut filling, I just put some freshly grated coconut with enough palm sugar, salt and some water on medium heat and cook until water has dried up a little bit. (The filling should not be too wet nor too dry). If anyone is looking for homemade kaya recipe (coconut egg jam), you can find it here or here.