黑糖麻糬

Pao De Quejio

This is a type of Brazilian cheese bread popular in the streets of Brazil. Why I made this? It all started with me looking for mochi bread premix in Taiwan. As I searched through the websites, I saw discussion and comparison between the mochi bread and this Pao de Quejio. Surprisingly, this Brazil cheese bread uses tapioca flour, cheese, oil and eggs, which is rather different from the mochi bread.

So I decided to have a go at it, since I have tapioca flour and parmesan cheese on standby. There are alot of recipes on the web and varies slightly between each of them. Decided to use the recipe from here. I did half a portion and followed the recipe closely. Instead of milk, I used unsweeteened soya milk. When you add the egg and cheese, put on the a disposable glove and knead the mixture well using your knuckles. I had one which has uncooked tapioca flour in the middle! Apparently, I did not knead it well enough.

Well, the dough will expand during the baking process but once it's taken out of the oven, it starts to flatten a bit. It's a savoury bread, nice with coffee. Can do with an additional small pinch of salt if the cheese is not strong enough. A little chewy, similar to mochi bread, but I guess if we want to a sweet version, can always add sugar and some chocolate chips in. Black sesame will be a good idea too!

Polo Bao - Round 2

Finally... I have time to do my 'documentation'...haaa. 3 weeks in Taiwan was an experience, having encountered 2 typhoons during this period. Came back last friday and went to the cooking class at Creative Culinaire on Monday for their dim sum class! Super on...:P The main attraction of the class..for me..was the polo bun of course. Two other dim sum were taught too, Xiao Long Bao and the Seafood Salad Roll. All three were fantastic and I already have plans to make them soon during this period in SG, though I am still very apprehensive towards making Xiao Long Bao! The chef was fantastic, Kudos to him. I have never met a chef who is so willing to teach, and give so selflessly. At the end of the class, there were some leftover pastry topping and gravy for the po lo bao, so the students took some. I took some and made another batch last night.
I must say, looking is easy, but when it comes to hands-on and doing the dough from scratch, it's a total different thing. It's hard work, but when I see all thess buns disappear with smiles on my friend's faces, the effort is really worth it. :)
If you are interested in the classes, go to this website www.creativeculinaire.com for more information.

Cooking class at Creative Cullinaire