Wholesome vanilla-chocolate buns

Remember my post on my birthday party? The one for which I baked 7 different kinds of bread? Well, it wasn't fully to my my sister's consent. The reason for this was that there was nowhere a chocolate bread to be found ...

She's a chocolate addict. Not so much as in her childhood, during which she couldn't take her hands of anything containing chocolate (even though she was allergic to the thing!), but still enough to be disappointed about having to eat all sorts of bread without that specific ingredient. 

To make things up with her I decided this morning to bake chocolate buns for her. I woke up as early as 5 a.m. this morning, for I don't know what reason. So as I knew the others wouldn't get up for at least 3 hours, I had enough time to spend some time in the kitchen making the buns.

I'd just made up my mind about this when I found out that the plain flour was all finished. But there are always solutions to these kind of problems: a combination of whole wheat flour and vanilla flour would do.

Ingredients for 4 buns:
- 70 grams whole wheat flour
- 50 grams vanilla flour (custard powder)
- 1 large tablespoon of vanilla sugar
- 3,5 grams instant yeast
- 40 grams lukewarm milk
- 25 grams butter
- 1 egg
- 100 grams chopped plain chocolate
- 1 egg yolk
- powdered sugar for serving (optional)

How to:
Mix the milk, egg and the yeast. Mix in another bowl the flour, the custard powder, the sugar and the salt. Mix both mixtures with eachother and knead the butter in. Knead at least 5-10 minutes so that the dough comes together nicely.
Let the dough rest for about 10 minutes.
Knead again and add the chopped chocolate now.
Let the dough rest for 30 minutes.
Knead again and divide it in 4 pieces. Shape them whatever way you like.
Let the dough rest for 45 minutes. Spread some egg yolk onto it so that it will get nice and shiny in the oven.
Bake the buns for 10 minutes in a preheated oven at 190°C. Raise the temperature to 210°C and bake for another 10 minutes.
Take out of the oven and let cool. 
Serve with some powdered sugar on top.

At least my sister can't blame me for not thinking about her this morning! 

Have a nice meal! :)

P.S.: they're nice but to be eaten in small amounts. That's because the whole wheat flour doesn't rise as easily as white flour ;)

Birthday party!

Friday I turned 22 years old. Yesterday, the 5th of August, we celebrated. I invited quite some people but I didn't think everyone would be able to come. 35 people came and with the ambition to prepare all the food by myself, it was the largest party I organised yet.

Originally - that is before I knew that many people could come - I wanted to do a Middle and South American night. I looked up recipes from all over the continent, from Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, ... But as we didn't have pots large enough for the crowd, I switched plans for something less complicated. 

I was to make a buffet of different kinds of bread and side dishes to go along with them. 
To serve with the coffee, I made biscuits and as dessert I made fresh pineapple and chocolate ice cream.
The ice cream was a total experiment: I never made it and we don't own an ice machine. When I told my uncle I made my own ice cream he laughed and said 'Yeah, that won't be much of a success ...!', but when he tasted it he was delighted. Haha! 

Top-down, left to right: buttermilk-poppyseed bread, walnut bread,
multigrain bread, Colombian torta de choclo, raisin bread and saffron bread

Loved making all of it, but it took a full day and a half to do so.

Especially the saffron bread was liked by everyone. Therefore I put the recipe on the blog.

Ingredients for a large saffron bread:
- 700 grams white flour
- 450 ml lukewarm milk
- 1 gram saffron powder
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 7 grams instant yeast
- 25 grams butter
- 1 large egg
- 1 egg yolk

How to:
Put all the flour, the salt and the sugar in a large bowl. Mix well so that the salt and sugar have been taken up completely. Make a hole in the heap of flour and place small chunks of butter around the hole. Pour in the yeast, milk and egg in the hole. 
Now start kneading with your hands. It's quite a sticky kind of dough, but add a little more flour if you're unable to shape the dough. 
Put the ball of dough aside in a warm enough place for at least 1,5 hour. Cover the bowl with a clean towel to prevent it getting in touch with too much cold air.
Knead the dough again for a couple of minutes. Now you can shape the dough to your liking. I made a round bread yesterday, but any shape is possible (but make sure it's shape is not too uneven so that it can bake properly without getting burned a a side while the other side is still raw!).
Set aside for another 1,5 hour. In the meanwhile you can preheat the oven at 230°C. 
Take the egg yolk and spread it on the risen bread with a brush. The yolk will make your bread look nice and shiny.
Put in the oven for 15 minutes. Then lower the temperature to 200°C and bake for another 25-30 minutes. The bread is ready when it's golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped.

It's a bread that has a hint of sweetness so it's delicious with both salty things like cheese as well as with sweet jams, chocolate, ...

Smakelijk!

I must say that the party was a succes for me. 
I loved it and I have to thank all my friends and family for coming! I'm sorry I didn't have the time to talk to everyone properly.