65C Tang Zhong Wonder Bread!

I chanced upon Do What I Like's blog by accident, and was amazed that there was indeed such a bread! With this, my family members can stop complaining about the bricks I keep serving them for breakfast!

This is the half-wholemeal version, and of course, ever since I was diagnosed with multiple allergies - I have made the necessary modifications.

Recipe
150g bread flour
100g wholemeal flour
110g water/milk or (30g egg + 80g liquid) ( I used all water)
3.5g salt
26g sugar
5g yeast (I used something like 1/2 teaspoon, you can use less if you have the time to spare)
60g tangzhong
26g butter (I used Spectrum's trans-fat free shortening)

Note about yeast:
I personally believe after reading all the classical bread books that too much yeast in the bread is good for neither us or the bread, so unless I'm using the bread machine, I usually use much less yeast than is called for in the recipe. I just compensate for this with a longer proof time. And more often than not, I've discovered that even after proofing for just a couple of hours using half the amount of yeast, the dough doubles quite nicely. It's probably due to our warm weather! (American & European "room temperature" is 21 deg C!!!)

Instructions
Knead like crazy. I kneaded it with my Philips handheld mixer for like 30 min till the mixer looked like it was going to go kaput. Even then, the dough was still sticky-feeling and the "dough window" refused to appear.

DO NOT add more flour.

I hand-kneaded for an extra 20 min and even then, the "dough window" didn't really appear satisfactory. I left it in a bowl and cling-wrapped it anyway.

Tin Hang Zai then asked me to go out, so I had to shove the entire thing into the fridge and when we came back 4 hrs later, to my amazement it had grown more than double. Since we were going out again (or was it bedtime, I can't remember), I punched it down (it felt so hard that it didn't seem to want to deflate at all), and put it back into the fridge.

The next morning, I was dismayed to find that the punched down dough had stayed...punched down!! It looked like a crumpled heap. I left it on the counter and as usual, forgot about it whilst I went about my household chores.

A couple of hours later, it had doubled nicely! Bake at 180 deg C for 25-35 min. I left it for 40 min and it was a tad dry. So I figure 30-35 min should do just fine.

Food Allergy Attacks!

For the longest of time, I only knew I had serious lactose intolerance. I just didn't think it was anything more than that - a simple intolerance which could be easily rectified by taking lactase enzymes if I so wanted. I continued feasting on my own homemade butter cookies and goodies.

After a lot of reading up over the past few years and months, I came to the realisation that the occasional bout of "allergic rhinitis", respiratory and skin ailments that had plagued me all my life - was not triggered by just my environment, but also (horrors) by my food.

I had settled on two possible tests - the ALCAT test and the ELISA test, as early as last year. My preference was the ELISA test - but the only place I knew which carried this test here was this rather sleazy-looking importer of fish oil, without even a qualified doctor on its premises. So I didn't do anything for almost a year. By a sheer stroke of God's providence, Tin Hang Zai's boss has a super-allergic daughter too, who had once done the same test which I sought - at this place at Gleneagles - the Gilead Ear Nose & Throat Centre. (what an apt name!)

After 2 months, my blood test results came out. Tin Hang Zai and I were overjoyed for a few hours (finally!!! I can stop eating foods that make me sick!) ... and then the reality set in.

Here's the list:

Severely Allergic

• Eggs (think: Char Kway Teow, Carrot Cake, Oyster Omelette, McDonald's Breakfasts, Sunny-side eggs, pandan chiffon cakes, lor mee, egg prata...goodness, all the things I love!)
  
• Milk and all its derivatives - I have to check if prata is cooked in vegetable oil or in ghee !! (ghee is a milk derivative)
  No more chicken-in-a-biskit! Loads of snacks are now out! And no more KFC coleslaw!)
  
• Vanilla (can you believe it?? So even all my homemade biscuits, cookies, muffins, pancakes and cakes which were already egg-free and milk-free had also been poisoning me because of the vanilla essence!!!) - I found out that even commercial versions of all the Chinese kuehs (9-layer cake, wa ko kueh, pak tong ko, fatt kueh) all use vanilla!!
• Banana (ok, I can still live without this)
  
• Asparagus (ok, I can still live without this)

Moderately Allergic

• Cabbage - uh oh, there goes all my favourite dishes like fried bee hoon from the market (which has sesame oil & oyster sauce too), no more KFC coleslaw!
  
• Cucumber (so it wasn't the wheat or yeast in that Subway sandwich that made me sick, it was the cucumber!!)
  
• Pineapple (there goes my Hawaiian pizza, which is already minus-the-cheese-and-milk, or that Wu-Xiang Xia Bing Sauce!)
  
• Oyster
  
• Sesame Can you find a tze-char dish that doesn't have either oyster sauce or sesame oil!?!?! Or any other Chinese food for that matter? If it's not in the gravy (think Char Siew Rice, Duck rice, Bak Chor Mee, Lor Mee), it's in the marinade (chicken rice), or in the soup (pig trotters vinegar) or in the sauce (Wu Xiang Xia Bing, Rojak)
  

Have you fainted yet? Help! I'm losing weight much faster than I'm eating!