Baking With Store Bought White Bread

March 22, 2007

Baking With Store Bought White Bread

This is a pretty easy to make snack and dessert. What special about them are that they both using ordinary store bought white bread that usually comes thinly slices. I think the correct way to call this type of bread is Pullman bread. The square plain white bread that you always can find in your grocery store. One thing for sure about this recipes, they are relatively cheap to make!

The story goes like this. Today is Wednesday and that's mean today we will have our weekly company meeting and like usual, I forgot what day is today.... ( sigh....)

Until around 11 AM when Nur asked me if I already ordered some food for the meeting and if not she will find a way to make something today. She is truly a God's gift for me! Then I asked what does she have in mind and she suggested me to give her money to buy few loaves of plain white bread. Just to inform you that I happen to live in a street where there are several large bakeries that sell regular to cheap breads. Can't find artisant breads around my neighborhood for sure!

If I am not wrong one loaf of bread coast about Rp 6.000 or about US $ 0.60. Maybe they can even cost around US $ 0.40 ! She bought several loaves today.

At first she only plan to make one type of fried snack but later we found out that we still have a lot of leftovers so she made a dessert with them.

Okay, so for the first dish, which is a snack here is the approximate recipe, here I use the word approximate because Nur never cook or bake with exact recipe. They are all in her head! She is the total opposite from me! I have to be honest here, in term of taste, I won, but in term of hand skill, she beats me hands down! What can I say, she help her ex-boss sell food for 5 years in Saudi Arabia while I cook when I want to only. That's why I video tape her when she cook so that I can always remember how to reproduce the food on my own if I need to ( in case she quit!!!! Arrrggg!!! ). If you like to try her recipe at home, I will encourage you to improve her recipe by using better product, for example, I notice that when she make bread dough like the previous entry, she tend to use oil. If it is me, I will always use butter off course. You see what I am saying here now? That's why for the dessert on this entry I told her to use my secret home-made vanilla essence that I made with organic Tahitian and Mexican Vanilla Beans that I imported myself!

So yes, feel free to change Nur's recipe to fit your taste better ...

Maybe the reason why she tend to use cheap ingredients is because her ex-boss sell those food for income so she needs to cut down the cost to make them while I make food for my own enjoyment and that's why I like the best quality of ingredients that I can get my hands on. And that's why I mostly spent my money on grocery!!!

Let's go back to the recipe on this entry...

Deep-Fried Bread With Chicken Filling

Ingredients:

Plain white bread
Mayonaise
Chopped garlic
Chopped shallots
Thin slices of red chilies ( optional )
Minced/ground chicken
Chopped parsley/Chinese celery
Shredded carrot
Thinly slices cucumber, deseeded first.
Chicken powder
Salt and Pepper
Egg for egg wash
Oil/butter for stir frying the filling

A lot of oil for deep frying the snack later

Method:

Trim the crust off the bread and put them into food processor and turn them into fresh bread crumb.
Flatten the white bread slices.
To make the filling: Heat 2 Tbs of oil/butter on a pan then add chopped garlic, shallots, chilies and stir fry them until you can smell them. Then add the chicken and stir-fry it until they are separated. Now you can add the carrots and after you stir fry them until they are a bit softened, add the Chinese celery and the cucumber in. Season it with salt, ground pepper, and chicken powder to taste.
To assemble: Spread a bit of mayo at one end of the bread, this will act as the glue to close the bread later. Then put a bit of filling on the other end and first you fold in the edges to slighty enclose the filling then you can start rolling the bread until they resemble a log or sausage or roll cake! Then roll them on egg wash, drain the excess egg wash and coat them in the fresh bread crumb that you already made. Place them on a baking sheet and put them in the fridge first for about an hour or even later.
Heat the oil and deep-fry them in a batch until they are dark golden brown. Eat while still warm.

Video: How to make the filling. I made one mistake when I say " Ground pork ", it was suppose to be " ground chicken".

Video: Assembling the Deep-fried bread with chicken filling.

Video: Deep-frying

Since she found out that she still have 2 loaves of bread, she asked me if she can make dessert with them and I readily said yes.

This is the recipe ...

Baked Fresh Bread Crumb With Creamy Milk Filling And Vanilla Syrup

Ingredients:
2 loaves of bread
half a pound of butter ( 2 sticks )

For Filling:
4 Tbs of milk powder ( I suggest to change this to light cream to make it taste creamier )
1/2 cup of all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
2 cups of water ( omit the water if you use light cream )

For Syrup:
1 cup of sugar
2 cup of water

1 Tbs of vanilla essence

Method:

Process the bread in a food processor until they become bread crumbs. Place them in a large mixing bowl.
Melt the butter and then drizzle it on the bread crumbs. Mix it well.
Use half of the bread crumbs, pour them into a 9"x13" pan, or a 3-quarts pan. Pressed the crumbs on the bottom of the pan. This will be the bottom crust of this dessert.
How to make the filling: Place all the ingredients on a saucepan then cook it on medium-low heat until it is thickened. Pour it on top of the bottom crust. Shake the filling to make it spread evenly on top of the bottom crust.
Then use the other half of the bread crumbs to make the top crust by spread them evenly on top of the filling and gently press them all around to make a smooth even top.
Bake it on 375F / 180 C / gas 4 for about 30 minutes.
While waiting for the dessert to bake, you can start making the simple syrup by just bring the water and the sugar into a boil and turn off the heat, when the dessert comes out from the oven, you can add the vanilla essence to the syrup first then drizzle the syrup on top of the top of the dessert as even as possible. Now you just have to wait for the dessert to absorb the syrup for about an hour or less.