Category Archives: Taste

Tonight I baked… Soft pretzels


Posted by Skye

Since I’ve been on my no dairy diet, I have realised that there aren’t many nice breads that I can buy in the store. In particular, I realised that Gardenia bread has milk powder in it. This was a pretty gut wrenching realisation, as I really love the many different types of Gardenia bread. Butterscotch, chocolate chip, raisin, wholemeal… Delicious! The up side of this realisation however, has been that I can bake my own bread.

Back in Sydney, I had tried multiple times to bake bread. I tried so many recipes, and they all failed. I don’t know whether I had a bad batch of yeast, but none of the breads rose properly. This time around, at the start of January I returned to my old faithful, the person whose recipes I have so far never failed at using… Jamie Oliver. In particular, his basic bread recipe. And to my surprise, I ended up with a nice round loaf of bread!

Emboldened by my success, today I tried baking pretzels, using the soft pretzels recipe indexed at the MSPI Mama website.

As a very non intuitive cook, who, despite being a massive Auntie Annes fan, I need step by step instructions. I gathered my ingredients, I mixed, and I kneaded. And then I went to roll my pretzels. “But… but…”, my brain stammered. “The recipe doesn’t tell me how long my pretzel dough should be, or how to actually roll the pretzel shape!”

I laughed at myself, and then found myself reminiscing on the time I made supersoft ensaymadas. I followed the recipe precisely there also, but again, didn’t know how big my ensaymadas should be as I rolled them and prepared them for baking. They ended up ginormous. And today in the case of my pretzels, they look like bread versions of those little plastic dog poops that you get in novelty stores. Also huge. Next time I know: The pretzel dough needs to be very thiiiiiiin and very looooong, and I don’t have to worry about them looking a little skinny pre bake. After baking, they will puff up to be about 3 times the size they went into the oven at!

Overweight Pretzel

The picture was taken with my iPod camera in bad light, which is why it’s so grainy. On reflection, I clearly still need to work out how to roll a pretzel!! The pretzel looks quite white on the bottom here, because I didn’t have any baking paper. I used flour dusted aluminium foil instead, so the bottom of the pretzel is very flour-y.

Overall, the recipe is quite good. I would add a touch more salt to the dry mix next time, and I also need to remember to be extremely liberal with the egg wash. I only put a little on (the same amount as I would if I was baking a loaf of bread) but I now know I should have put a lot more on. I also screwed up the oven settings and had the heat on only at the bottom of the oven, which is another reason why it looks so pale.

And next time I’m going to buy some powdered cinnamon. Boo yeah.


No dairy and no soy??


Posted by Skye

So it turns out that not only am I allergic to dairy, but Nicholas might have a milk/soy protein intolerance. Given that each time I consume dairy or soy products he gets the most horrible stomach pains and gas, I’ve cut off the dairy and soy food train! I’m sad. Lol. I always used to be able to live with my allergies, and would consume dairy products knowing full well it would make me ill, but there is absolutely no way in hell I’m going to consume something that’s going to cause my baby misery – no matter how much I might like it.

So I’ve been searching around for non dairy (and more importantly, non soy) substitutes and have happened upon two life savers. Almond milk and coconut milk.

O. M. G. How could I have lived my life not knowing such as thing as almond milk existed? The stuff is awesome! I never used to eat cereal after I stopped drinking cows milk, because I hated the taste of soy on my cereal. Total opposite with Almond milk – I can’t get enough! And as an added bonus, apparently almonds are supposed to boost your breast milk supply (too much information? Sorry!) so I feel as though I’m only doing myself (and Nicholas) a favour.

And coconut milk is beginning to be my saviour for dessert. Say hello to my bubur cha-cha! Lol.  I might also start searching the stores for black sticky rice to make bubur pulut hitam.

But the ultimate reason for this blog post? I have recently been introduced to the idea of coconut milk ice cream. Can I say yum? And yum? And yum?

Going dairy and soy free is starting to have a silver lining…


North Indian food please!


Posted by Skye

I’m currently addicted to North Indian food. It’s my only clearly identified pregnancy craving (aside from an extreme craving for french fries in the first trimester to counter the bad bad bad nausea). Aloo mattar, palak paneer, paneer makhani, and dahl cooked in various styles seem to be dominating my thoughts right now – so much so that last night I ordered take out from Room Service Deliveries at 9.45.

The food quality of the restaurant I ordered from isn’t that great, but the mix of spices in the food was just enough to kill the nausea and satisfy my cravings for the day.

In any case, the reason for my post today is this: I’m moving away from KL soon and will be going to a place where I’m going to be hard pressed to find good North Indian food… Any North Indian recipe blog links you can direct my way?