Cookbooks Galore!

Ok, I was doing lots of "research" recently (comparing recipes from the internet, etc.) and getting tired of it. Not that there are no good recipes on the internet, but I have to read through comments, blah, blah, blah, and most of the time there are polarized comments from people who tried the recipe - either it worked extremely well or a complete flop. So yesterday, I decided to go to the bookstore and get some books.

I went to Popular (the bookstore nearest to my place) and found bilingual books of Alex Goh. I got the Bread, Cheesecakes, Pastry, and Cakes books. I think he's recipes are quite good, just browsing through it. Like he has a real croissant recipe. I found a bread book by another author and she's trying to pass a butter roll as a croissant! Jeez, if I didn't know anything, I might have bought her book and be totally unhappy with the results.

So I read through the books the whole afternoon and I want to make everything all at once! Of course that is not possible and decided to make the butter rolls and the honey walnut bread.

This morning, I made the breads (I started at 11 am and finished around 3 pm). And wow! The recipe is good! I didn't have to make any adjustments at all!

Reading through the instructions, I did the honey bread first (using the straight dough method), then the butter roll (using the no time dough method). I ended up baking the butter rolls first then the honey bread.

I didn't have any walnuts in my kitchen, so I used chopped almonds instead. I also found some dried apricots in the fridge, chopped it, and put it in the dough. The honey almond apricot bread went very well! Not too sweet, not as airy as the bread the we usually get in the bakeries.

The butter roll is soft, just the right sweetness and saltiness, and the right density. My only complaint is the shaping as it took me a lot of time...I need to practice.

I was very very happy with the results of these recipes that I went to my favorite baking supplies shop and will make some cheesecake by end of this week. Here's the website: www.twinsco.com It's in chinese and I used Google Translate for translation.

For Alex Goh's book, you can get it at any Popular Bookstore in HK. It should also be available in Singapore and Malaysia. It's really worth it!