They are known in Germany as Brötchen, Semmeln, Broodje, Schrippen, Wecken or Rundstücke depending on the region. Brötchen can be found in small bakeries all over Germany. They have a crunchy crust and a soft interior.

• 280 g All-purpose flour
• 175 ml Warm water
• 3 g Active dry yeast
• 1 tsp Sugar
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1 Egg white
• 2 tbsp Milk

1. In a small bowl, mix yeast, sugar, and 35 ml water. In a large mixing bowl pour into flour and form a well in the center. Pour the yeast mixture into the flour well but do not mix with the flour. Cover the mixing bowl and let stand for 10 minutes.
2. Add in remaining water and mix at the low speed for 2 minute. Sprinkle in salt and blend at low speed. Increase the speed and continue to knead the dough until smooth. Put dough in a lightly greased bowl and cover with a plastic wrap. Set aside for 45 minutes in a warm corner. Turn out the dough and lightly press to flatten out the large air bubbles. Fold four sides of the flatten dough over into the center. Round up and place the dough back in the bowl and 45 minutes later, repeat the folding. After folding, let the dough rise covered until doubled in the bowl.
3. Divide the dough into 6-9 equal portions and form into oval rolls. Place on a baking tray with parchment paper dusted with some flour. Cover with kitchen towel and let rise until doubled in volume, about 40 minutes. Preheat the oven to 220C/425F. In a small bowl, lightly beat the egg white with the milk to make the egg wash. Lightly brush the risen rolls with the egg wash. Just before baking, make a cross in top of each bun by snipping dough with scissors. Bake for about 18 minutes or until the tops are golden brown. Remove to a wire rack and cool.

Desserts are for sure not the type of food Chinese people eat on a daily basis. But this sweetened soup/thong sui is definitely very popular and very often served after meal as a dessert, or even in afternoon as a pick-me-up sweets.
Lotus seeds are made into paste used as a mooncakes filling, or stewed with chicken as kind of tonic soup. If you happen to have attended a Chinese wedding banquet, a sweetened soup prepared with red beans and lotus seeds will be served before everything else. Lotus Seeds( Lian Zi in Chinese language)symbolize the newlyweds being blessed with a child soon, and Red Beans (Hong Dou in Chinese language)stands for power and energy.

• 100 g Lotus seeds
  
• Pinch of baking soda
  
• 40 g Longan fruit, dried
  
• Some rock sugar

1. Put dried lotus seeds into a pot. Pour in enough tap water to cover the lotus seeds and add baking soda. Set aside for 2 to 3 hours. Drain, then wash thoroughly.
2. Add cleaned and soaked lotus seeds, together with dried longan and rock sugar in the electric pressure cooker. Close the lid and turn the knob to bean-cooking cycle to simmer about 18 minutes. Do not try taking the lid off until the pressure release completely. Serve hot or cold as desired.

Okara or soya pulp is the fiber remnant of soya milk or bean curd making. This high fiber and protein contained Okara
angiesrecipes has been just used to feed the pigs in China (well....at least some parts of China) or even worse, treated as waste. Its nutritious value starts attracting attention of consumers...well....not enough though....so here is another simple recipe for those who love bread......and of course okara too.

1. In mixing bowl, dissolve the sugar in warm water. Sprinkle in yeast and sit for 10 minutes. Add in flour, starter and egg. Stir until combined. Add in the rest of the ingredients, except 50 g of peanut butter, and knead at medium speed until a smooth, elastic and moist dough forms, about 5 minutes.
2. Shape the dough into a ball and place it in a well-oiled bowl, turning to coat completely on all sides with oil. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and set to rise in a draft-free warm place until doubled in bulk, about 1 to 1-1/2 hours.
   
3. Punch down dough. Turn out onto lightly floured surface and shape into a smooth ball. Cover and et rest for 10 minutes. Flatten to remove air bubbles. Roll into rectangles about 2cm thick. Spread 50 grams of peanut butter over the dough. Fold the bottom third of the rectangle up toward the centre, and the top third down to make a neat square. give the square a quarter turn to the left. Roll out the dough into a long rectangle. Again fold into thirds. Turn again and roll out into a 14x8-inch rectangle.
   
4. Now roll into a log and seal the ends. Slice the roll into 14 equal pieces and place one in each greased muffin tin or paper muffin cup. Cover and let rise 45 minutes until doubled. Brush the top with whole egg wash and bake in a preheated 180C/350F oven for about 20 minutes until golden. Remove and cool on rack.

1. Add dough ingredients A and B in a mixing bowl. Mix with dough hook at slow speed for 1 minute. Change to the medium speed, and continue mixing for 3 minutes until dough is formed. Add butter gradually and mix for approx. 5 minutes on medium speed until gluten is fully developed, i. e. elastic, smooth, non-sticky and leave from sides of mixing bowl.
   
2. Ferment the dough in a lightly greased plastic bag for 1 hour, leave in a warm place until dough is double in volume. Punch the dough down to release gases produced in the fermenting process. Divide dough into 9 portions, each 60 grams, and round up. Let stand for 10 minutes at the room temperature.
   
3. Press down each small dough to release gas. Using your hands, gently roll and form each into a narrow loaf, similar to olive, about 20-25 centimeters long. Let rise for about 40-60 minutes.
   
4. After rising, brush the dough with egg wash and sprinkle with some Gouda shreds. Bake in a preheated 175C/350F oven for about 15 minutes. Taking out and sprinkle with parsley and paprika powder.

Inspiration: Dan Lepard (the handmade loaf), and Baker's Manual

Sourdough breads take advantage of the unique tangy flavors produced by “wild” yeast and bacteria. Once you get to understand your own sourdough starter, the results would just get better and better....hmmm...that chewy, tangy, crusty....sourdough bread.

1. Put the starter, bread flour, half of AP flour, and one cup of water into a large bowl of mixer attached with dough hook. Mix well and let proof 2 hours at room temperature in a covered plastic container. Then transfer it into the refrigerator to ferment overnight.
2. Next morning you take the dough out and return it to the mixer. Add in salt, remaining water and flour, one fourth at a time, until you have a smooth dough ball. Put the dough in a large bowl covered tightly with plastic wrap and a damp cloth to follow. Let rise in a warm place for 3 hours until doubled in volume.
3. Scrape the dough onto a lightly floured work surface. Divide the dough into three or four pieces. Shape each into a ball and let the dough rest, covered with plastic wrap, for 30 minutes. Form each of dough ball into an oval and place them on the prepared tray lined with a linen cloth or baking paper dusted with flour. Sprinkle the loaves with flour and cover them loosely with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel. Let rise for 45-60 minutes.
   
4. Place a small pan for water on the bottom shelf of the oven and preheat the oven with baking stone. (I placed a layer of bricks at the bottom of my old oven. It works very well. If you need bake more bread, just place one more layer of bricks on a baking tray. ) to 220C/425F. Make a couple of slashes on the top of each dough. Five minutes before baking, pour 1 cup of hot water in the pan to form steam and provide a moist environment for the bread. Place the dough on a baking tray, brush with some water and bake for about 35-40 minutes on the middle shelf of the hot oven until golden brown, about 25 minutes. Remove the rolls from the oven and cool on a rack for at least 2 hours before slicing.

A Tangzhong starter / Water roux starter is a mixture of flour and water. That is to combine together one portion of bread flour and five portions of water by weight in a pot. Heat up the mixture to bring out the gelatinization of starch in flour. What makes the bread baked with this kind of starter difference is Starch Gelatinization, which helps to engage more water, namely more water will be absorbed, to provide a characteristic softer, more elastic-textured bread. Moreover, the bread will have long-lasting freshness.

• 50 g Bread flour
• 250 ml Water

1. In a bowl, whisk together the water and the flour until the mixture is well blended and lump free. Stir the mixture while it cooks over the medium heat to reach 65C/150F. It takes about 2-3 minutes.
2. Remove from heat and cover loosely with plastic wrap to prevent from drying. Store the starter in the refrigerator after after completely cooling down. To use the starter, measure out the amount called for in a recipe and let it warm to room temperature. Unlike sourdough starter, this special Tangzhong starter doesn't improve its flavour with age. So it's preferably to use up in 3 days.

Autumn. Some call it Fall. It is the one that many people enjoy very much. Pavements covered with brightly-coloured fall leaves, varieties of nuts, chill in the air, Halloween, seasonal moodiness, and the days get shorter....Still nothing express AUTUMN better and more than a piece of delicious spiced pumpkin pie in the afternoon.

1. Sift the flour, salt and sugar into a bowl. Add the butter. Rub into the flour with a fork until the mixture resembles fine crumbs. Add in ice water to the flour mixture and gently mixing dough after each addition until dough forms a ball. Wrap the ball of dough with greaseproof wrapper and chill it for 30 minutes.
   
2. Take out the dough and place it between 2 baking paper and roll out to a circle about 3mm thick. Place it onto a 9-inch heart-shaped baking tin, draping it gently. With the fingertips, ease the dough into the tin, gently pressing it smoothly over the bottom without stretching it. Trim the excess.
   
3. Prick the bottom of the pastry case all over with a fork. Return to the fridge for anther 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F.
   
   
4. Lay a baking paper or tin foil on the pastry case and put enough dried beans to cover the bottom thickly. Bake the case in a preheated oven 180/350F for 18 minutes, remove the paper or foil and beans. Prick the bottom again with a fork. Return to the oven and bake for 10-15 minutes. (Bake custard and cream filling can make pastry soggy, so the cases for these tarts are often given an initial baking before the filling is added. Such prebaking is referred to as baking blind. The purpose of using weights is to prevent the bottom of the pastry case from rising too much and becoming distorted, thus keeping its neat shape.)
   
5. Mix all the ingredients, except nuts, for the filling until all well-combined and pour into pie crust. Then sprinkle the top with pine nuts. Bake in a preheated 180C/350F oven for 45 minutes.

Briskets is the cut from breast section, under the first five ribs. Although many other animals have briskets, the term here is to describe beef.

1. Peel and diagonally cut the carrots across. Roll it a quarter of a turn and cut off the next piece diagonally again. Cut scallion into chunks. Thoroughly rinse the brisket and cut into large pieces. To get rid of the blood and slime effectively, plunge brisket into a pot filled with boiled water and let stand for 15 minutes.
   
2. Heat up a frying pan with oil. Stir in slices of ginger, onion, garlic, star anise and peppercorns until aromatic. Add in sweetened flour paste, sambel ulek rice wine, sugar and soya sauces Stir briefly. Add in briskets and carrots. Stir till all ingredients blended. Turn off the heat.
   
3. Transfer the whole mass into an electric pressure cooker. Fill in water to just cover all the ingredients. Close the lid and turn the knob to pork cooking cycle. After cooking, the cooker automatically enters the "keep warm" status. After cooling, return the briskets into the frying pan and stir over the high heat until the whole mixture has thickened. Season with chicken bouillon and salt as needed. You can also thicken the mass by adding in one tablespoon of starchy solution and serve with steamed rice.

Soya milk is full of proteins, Vitamin-B and isoflavones. I am talking about REAL SOYA MILK, not those diluted one, or the soya beverages, which probably contain much of sugar. In supermarkets we can easily buy them in powder form, and they are no exception sweet. Street vendors sell just watery soyamilk. Therefore, homemade soya milk starts to gain its popularity.

1. Measure dry soybeans with the included measuring cup, about 55-60 grams. (I use JYDZ-15B soya-maker) Rinse the measured soybeans 2-3 times until water is clear. Discard the damaged beans and cover them with 3-4 times of water. Soak 8-10 hours at room temperature. After soaking, wash soybeans thoroughly with fresh water. Rub the skins off for a more smooth drink.
   用随机搭配的量杯勺出一平杯干黄豆，大约是55克。（我使用的是九阳豆浆机JYDZ-15B）黄豆清洗2-3次直到水清澈即可。挑出坏豆不用。用3-4倍清水，室温浸泡豆子8-12小时。泡好的豆子务必再用清水洗净才可以使用。搓去黄豆皮这样做出来的豆浆更顺滑。
2. Place the soaked soya beans into the cup, and fill with warm water between the water level marks. It is quicker to make soya milk with warm water. Attach the filter to machine head and position machine head onto the cup. Connect power and press the SOYABEAN button to start. The whole process takes 8-10 minutes. Multiple audio beeps with a flashing light indicate the soya milk is ready. It may be consumed immediately. Filter through a colander to yield drink with a less grainy and creamier texture. Enjoy the fresh made soya milk with self-made yau-char-kwai.
   黄豆放入杯内，加入温水至水位线之间。用温水可以缩短制浆时间。拉法尔网装上机头，然后正确放入杯体。通电源，按下全豆豆浆键。制浆过程大约8-10分钟，完成后机器会用声光提示豆浆已好。喜欢口感更细腻顺滑口感的豆浆，可过滤后饮用。搭根自制油炸鬼，蘸着豆浆吃。