I was waiting at the bus stop, when a group of Arabic guys came. There were six burly guys, just chatting away and the look at this one scrawny fella (read: me) sitting at the bus stop. One by one looked at me before settling down. Three guys on each side. I'm in the middle. What was their problem lah kan? I just grab my bag and felt for something inside it. Luckily, there was an umbrella inside (umbrella yg kecik boleh lipat2 tuh) I held it tight. Just in case. You can never be too sure with the foreigners in cyberjaya. Silap2 kang die kerjekan pulak!! But the bus stop was just infront of Sri Putri, so I can still run away if anything happens. And it was in the broad daylight, so I just sat there with an umbrella in my hand. They were talking among themselves about something and I just stare straight at the school in front of me. Then, I thought one of the guys were looking straight at me while saying something. The first thing running through my mind was, why is this guy looking at me like that. I kept on staring at the school. Then, he looked irritated and raise his voice a bit.
Then the thought hit me.
The guy was trying to talk to me! In arabic! ahahahaha!!
me: Sorry, I don't speak your language.
Then he spoke in a different dialect. (eh, pulak lah kan, mamat nie!)
Blurr me: Do you speak english? big burly guy: Yes, can you tell me how I go to Petaling Street? me: Owh, just take a bus to Putrajaya and then another one to KL central and then take the monorail. BBG: Do they have a bus from KL central to Petaling Street?
me: yeah, but I don't know the bus number. BBG: owh ok. thank you.
I was laughing at myself inside. It was so damn embarrassing! Itulah, dulu mak ko suroh balja Arabic, ko lari blaja Japanese. Kan da kene org nak cakap arabic ko tekontang-kanting.
AAaaaaaaaaaaaa!! Gi arr blaja arabic!!
rahsie pekong didada: I'm the only one in the family who don't know how to speak in arabic :P Even my Japanese have gone karat already because there was no one to talk too. hehehe.
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I made some Brioche à tête after seeing it on Su Yin's blog. It was somehow, a pain in the ass to make this soft bread. Perhaps it was because I was stressing on it too much. But then again the websites in the internet were giving so much warnings all over their instructions, it scarred the hell out of me while making the dough.
So, here's a recipe I came up with after editing here and there. This time, I even edited the instructions. Maybe that's why it was so much work. haha..
yeast
1/3 cup milk
1 tbsp sugar (warm)
2 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
12 tbsp butter (unsalted is the best cause you're going to use alot of it)
2 tbsp milk (optional)
5 tbsp sugar
4 eggs
preparations:
Mix the yeast with some warm milk and sugar. set aside for half an hour or until it becomes active/ bubbly and frothy.
sift the flour. (as highly as you can)
Separate one egg yolk. set aside.
Beat the egg yolk with the remaining eggs.
If using butter sticks, chop it to smaller pieces.
Instructions:
Mix one cup of the flour with yeast mixture and sugar. Using a wooden spoon, incorporate the eggs bit by bit. The dough will become very wet and cake-like mixture. Sprinkle the remaining flour to the dough and mix lightly for around 8 minutes. The dough will shape up a little bit. Then, you'll need to knead by hand and incorporate the butter.
On a flour-dusted surface, spread out the dough to form a square. dust a bit of flour and fold the dough together. repeat several times until it became elastic and not sticky. (don't worry if part of the dough is sticks to the surface, thats normal)
Once the dough is not sticky, spread it out again, then put the knobs/chunks/small pieces of butter on the dough. fold it and knead again by hand. (the dough will become 'wet' again) This time knead the dough faster until it is smooth again.
put it in a buttered bowl and let rise for 1/2 hour. It will have doubled twice the volume. Punch it and then refrigerate the dough for 3 hours. The dough will have rise again. Punch it for the second time and let it rest for 30 mins.
the dough will have rise a bit. But just take the dough and roll small balls. I made twelve balls out of it. separate 1/3 of each ball and roll it until it became a round ball. Now you'll have twelve pairs of balls. Put the bigger balls into a big muffin pan. with one finger, poke the balls and the fit in the smaller balls on top of the bigger balls.
Beat the egg yolk until it is glossy but not overeaten, and wash the brioche. Let it rest for 30 mins before popping into the oven for 30mins.
**It took the whole day to make this one. IF I were to make it again in the future, I'd make it in two days. The whole ordeal was just too much. I sifted the flour in hopes that the product won't become a cake-like texture (as the recipe is quite rich in butter and eggs) I beat the egg too much that I had to be careful while mixing it with the flour in fear of overbeating the egg. that means it'll require a wooden spoon and naturally I end up with a slightly tired arm after mixing a heavy dough for 10 minutes non-stop. I was panicking when I added the butter. The dough lose shape all together. It took some time to make it back into shape. I suggest if you guys are going to make it, work the dough on a plastic surface. It'll HELP, seriously. Then there were the thrice resting time. Aiyooh, I even slept throughout the 4 hours the bread was in the fridge. (Penat ok tunggu!!) But in the end, the bread was great!! the texture was soft and bread-like (yeay!!)
Tired~
ps: the bread name was quite a controversy, and so was the vulgarity of the shape. Get it? Brioche à tête. Here's some pics from the internet. (I don't have a camera so no pics)
