World Breastfeeding Week 2009 (1 - 7 Aug 2009)

It's World Breastfeeding Week (WBW) once again. This year's theme is "Breastfeeding: A Vital Emergency Response. Are You Ready?" More information can be found on the World Breastfeeding Week website.

I don't really want to talk about event, and themes...I just thought it would be an opportunity to share some brief thoughts on breastfeeding. Earlier this year, I trained as a breastfeeding counsellor and currently I am a volunteer counsellor with a breastfeeding counselling hotline. Even though I have 4.5yrs of breastfeeding experience and have read widely on the subject, it's been a wonderful learning experience for me. And hopefully, I've helped a few mums along the way...

I receive many different types of calls. One of the most common (and painful) stories I hear from new mums is that they don't have enough milk for their babies. Many are exhausted, and suffering from post-natal blues. The apparent lack of milk affects their confidence terribly and makes them question if they are good mothers.

The lack of milk may or may not be real. If it's real, it frequently is due to poor breastfeeding management in the early post-partum period. The best way to ensure a good supply of milk is to drain the breast frequently and effectively, i.e. newborns need to nurse at least 8 - 12 times in a 24 hour period, or every 2 - 3 hours on average. A breast that is suckled sends signals to the brain to release hormones that are involved in milk production. So that when the baby is put to the breast more frequently, the breast starts to increase its production of milk and the baby gets more milk.

Unfortunately, this natural feedback mechanism is often not allowed to work. In hospitals, even those that claim to be breastfeeding friendly, a well-meaning but misguided nurse may encourage the mother to rest and leave the care of the baby to the nursing staff. As the baby is not allowed to nurse on the breast, the body does not receive critical information to jumpstart milk production. For mothers who are genetically blessed with an ample supply anyway, this may not be a problem. But for many mothers, this is the start of a series of problems that can make breastfeeding a very painful journey. A journey that many mothers decide not to complete.

The mother who thinks she doesn't have enough milk, may be tempted to give her baby formula, which then encourages the baby to drink less from the breast, which will in turn produce less milk. It is a vicious cycle.

If the young infant is fed through a bottle and artificial nipples, problems are compounded, as some babies develop a preference for artificial nipples. The mechanism for feeding from a breast is very different from the mechanism for feeding from an artificial nipple (which is generally why breastfed babies have better jaw development). And, even if the mother expresses her milk to feed to her baby through a bottle, a breast pump is not as good as a baby in emptying the breast. Expressing milk on a permanent basis is also very tiring for the mother, and she may be tempted to skip pumping sessions (especially at night). All these factors lead to dwindling milk supplies.

Fortunately, it is often possible to help these mothers achieve a full milk supply. However, it can be a very tiring process, depending on how far down the cycle the mother is. Strategies include getting the mother to nurse her baby more frequently, to ensure that her baby is actively drinking and not just mouthing at the nipple (i.e. milk is being removed from the breast), to pump after nursing sessions to ensure the breast is fully drained, getting the mother to rest, relax, eat and drink well. Often, a mother may have a lot of milk, but because she is stressed, the breast is not able to eject the milk. Finally, we may recommend herbal remedies, such as fenugreek, or medication, such as domperidone. Herbal remedies will not work if the mother is not able to drain her breasts frequently and effectively. Medication can be very effective. But it should only be used as a last resort, if other strategies have not worked very well.

The mothers I speak to are usually very encouraged by the fact that they can do something to make things right again. Often, I can hear their spirits lifted. But because it can involve quite hard work, I know that not all will last the course. Some are angry that they had been ill-advised. And, often, I am angry too.

There's a lot of advice on breastfeeding going out to new mums and mums to be. At the top of my list is always this: Supply = Demand. As long as you abide by this principle, you will always have enough milk for you baby.

Happy Breastfeeding!

Jamie Oliver's Onion Baguettes

Yet another variation on Jamie's Basic Bread Recipe. This time, you slice and fry white onions with thyme and garlic in olive oil and you spread it onto the bread after you shape it (and before the second rise).

It was exceedingly good. Unfortunately, I ended up with ciabattas rather than baguettes.

No matter. Everyone loved it anyway.

Variations on Jamie's Basic Bread Recipe: Raisins

So I was going about preparing to bake my usual batch of bread using Jamie's recipe, and I spied a pack of raisins in the refrigerator. I thought, "Wouldn't it be nice to have some raisin bread?".

Actually, Jamie does have a Raisin and Rosemary version, but I didn't have rosemary at home and there weren't enough raisins.

But I thought I'd just test out adding just a handful of chopped raisins into the dough (anyway, Junior hates raisins and I didn't want the bread to be so full of raisins that he couldn't eat it).

It turned out very well, actually. No disasters! As usual, it was beautifully soft on the inside. The raisins added just a touch of sweetness to the plain bread. It'd be nice to try out the Rosemary and Raisin bread recipe one day. But the next time, I'll have to bake plain bread again, because, for Junior, even a handful raisins is too many raisins for him!

Jamie Oliver's (really easy) Basic Bread Recipe

Finally! A recipe that works! Jamie Oliver saves the day. A wonderfully easy basic bread recipe which he claims, even kids can use. I love it. It's so easy. No need to worry too much about too little water. I think his use of the term "stodgy porridge" caused some concern, but I think we all roughly know wha t that's like. Here's a pictorial:

Step 1:

You start by dumping all the flour onto your work surface and make a big well in it, like a volcano.

Step 2 & 3: Mixing

You add the yeast and water mixture and slowly mix it with some flour till it looks like stodgy porridge. Then you add the rest of the water and mix.

Step 3: Kneading

Then you start kneading. You later put the dough in a covered container to rise.

Step 4: Proofing & Shaping

The bread will rise (and how it rose!!). You punch it down again and shape it and leave it for another rise.

Step 5: Baking!

Finally, it's time to bake the bread.

It worked beautifully! It was great fresh from the oven. It makes a lot of bread, though, so I had to freeze several loaves. Unfortunately, it wasn't as good thawed. But still nice with some butter or jam. I make this frequently now. My sons love it, and so does my husband. And I don't have to buy supermarket bread anymore.

Bread: A Lesson in Bread Making

So after my two failures with Nigella's recipe. I decided I needed some proper instruction. But of course, I don't have the time to go for a bread making course. Instead, I googled. I found a cool website, called "The Fresh Loaf" which provides information for "Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiast". Apart from recipes, it contains written bread making lessons (with pictures!) and wonderful explanations of the various steps involved in bread-making (including how you would know if your dough is too wet or too dry).

This was my attempt at "Lesson One: Your First Loaf - A Primer for the New Baker". It was not bad at all! It rose nicely. Though I found that the dough just didn't want to hold it's shape. Maybe a tad too much humidity? So we ended up with a ciabatta rather than french loaf.

I wouldn't say it was a runaway success, but it was much much better than Nigella. So a definite pass.

Bread: The Essential White Loaf (Nigella Lawson)

I finally mustered the courage to bake my very first loaf of bread. Properly. Without a bread machine or even the dough hook on my Kenwood Chef. Just good old fashioned mixing and kneading and proofing and bashing and shaping and rising and baking...

I naturally turned first to Nigella Lawson's recipe for "The Essential White Loaf" in How to be a Domestic Goddess. The recipe seemed simple enough. Apart from bread flour, yeast and salt. It called for butter as well as potato water to give the bread a light crumb and last longer.

As much as I enjoy reading her recipes. I must say that this recipe failed totally for me. It clearly was not written for a total novice at bread baking. I can understand that Nigella cannot possibly tell me exactly how much water I need, since this will depend on the type of flour and the humidity and temperature at which the bread is being prepared. But precisely because of this, I thought she needed to provide more information on when we knew that the dough had the right amount of water. Instead, I had to deal with "(b)e prepared to add more water, but bear in mind that you want to end up with a shaggy mess."

Wha?! Shaggy mess?? Is this shaggy enough for you?

And about kneading "(y)ou may need to add more flour as you do so; if the dough seems stickily wet, it means you do want a little more and often a lot more."

Huh? A little ...often...more...?

She lost me and I really didn't know what I was doing. My mother, who has made bread before, happened to be visiting that day. She took a look at my dough and told me straight away that it needed more water. I had no clue. I though kneading it would help to soften it. But I kneaded, and kneaded, and kneaded, for almost an hour (it's supposed to take only 10 or 15mins) and still the dough was tough! Needless to say, my dough didn't rise. It was hard and tough.

I tried this recipe twice. Adding more water the second time. But still, I had no idea when enough was enough. And still it remained tough with uncooked bits of dough in the middle of the bread.

I decided that I would try other recipes before ever coming near this one again.

Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes

I baked these Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes for some friends as to a a treat for their birthdays. The special ingredient is the morello cherry jam which is rather hard to find in Singapore. When I found them at Cold Storage (United Square), I told myself that this was a sign that I had to make these cupcakes!

It is very very easy to make. I must admit that I messed up the icing though, and overwhipped the double-cream slightly.

So instead of a nice smooth icing, it got somewhat lumpy. But it was still good.

It is very very lovely dense cake. I must admit that the first bite was slightly disappointing, because I thought it was too sweet from the jam.

But then, towards the end of the first bite, and definitely by the second bite, the complex flavours kick in, and you get that sour kick from the morello cherry and the wonderfully rich, smooth, bitter background of the dark chocolate. What an explosion of flavours! And for some reason, the sweetness never bothered me again.

I love this cake. I can't wait to do it again. I don't know if I prefer it to the Dense Chocolate Cupcake, though, as they are very different types of chocolate cake. Both are very good.

One in a very traditional chocolately chocolate sort of way, and the other in a snazzy jazzy sort of way.

My friends loved it. It did look rather pretty too, after I added the little rose-buds and packed them in a nice cupcake box (both from Bake-it-Yourself).

Nigella Lawson's Old-Fashioned Chocolate Cake

Maybe I should stop pretending that this blog is about baking in general, and re-name it Chocoholics Anonymous! And so here I have yet another chocolate cake baked from Nigella Feasts. I was inspired because Nigella described it as being "melting, luscious and mood-enhancingly good". And of course, I'm always on the look-out for the perfect chocolate cake.

It's quite a straightforward cake to make. The only vaguely special ingredient is sour cream. There's also no worrying about creaming etc. as you basically process all the ingredients together and fill two sandwich tins with the batter. There is, however,

some melting of chocolate to do for the icing, which can be tricky. But I didn't have problems this time.

As for the icing, I used 2/3 of the icing sugar than the recipe called for, and there was still a lot and it was very sweet.

I actually made this at the end of February, but have been too busy to blog about it, so I can't really remember all the taste details. But I remember it being moist and crumbly, and sweet. It was good, and enjoyed by various people. For me though, while I enjoyed it, I did not think it was as good as THAT Chocolate Cake. To be fair, THAT Chocolate Cake is one fantastic chocolate cake, and it will remain my go-to Chocolate cake recipe.

Double Apple Pie, Nigella Lawson, How to be a Domestic Goddess

I had always been intrigued by Nigella's Double Apple Pie but never got round to making it because the thought of peeling and coring all that apples just did not seem like a very good use of my time. But with my brother recently back home for the vacation, I decided to take advantage of his enthusiasm to finally make this pie.

Firstly, I'm not very good at pastries. In fact, I suck at it and had real trouble with this one. I just couldn't get it to roll out properly. I was wondering if it had anything to do with the recipe, but I googled it and found that no one else had my problem. I guess as with all things, practice makes perfect, and I will be practising more. She does make it up in the food processor, as opposed to by hand. Perhaps next time I'll try the traditional method. It could be easier. Anyway, back to the pie.

The recipe calls for two different types of apples, hence the "double" element of the pie (no, it's not referring to the size, though it is a rather big pie, and it's baked in a Springform tin). I can't find Bramleys or Coxes here in Singapore, so I used Granny Smiths (for the green Bramleys) and Fuji apples (for the red Coxes). The green apples were to be mashed, and the red ones were to be chunky.

The shortcrust pastry is slightly different from regular shortcrust patries, in that it uses Cheddar in the mix. It may sound weird, but they actually go so well together. I recall as a little girl, I loved eating cheese with apples - in fact that was the only way my mum could get me to eat cheese.

I really enjoyed the pie. It was a very substantial and sliceable pie. It was great when fresh and hot out of the oven. When it cooled, I thought the pastry was a bit tough (my fault), but the filling was great, especially since the apples were of different sizes and textures. My husband, surprisingly, loved the pastry, but wasn't so keen on the filling because he thought the apples were too chunky. I guess he likes them small a la MacDonald Apple Pie. I would love to make these again, but now that my brother has gone back to school, it might be awhile...

Butterscotch Layer Cake, Nigella Lawson, How to be a Domestic Goddess

I realise that I've been doing A LOT of chocolate recently. Probably too much. What can I say. A girl just loves chocolate.

Bucking the trend, I baked Nigella's Butterscotch Layer Cake for my mum's birthday (once again, with the able assistance of my brother).

This recipe surprised me. It's basically a sponge cake recipe with light muscovado sugar and a butterscotch-cream cheese icing.

It was great fun to make and a wonderful revelation. I loved it, even though it didn't contain any chocolate! (Oh, and mum and the others at our small party enjoyed it lots too.)

It was moist but not too damp. As always, the light muscovado in the sponge gave it a beautiful sweetness. It was very rich, but you could just go on eating and eating. The sweetness of the cake and caramel balanced by the sour-saltiness of the cream-cheese, so it was never cloying.

I would definitely bake this cake again. It's a gorgeous cake. And I hardly ever consider a non-chocolate cake as being gorgeous.

Chocolate Honey Cake, Nigella Lawson, Feast.

This recipe is from Nigella Feast, which has got a great section on chocolate cakes. I decided to bake this cake for my Dad's birthday party. It would be too small for the over 80 people expected to attend, but I thought it would provide a really pretty visual treat.

It's a damp, moist cake that is easy to make. Just dump the ingredie

nts into the food processor and blitz.

Honey is used in both the cake and the icing. And because of it, it's one of those cakes that some people love, and some others could hate. It looks dark and chocolatey, and so it is what your tastebuds are expecting. If you didn't know it was a honey cake, you would be surprised by the taste of the honey, which is quite pronounced. Therefore, you need to choose the type of honey you use carefully. It wasn't something I thought about and so I used whatever was already open in the cupboard. The fact that I didn't actually like the taste of that particular type of honey very much, somewhat compromised my eventual satisfaction levels. You could also probably reduce the amount of icing sugar in the icing, which was very very very sweet.

I did, however, love the decorative bees, which are made with marzipan and almond flakes and drawn with the honey chocolate icing. They were adorable.

The cake was generally well-received. The kids, especially, came back for seconds and thirds, and asked to eat the bees. I thought it was nice, in an OK kind of way. I'm not sure I'd make this cake again, since I have other chocolate cake recipes to try out and ones that I've tried before that I know are winners. As a chocolate cake, it's not the best I've tried. As a honey cake, with better honey, I think I might like this more. Love the bees though.

Oh, and I need to acknowledge my brother's help with this cake. It's useful having an assistant!