The Warmth

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Hello, good morning all!

Today, I'd like to bring you a glass of traditional beverage.

This beverage is well known because of its fragrance, warmth while sipping, various spices used, and also its benefit.

Yes, today's topic is Wedang Uwuh. Have you ever heard about it? Let me tell you a brief story about Wedang Uwuh. Wedang Uwuh originally comes from Yogyakarta, especially Imogiri. The word "Wedang" means beverage, and "Uwuh" means garbage. WHAT? Do we drink a glass of garbage? Literally, yes. Technically, not! When it comes to garbage, it's not an actual garbage. Garbage here means Wedang Uwuh is made of various dried spices and herbs that are mixed in a glass of hot water, which then it looks like a garbage inside the glass. 

The spices and herbs may have a beneficial health effect for us. That makes this Wedang Uwuh is looked for by many Indonesian people. If you want to try how it tastes, I'm sharing to you the recipe of making Wedang Uwuh.

To make Wedang Uwuh, first you need : 

- Water (700 ml)

- Dried Secang bark (40 g)

- Rock sugar (50 g)

- Ginger (6 cm)

- Dried cinnamon leaves (2 pcs)

- Dried clove leaves (3 pcs)

- Dried nutmeg leaves (3 pcs)

- Cloves (10 pcs)

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Then, the procedures are :

1. First, roast all gingers and smash them. 

2. Pour the water into a pot, and bring it to simmer.

3. Put all the spices and herbs into simmering water.

4. Simmer for about 15 minutes.

5. Pour Wedang Uwuh into a glass, either first drain it or not.

6. Wedang Uwuh is ready to served, and enjoy while it's warm. 

Isn't that simple to make Wedang Uwuh, right?

Otherwise, if you don't want to go to a market and buy all of the spices and herbs, you can simply buy the packaged one. It's now available a packaged set of spices and herbs to make Wedang Uwuh. You only need to boil some water, then put all the spices and herbs into it. Tadaaa~ Your Wedang Uwuh is now ready!

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Wedang Uwuh isn't only a traditional beverage, and people won't eagerly search for it for no reasons. Wedang Uwuh is believed to have a beneficial health effect from the spices and herbs, like I've said. 

Okay, that's all I can share to you today!

Enjoy your Wedang Uwuh!

Have a nice day~

What a Daily Bread

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Hello, folks! I'm back

Today I'd like to share to you about Bread.

We know bread as they can easily be found everywhere. Moreover, lots of bakery shops are open world widely. 

Every time we walk through a bakery shop, we may smell something good inside. It's fragrant, mild, appetizing, and inviting to directly see.

Most of bread we already know is made of wheat. Despite, there are bread that's made of rye, maize, sorghum, oat, etc. Yet, wheat becomes the standard of any carbohydrate sources to bread-making flour.

Wheat quality is then determined by its milling process. We may find two kinds of bread in a store, such as ordinary bread and wholegrain bread. Ordinary bread means that the grain, which is wheat, is milled before it's used to make bread. While wholegrain bread means that the grain isn't milled or only milled partly. This milling process eliminates the germ and husk of the grain that contain high proteins, vitamins, and minerals. As the result, ordinary bread has lower level of proteins, vitamins, and minerals than wholegrain bread.

Next, what does happen during the bread-making process ?

Commonly, we know that to make bread, there are several processes to go through that are mixing, fermenting, molding, and baking. During the mixing, all of the ingredients are put together to be mixed. As we know, wheat flour contains gluten-forming proteins, which are glutenin and gliadin. Glutenin and gliadin will form gluten if there's enough water and mechanical energy during mixing process. This gluten will help to rise and define the bread's structure. Besides that, mixing will help to gather the bubbles inside dough from environmental air. This bubbles will then be trapped by viscoelastic gluten. The ingredients have to be mixed at proper time, if it's undermixing some of ingredients won't mix thoroughly, and it's overmixing the dough will fall down because of the broken structure of gluten inside.

After mixing, the dough need to be fermented. Fermentation process isn't only about the work of yeast in transferring glucose into carbon dioxide and alcohol. Fermentation is also about resting the dough in order to build its structure. During fermentation, the yeast will consume the glucose and excrete carbon dioxide and alcohol. This process is helped by the enzymes from the wheat itself that degrade starch into sugar. As the carbon dioxide is largely produced by yeasts, the air bubbles is getting bigger.  Furthermore, during fermentation, the disulfide bonds are oxidize to sulfhidril bonds which are tighter.

Last but not least,

After fermentation process, the dough is punched to release some of gases inside. However, the gases that remain inside is spread over the dough equally. Next, the dough is put into a tray to get ready to be baked. 

During baking, the heal will rise the temperature up and make the air bubbles bigger and bigger, also evaporate the alcohol. The heat constructs the outside crust of the bread and gives it brown color. The gluten will keep the air bubbles in shape. So, if you cut through the center of bread, you'll see porous structure inside. 

That's all I can share to you today.

I hope you enjoy it, and may be fruitful to you.

Thank you.

Reference:

Rosell, Christina M. 2011. "The Science of Doughs and Bread Quality". Flour and Breads and Their Fortification in Health and Disease Prevention, pp. 3 - 14.