Brioche Breakfast Plait (Dean Brettschneider)

Here's a recipe for a buttery brioche shaped into a plait from Dean Brettschneider's Global Baker cookbook. I have substituted cranberries for the dried apricots originally called for, and instead of kneading by hand following Dean's instructions, I've turned to my trusty Kenwood to do all the kneading. The texture of  the bread was amazingly soft & tender but somehow felt a tad dry on the palate - this baffled me considering a lot of butter went into this bread. I may have overbaked my bread a little, I'm not too sure. Anyway, I like to eat this bread toasted with a spread of jam ... and cream cheese!  The leftovers were just perfect made into french toasts and I think would be good for bread & butter pudding as well.  If you intend to make this bread, you need to have patience and start preparing the dough a day earlier as this recipe requires overnight refrigeration of the bread dough before baking.


Cranberry Brioche Breakfast Plait

(Recipe adapted from Global Baker by Dean Brettsneider)

Makes 1 plait.

Ingredients:

250 grams strong bread flour

5 grams salt

25 grams sugar

5 grams/1 teaspoon dried yeast

4 small eggs, lightly beaten

125 grams softened butter, cut into small dice

150 grams dried cranberries

50 grams flaked almonds, for topping

Egg wash

1 egg

2 tablespoons water

  

Method:



Sift the flour, salt, sugar and yeast into a large bowl - make a well in the centre and stir in three-quarters of the egg to form a soft dough.

Knead the dough for about 10 minutes resting for 30 seconds every 2 - 3 minutes until smooth and elastic. This is to develop the protein structure of the flour.

Next, knead in the remaining egg slowly. The dough will move from being sticky & slimy to smooth, elastic and shiny over time.

Once this is done, slowly add in the butter bit by bit while kneading until the dough is elastic and silky.

Finally, knead cranberries into the dough.

Form into a ball and place in an oiled bowl. Cover and let it rest in a warm place until doubled in size (may take about 1 hour).



Lightly flour your worktop, tip the risen dough onto it  and very gently fold the dough back onto itself  3 to 4 times. Return it to the lightly oiled bowl to rest, covered, overnight in the fridge (for 12 - 15 hours).

 

The next day, remove the dough from the fridge, cut it into three equal pieces and roll each piece into a rope. Then plait these ropes to form your loaf.

Place it onto a baking paper lined tray, cover, and allow to rise until doubled in size (may take 2-3 hours).

Once risen, brush with the eggwash and sprinkle with flaked almonds.



Look how much it grew!



Bake in a preheated 200°C/350°F oven for about 20-25 minute or until golden and cooked through. (Cover the top of the plait with foil if it gets too brown).

Once baked, remove the plait from oven and place it on a wire rack to cool.

Done!

I am submitting this entry to 'Aspiring Bakers #8 - Bread Seduction' hosted by Jasmine of  'The Sweetylicious' (Details here).  Have any bread recipe you'd like to share? Do join in the fun too!

Steamed Pumpkin Buns

I had seen these bright orangey steamed buns from Wendy of Table of 2 and bookmarked the recipe sometime ago. I had actually forgotten about it until I saw this recipe again shared by  Lena  in her blog Frozen Wings. I knew then that I had to try out the recipe at last, lest I forget again.  Just like how Lena decribed them, they were indeed soft & fluffy and sweet, wonderful eaten just plain without any fillings. Somehow mine were not as bright orange as Wendy's or Lena's but it didn't really matter, they were really good and I just couldn't have enough of these.  As with all steamed buns, they were best eaten warm. A keeper recipe, this.

I am submitting this entry to 'Aspiring Bakers #8 - Bread Seduction' hosted by sweet Jasmine of  'The Sweetylicious' (Details here).


Steamed Pumpkin Buns
Ingredients
60gm sugar
90gm pumpkin puree
1tsp instant dry yeast
150gm pau flour (or use superfine flour)
1tsp double action baking powder
10gm butter

Method:
1. Combine sugar, pumpkin puree and yeast.
2. Combine pau flour, double action baking powder and butter and mix to form crumbs.
3. Pour (1) into (2) and mix to form dough.
4. Knead dough until smooth and no longer sticky.
5. Cover and let dough proof in a warm place until double in size.
6. After proofing, punch down the dough and knead for 2 mins and divide dough into 8 pieces.
7. Take a piece of dough, mould it round then flaten into an oblong. Slowly roll up like swiss roll and put it on a piece of parchment paper. Repeat for the remaining pieces of dough.
8. Cover and let buns proof for 2nd time for another 45 mins.
9. Steam on high heat for 12 mins.

Baked Doughnuts

You'd be surprised how soft & moist these are! 



Baked doughnuts, anyone? Personally I prefer the deep fried ones, heck anything deep fried is yummy in my books, but if you're looking to save on cooking oil and you loathe cleaning up greasy mess, these baked doughnuts are for you! One thing though, if  you're watching your calories, these may not be as low fat as you may think and in my opinion certainly not that much healthier. For sure you'll feel less guilty but don't be fooled just because these doughnuts are baked instead of fried. They are really in fact not much lower in fat if you look at the butter content in the recipe and  furthermore, these doughnuts need to be brushed with additional melted butter once baked to keep the crust tender. If you're watching your weight and every little calorie counts, you shouldn't be eating a doughnut in the first place anyway! But who's counting? Certainly not me, not now ... later maybe. Haha!


I am submitting this entry to 'Aspiring Bakers #8 - Bread Seduction' hosted by sweet Jasmine of  'The Sweetylicious' (Details here).
Baked any bread this month? Do join in the fun too!


Baked Doughnuts
(Recipe adapted from Doughnuts by Lara Ferroni)



Makes  10 to 14 doughnuts

Ingredients:

1 egg
¼ cup (60gm) granulated sugar
1 cup milk, heated to 115 °F (46 °C)
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2½ to 3½ cups (300gm to 420gm) all purpose flour, divided, plus more for kneading
1 stick butter (4 ounces or 115gm), cut into 1″ cubes

Method:

In the bowl of your stand mixer with the paddle attachment, beat the egg and sugar on medium speed for about 1 minute. Add in the milk, yeast, salt, and vanilla. Turn the mixer to low, and then add in 2 cups of the flour. Attach the dough hook and then on medium speed, add the butter one piece at a time until smooth. Reduce the speed to low, and then add the rest of the flour until the dough sticks to the hook and pulls away from the sides of the bowl. It should be soft and moist, but not sticky.
Turn the dough out on to a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth. Place in a mixing bowl coated with cooking spray and cover with a damp towel. Let rise until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.
Punch down the dough and roll it out to about ½” thickness. With doughnut or cookie cutter, cut out 3″ circles with 1″ holes.
Preheat the oven to 400 °F (200 °C). On a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, place the doughnuts 1″ apart. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit in a warm place until almost doubled in size, about 20 minutes.
Bake until light golden in color, 5-8 minutes. Brush with melted butter and then coat with icing sugar or glaze of your choice. Serve immediately. Doughnuts are best eaten while still warm.

Note:
I let my stand mixer do the kneading using  the dough hook on medium speed. I used  a mixture of bread flour and all purpose flour just because I didn't have enough of all purpose flour on hand. I used a total  of 3 1/2  cups flour. I also needed a longer baking time for my doughnuts to turn light golden brown about 12 minutes (but that's just my oven).

Chocolate Chip Hot Cross Buns

 

Hot cross buns! Hot cross buns!
One a penny two a penny - Hot cross buns
If you have no daughters, give them to your sons
One a penny two a penny - Hot cross buns



I remember I used to sing this nursery rhyme to my Daughter G when she was  just a baby up to toddlerhood. Now at the awkward age of puberty and soon becoming a teenager,  I can't help but think, man, how time flies! I really miss that cute cheeky little girl who would gladly receive huggles & cuddles & kisses from mommy anytime. 'Sigh'.  

Alright, enough of my ramblings now.

It's a little late but here wishing you all "HAPPY EASTER!" Hope you all had a good Easter weekend.

To celebrate Easter, I made these cocolate chip hot cross buns from Dean Brettschneider's cookbook - 'Global Baker'. These buns were lightly scented with orange zest and were loaded with chocolate chips which made them deliciously chocolaty - I didn't need to slather on butter or jam at all. They were good eaten on their own. If you like chocolate but don't like spices, mixed peel or raisins, these buns are for u. I personally like these buns but my Daughter G on the other hand didn't fancy them as much. She didn't like the orange zest which I thought was wonderful. No buns for dear Hubby who's a carbo-phobe. He avoids bread like the plague! Ah well, more buns to myself!

The aptly named 'Global Baker' cookbook has many interesting & inspirational recipes with influences from around the world.  What caught my interest most are the 'east- meets-west' fusion recipes which Dean had developed for the Asian tastebuds. He is currently residing in China and thus the Asian influence with the use of tofu, red beans and green tea. There's even a macaron recipe incorporating Chinese five spice powder - normally used in savoury dishes, I wonder how this spice would work in sweets?! This is one cookbook that will whip out the adventurous baker in you. So far I've only tried two recipes  from the book and they didn't disappoint. I'm already eyeing a few more recipes I'd like to try, heck I'd try them all if I could!    

Chocolate Chip Hot Cross Buns

(Recipe taken from 'Global Baker' by Dean Brettschneider.)

Dough

300g strong bread flour

30g cocoa powder

5g salt

25g butter

25g sugar

zest of 1 orange

5g (1 tsp) active dried yeast

1 small egg, weighing no more than 50g when cracked

150ml water

140g chocolate chips (chilled in the fridge)

Cross Mixture

(Note: I've  halved the recipe here. The original recipe yielded too much than what needed)

75g plain flour

25g vegetable oil

75ml water

Sugar Glaze

40g sugar

100ml water

zest of 1 orange

Method

Make dough

Place all the ingredients except the chocolate chips in a large mixing bowl, using a wooden spoon, combine to a dough mass. Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 10-15 minutes, resting for 30 seconds every 2-3 minutes, until the dough is smooth and elastic (Note: I used my stand mixer to do the kneading). The dough will be sticky to the touch and soft, don't be tempted to use excessive amounts of dough during kneading. Finally, add the chilled chocolate chips and continue to knead very gently until they are incorporated into the dough.

Place dough in a lightly oiled large bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Leave to rise for 45-60 minutes. Gently knock back the dough in the bowl by folding it back onto itself. Cover again with plastic wrap and leave for 30 minutes.

Tip the dough onto a lightly floured surface and divide into 12 equal pieces. Shape into balls. Place approximately 2cm apart on baking tray lined with non-stick baking paper. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to prove for 30-45 minutes, depending on room temperature.

Make cross

Place flour and oil in a bowl and whick slowly, adding just ebnough water to make a smooth lump free paste. Cover with plastic wrap until required.

Preheat oven to 190C.

To make the crosses, put the cross mixture into a piping bag fitted with a plain 3mm piping nozzle, pipe crosses onto the buns.

Bake for approximately 15-18 minutes, until golden brown.

Meanwhile, make sugar glaze. Heat the sugar, water and orange zest to boiling, remove from the heat. Brush buns with sugar glaze after removing from the oven. Place on wire rack to cool. 

Cocodrillo Ciabatta

Do they look like crocodile slippers?

These are ciabattas I made following an interesting recipe (Jason's Cocodrillo Ciabatta) I found from 'The Fresh Loaf,' a website forum on anything and everything about bread. Cocodrillo Ciabatta literally means crocodile slippers! 

Traditionally Ciabatta bread is made using the sourdough method which requires the preparation of a pre-ferment dough; and this can take days before you can put a loaf of ciabatta on your table.

The Cocodrillo recipe on the other hand uses the straight dough method and eliminates the need of a sponge dough. This speeds up the bread making process and you can now enjoy a rustic ciabatta within hours.  

Here's a video to accompany the Cocodrillo Ciabatta recipe. I found this video very helpful and have used it as a guide when I made my ciabattas. The video shows the Cocodrillo Ciabatta making process, from the mixing of the dough to the final baking.

 

Credits to jenmenke .

 

Jason's Cocodrillo Ciabatta

Ingredients:

• 500g bread flour
• 450 - 490g water  (I used 450g)
• 2 tsp instant yeast 
• 15g salt 

Method:

1. Mix all ingredients roughly till combined, let it rest for 10 minutes.
Be prepared for a very wet dough which has the consistency of  a gloopy pancake batter. The high water content is essential to produce the large irregular air bubbles characteristic of a ciabatta bread. Having a stand mixer to tackle the very wet dough is definitely a life-saver and a necessity. 

2. After the resting period, turn on the mixer and beat for 10-30 minutes until the dough pulls away from the sides and bottom of the bowl.
Mine took the full 30 minutes to transform from pancake batter to a sticky dough using a medium-high speed on my Kenwood Chef mixer. Do not despair if after much beating your batter hasn't changed much in consistency, the mixer speed is probably too low. So be brave and crank up the speed. The dough would be stretchy and feel very wet and sticky. Do not be tempted to add more flour, just go along with it.You'll know it's done when it separates from the side of the bowl and just coming off the bottom of the bowl, and your mixer shakes like crazy as if possessed!

3. Place into a well oiled container and let it triple its size, about 2 hours or more. It must triple!
For me, I let the dough double it's size and then kept it in the fridge to slow down the proofing process. It was very late when I did this, I was too sleepy and couldn't possibly be making bread until the wee hours, so I thought I'd continue in the morning. The next morning, I took the dough out from the fridge and left it to come to room temperature. By then it had tripled.

4. After tripling in size, use a spatula to scrape the dough from the bowl onto a heavily floured surface. Cut into 2 or 3 pieces, spray with grease and dust with flour, and allow to sit for 45 minutes. Preheat oven to 260 °C while the loaves are resting. 
I  just tipped the container and let the dough fall out onto the work surface, then cut in half and separated the two pieces just like how it was done in the video. I didn't bother greasing them, just dusted  them with plenty of flour, then covered them with a clean kitchen towel (which has been dusted with flour of course).

5. After resting 45 minutes or so (dough will be puffy and spongy), pick up one piece of the dough and stretch into your final ciabatta shape (~10" oblong rectangle) and flip them upside down (this redistributes the bubbles, so you get even bubbles throughout), and onto parchment or a heavily floured peel.
I followed the video and used two dough scrapers to scrape the dough off the work surface and turned it upside down on a lined baking sheet. I tried to do this as gently as I could in one quick motion. The dough will look as though you’ve deflated it. Fear not, it'll puff up as it bakes in the oven.  Repeat with the other piece of dough.

6. Bake at 260 °C about 15-20 minutes or until the internal temperature of the bread reaches 96 °C.
I don't have a thermometer so I baked the ciabattas a little longer to be safe, about 25 minutes. Better err on the side of overbaking than underbaking as the dough is so wet anyway.

EAT me!

I'm pretty happy how my ciabatta turned out. The texture was chewy and the crust thin and slightly crackly. As you can see, it had the desired irregular large bubbles throughout the loaf. I realy like how the large bubbles collect  the juices in my sandwich. It tasted even better toasted.  

  

.

  

Tangzhong Honey Wholemeal Rolls

Reading and following the many amazing food blogs, I have come to know a new method of bread making which has become the rage among asian bloggers who like baking their own bread at home. This new method of bread making which incorporates tangzhong was first introduced by Yvonne Chen who wrote a Taiwanese cookbook, entitled “65°C湯種麵包”(Bread Doctor). In her book, she claimed tangzhong “湯種” as the secret ingredient in making soft and springy bread.  Now what is tangzhong? It is a mixture by weight of 1 part bread flour and 5 parts water cooked over gentle heat until it has 'gelatinized' at a temperature of 65°C. This 'gelatinized' starch or 'tangzhong' traps and locks moisture from the water when cooked to  65°C , and thus produces a softer and more elastic bread dough  when used in bread making.

Springy, airy & moist.

Tangzhong

50 g bread flour

250 g water

How to make Tangzhong:

1. Mix together flour and water until well combined  and without any lumps. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring consistently with a wooden spoon, whisk or spatula to prevent burning and sticking.
2. Cook the mixture until it has reached the temperature of 65°C. (If you do not have a thermometer like me, keep an eye on the mixture; once the mixture has thicken and looks glossy, somewhat gelatinous and gluey, remove from heat). 
3. Remove from heat. Transfer the mixture into a clean bowl and cover with a cling wrap. Let cool. The tangzhong is ready to be used. Store unused tangzhong in the fridge up to 3 days. Discard if it turns grey. 

Here is a recipe for wholemeal bread using tangzhong which I  have adapted and tweaked from 'Dodol & Mochi'  here . Instead of a loaf bread, I made rolls and added some figs to half of them and left the other half plain. Feel free to add whatever dried fruits or nut  you fancy.




Buns in the oven!

Tangzhong Honey Wholemeal Rolls

Ingredients:

280 g bread flour

200 g wholemeal flour                                                      

10 g instant yeast

25 g sugar 
1 tbs honey

5 g salt 

60 g egg

140 g milk

120 g tangzhong

50 g salted butter 

Method:

1. Combine together brread flour, wholemeal flour, yeast, sugar & salt  and make a well in the center. Then whisk together honey, egg, milk & tangzhong and pour into the dry ingredients and mix till a dough has formed and pulls away from the sides of the mixing bowl. Add in the butter and mix till well incorporated.
2. Knead the dough till it's elastic and has reached the windowpane stage--i.e. a thin "membrane" can be formed by slowly, gently pulling and stretching out a small piece of the dough. It might take longer for the stickier wholemeal bread dough to reach this stage compared to plain white bread dough.
3. Round the dough up and place it into a greased bowl, cover and let it proof about  1 hour or till it's doubled in size. 
4. On a lightly floured working surface, knead and divide the dough into 16 equal portions (I've added chopped dried figs to half the rolls at this point), then round up and cover them to let rest for 15 minutes.
5. After resting, lightly flour your hands, if necessary, reshape the dough portions into tightly rounded balls and arrange them on a greased baking pan and leave to rise until doubled in size for about 1 hour.
6. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 °C for 20 minutes. Done!

 

Good eaten with lashings of butter!






Japanese Cream Bread

Just bought a new cookbook, "Magic Bread" by Alex Goh. I just can't resist collecting new cookbooks especially if it has anything to do with baking and in particular bread making. I love bread, u know.  Needed to justify the unnecessary money spent by trying out the recipes and I chose this one, Japanese Cream Bread.

 

The dough is very tender and very pleasant to handle. I guess the whipping cream provided enough fat/grease for it to be not too sticky. I didn't even need to flour my work surface while shaping the dough. However, the the dough took longer to rise than what the recipe called for. Instead of 40 minutes, I waited 2 hours for it to double in volume in the first rise and another 1 1/2 hours instead of 50 minutes for the second rise. Maybe I didn't put in the right amount of yeast as my digital scale konked-out and I had to use my manual kitchen scale. This old manual kitchen scale has a  gradient of 10g unlike my digital one which can measure more accurately 1g at a time. And so, to measure 6g of instant yeast needed was really a guessing game for me.

Despite the longer proofing time needed than called for, all is forgiven when I pulled the bread apart. The springy network of gluten  and open crumb surprised me and I knew for sure the bread was going to be soft.

I can't help poking and pressing & pulling on the crumb and feeling pleased with myself. Without wasting anymore time, I quickly  tried a slice and it was indeed  very soft and has a light spring to it when chewed on. I was over the moon!


This "Japanese Cream Bread"  hands down is the softest bread I've ever made  and it trumps over the "Soft Yoghurt Bun"  I made and blogged about earlier. It also stayed soft till the next day unlike the "Soft Yoghurt Buns" which turned a little gummy.


Japanese Cream Bread
(taken from "Magic Bread" by Alex Goh)

Ingredients

A) 120g  bread flour
     85 g boiling water

B) 380g bread flour
     75g sugar
     6gsalt
     8g instant yeast

C) 120g cold milk
     100g whipping cream
     1 cold egg

D) 40g Butter


Method

1) Mix ingredients A together to form a rough dough. Cover and let cool, then keep in the refrigerator for at least 12 hours.
2) Mix together ingredients B, then add all of ingredients C and combine well. Add in the refrigerated dough from A, knead together till well combined. Then, add the Butter from D, knead until elastic.
3) Let the well kneaded dough proof for 40 minutes. Divide the dough into 12 pieces and mould round and let rest for 10 minutes.
4) Flatten each dough pieces and roll into oblong shape place 3 pieces into a greased 17x9x6.5 cm loaf tin. Make 4 loafs.
5) Let proof for 50 minutes. Bake at 180 degrees Centigrade for 20-25 minutes.

Note: I used bigger loaf tins and made two bigger loaves of bread by dividing the dough into six pieces, and placed 3 pieces into each tin.

Soft Yoghurt Buns

One of the things I like to do is check out other people's food blogs and ooohh & ahhhh-ing over pictures of their gorgeous baked goods and this particular blog 'Cherry on a Cake' by Zurin really caught my eye. Her food styling and photography  is exceptionally beautiful and her writing light hearted & pleasant to read. I think her blog can already be a cookbook itself  if printed on paper and I would definitely want to own a copy if it ever got published and sold in bookshops.

This 'Soft Yoghurt Buns' recipe is taken from the same blog here. I was won over by Zurin's ravings and other readers' glowing comments on how cottony soft the resulting buns were. I just had to try it.



Divided & shaped into balls.



All puffed up proudly.



Glazed and ready to be baked.



Baking....... 20 minutes......




All gloriously golden fresh out of the oven.



Soft, soft, soft!


Soft Yoghurt Buns Recipe:
(makes 12 buns) (note: I divided the dough to make 16 buns)

500 g bread flour
30 g sugar
6 g  or 1 tsp salt
6 g  or 1 1/2 tsp instant yeast
200 gm plain yoghurt
120 gm milk
1 egg
60 g butter

Method:

1) Mix all dry ingredients in one large mixing bowl.

2) Heat up  the milk and butter  in a microwave until butter is melted. Remove and stir well. Pour into the dry mixture together with yoghurt and lightly beaten egg.

3) Stir the mixture with a spoon until a rough dough forms. Now use a stand mixer to knead dough on medium low speed until the dough is very smooth and elastic.

4) Place the kneaded dough inside a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a damp tea towel or cling film and let rest for an hour or until the dough doubles in bulk.

5) After the dough has risen take it out from the bowl and place on a lightly floured surface. Punch down the dough to rid it of air and knead it a little while for a couple of  minutes and then divide into 12 pieces (I dicived into 16 pieces instead). Shape each piece into a smooth ball and place in a greased pan slightly apart. Leave to rise until it doubles in bulk again. Brush the tops with egg wash (a beaten egg mix with a little milk) and bake in a 170 degree C oven for 20 minutes.

Yup I'm swooned by this recipe. Definitely a keeper!

French Baguettes

French Baguettes recipe taken and adapted from allrecipes.com. Made these baquettes to use for bruschetta for dinner  and although they can't compare to those you'd find in bakeries, they're not bad in taste. The crust was a little crisp fresh out the oven but once cooled it turned chewy. Followed the recipe exactly except for the egg wash which I used milk instead. Also I don't have a bread maker machine so I kneaded the dough using a stand mixer. You can also knead by hand if you don't have a stand mixer but this will require a lot of elbow grease ... good to burn off some calories!

 

Ingredients

• 235 ml water
• 340 g bread flour
• 10 g white sugar
• 6 g  or 1 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 tsp  instant  yeast
• 15 ml milk 

Directions

1. Place  water, bread flour, sugar, salt and yeast into a large mixing bowl and mix together into a dough. Use a stand mixer and knead dough till smooth and elastic. 
2. Place dough in a greased bowl, turning to coat all sides. Cover, and let rise in a warm place for about 30 minutes, or until doubled in bulk. Dough is ready if indentation remains when touched.
3. Punch down dough. On a lightly floured surface, cut dough in half and shape each half of dough tightly into log shape. Roll gently back and forth to taper end. Place 3 inches apart on a greased baking tray. Make deep diagonal slashes across loaves, or make one lengthwise slash on each loaf. Cover, and let rise in a warm place for 30 to 40 minutes, or until doubled in bulk.
4. Preheat oven to 190 degrees C. Brush milk over tops of loaves.
5. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden brown.

Baquettes baking in the oven.



Wholemeal Oat Bread

If given a choice of carbs between rice, noodles or bread to eat, I would most definitely choose bread! To some people bread is like poor man's food, something you'd only eat when there's nothing better to eat, but I think otherwise. I like bread and nothing beats freshly baked bread simply eaten with butter, especially if the bread is homemade hot out from my own oven.  And nothing gives me more pleasure watching it turn from a pale puffy dough to a tall golden brown pillow and smelling the sweet yeasty aroma wafting throughout the house. Just lovely.  

This is one of my favorite bread recipe adapted & tweaked from

the recipe 'Multi-Grain Wholemeal Bread' from the cookbook "Baking Code" by Alex Goh. It yields very soft bread due to the use of the Overnight Sponge Dough which has to be prepared first ahead of time. 

You will need:

410g Bread Flour

100g Wholemeal Flour

50g Toasted Rolled Oats

25g Brown Sugar

10g Salt

15g Milk Powder

2 tsp Molasses/Honey
380g Cold Water

100g Overnight Sponge Dough (recipe follows)

45g Butter

Method:

To make bread
1) Mix together all ingredients except butter into a dough. Then add the butter and knead till smooth & elastic.
2) Cover with cling film and set aside to proof for 50 minutes or until it doubles in size.
3) Divide the dough into 6 portions and  allow to rest for 10 minutes.
4) Flatten the dough and then roll up like swiss roll. Place 3 portions of the shaped dough into each greased loaf tins (24x13.5x7cm). Leave to proof for 50 minutes or until doubled in size covered with damp towel.
5) Bake preheated oven at 200 ° C for 35 minutes or until cooked.

To make Overnight Sponge Dough
Ingredients:
100g bread flour
60g water (room temperature)
1/4 tsp instant yeast

Method:
Mix the instant yeast with water in a bowl. Then combine the flour with the yeast/water mixture. Allow to proof for 30 minutes. Then cover with cling film and keep in the refrigerator overnight or up to 48 hours.