Marble Bread

I've not made bread for a couple of days now. A couple of weeks ago the grocery store had a great sale on yeast and I did stock up a few bottles of yeast and the same weekend when we went to Costco I saw a 50lbs bag of bread flour and told the hubs that I had to have it. I am making more of my own bread anyway because I find that store bought bread gets moldy really quickly compared to homemade bread even though store bought bread have preservative. Since I saw the 50lbs bag of bread flour (I cannot find it any where else) I figure why not since I will be and am baking more breads now.

I've been trying different types of sweet breads hoping that I can make something that the hubs can just grab it and make his way to work without any preparations in the morning. I was browsing through some food blog and found this recipe and decided that it looks cute needed to try it out.

Recipe adapted from here

PLAIN DOUGH

INGREDIENTS A :

• 220g high protein flour
• 4g instant yeast (I used about 1-1/4tsp)
• 130g water (I used about 110g)
  

INGREDIENTS B :

• 60g high protein flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 15g sugar
• 10g milk powder
• 40g water
• 20g butter

1. Mix INGREDIENTS A, set mixer at slow speed & blend, cover with clong wrap, allow to leaven for 50 mins.
2. Add in INGREDIENTS B, knead till bread dough is shiny & springy, cover with cling wrap . Continue to leaven for 50 mins.
3. Punch the dough down & make into round shape. Rest for 10 mins.

Chocolate Dough

Ingredeients A :

• 200g high protien flour
• 1 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 70g castor sugar
• 1 tsp instant yeast
• 140ml water (I used about 110ml)
  

Ingredients B :

• 40g butter

1. Knead Ingredients A with medium speed until the dough smooth. Add in butter & continue to knead until the dough is fully developed & can be stretched into very thin sheet without tearing (window pane stage).
2. Remove dough, shape into a smooth ball & leave to rise for 1-2 hrs.
3. Punch the dough down & make into round shape. Rest for 15 mins.

**** Roll the Plain & Chocolate Dough into rectangular shapes & place the Chocolate dough on top of the Plain Dough. Roll it up tightly like swissroll. Put the dough into a greased loaf tin & leave to rise for 40 mins. Preheat over at 350 degree F. Glaze with beaten egg, place in a pre-heated oven & bake for 40 mins.

Note*- I used my bread machine this entire process. I took turns to knead the dough with the bread machine. When the plain bread was done I transferred it to a bowl for it to rise and begin my chocolate bread. I also didn't glaze my bread with beaten egg because I find that it gives the bread a burnt look so I just glaze it with some water.

** The reason why I reduce the liquid in my dough is because when ever I knead a bread it is always wet if I follow the full amount of liquid then I have to add a bunch of flour to make the dough dry so now I just adjust the liquid not having to add so much additional flour or none at all.

*** Call me cheap but I bake my bread in 350 degree F oven for 25 minutes turn off the oven and then left the bread in there (because the oven is still hot) for about 25 minutes to save electricity and also because it was really hot yesterday I didn't really want the oven to be going for a long period of time. The bread came out perfect!

This bread does take some time to make but when you see the end process I think is really worth the time. My bread took longer to make as stated because I rested my dough for about 2 hrs (expect the Ingredients A for the plain bread) each time.

Overall I am pretty satisfied with the end product. I gave a 1/4 loaf to Uncle Richie and kept the rest for hubby. When he ate it last night he said it needed to be spread with some butter. I guess I'm still in a mission to find grab and go breakfast bread for him.Oh well at least he took the bread with him to work this morning. I will definitely make this bread again.