HOMEMADE GARLIC BREAD USING APPLE NATURAL YEAST

Two days ago, a friend gave me an apple yeast starter which she made on her own. She was very pleased with the robust behaviour of the apple yeast and offered me to make my own natural yeast with her starter. I was like, 赚到了!

Started to feed the yeast with bread flour and wild starter , ratio being 1:1. Indeed, this yeast is super! I only needed to feed 2 times to get the required amount to make one bread. And the fragrance was really nice!

 Look at the airy holes !

As I did not want to let the yeast wait too long for me, I ran through my mind and internet to see what I could do with this wonderful yeast. I decided to make my own garlic spread.

Homemade garlic spread recipe:
150g salted butter, softened
1.5 tsp dried herb (I used dried oregano)
4 cloves garlic (finely grated)
1.5 tsp olive oil
Just stir everything and set aside.

Then I had to come up with my own concoction of bread. I wanted the bread to be slightly hard, and round at top, as I wanted the bread to look special after I complete my masterpiece. So, I came up with this mixture and hoped for the best.

Bread recipe:
125g apple natural yeast (I scooped out all I had)
350g bread flour
1 tsp salt
20g sugar
about 150g water (estimation only, as I slowly added in the water until I thought was enough)
2 tbsp oil
some egg mixed with water for eggwash

Mix flour, salt and sugar thoroughly. Form a well in the centre and put natural yeast in the well. Slowly pour water and bring in the flour from the inner wall. By mixing flour and water at the same time, stop adding water when the flour starts to feel very wet. Knead into a dough and add oil. Continue kneading, pulling, folding, and slamming until a thin film can be seen.

Place a little oil in a container and grease the inside. Drop the dough into the container and flip over (so that a thin layer of oil is coated on the dough). Cover top with a wet cloth or plastic to avoid drying out. Place the container in the oven, which I also placed a cup of hot water to assist proofing.

proofing in switched off oven

before proofing

2 hours later

Punch out the air and knead gently. Shape the bread (you may add your flavours now, such as cheese, raisins, chocolate, nuts and herbs). Place in baking pan and proof for another 40-60min until double.

 Egg wash dough, bake at 200C for about 30 min.

Done!

 
I wanted to make my bread look different, so I attempted to slice the bread into criss-cross. But without a good bread knife, I found slicing the bread to perfection was impossible (I used kitchen knife). So I stopped with only slicing one direction. Then I slapped all my garlic spread onto the exposed slices and sent the bread into oven again. 180C for 10 mins (I wanted to make sure the garlic would be cooked) and up 220C for about 3-5min to obtain a darker shade.

 Urghh!! So ugly! Not to my expectation at all!  :(

 

this was what I hoped to achieve.  aiyo, cannot make it!!

 looks like this after re-bake

Verdict:
Crispy and oh-so-nice! We almost finished the whole bread while it was still warm. My mother-in-law had to stop my kids from attacking the bread further. After I came back from work 3 hours later, I stole a bite and it was still omph! My mother-in-law glanced at me and told me to leave for the kids' breakfast the next day. OK, just nice I left 3 pieces for each of them. (then, my hubby took one piece. Opps, there will be war tomorrow)