The other night, I was thinking of making a beautiful flower bread. So I checked out a video I saw on YouTube by Steve's Kitchen (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwvYmBo_bN4). It looked SO easy, attempted to do according to the video, yet when I tried my hands there were some slight difficulties that I encountered.
Difficulties:
1. Somehow, as I rolled out the dough, the dough kept springing back to
smaller size. I had to roll each ball quite a few times to get the size I
wanted. Maybe I should have kneaded the dough a little longer.
2. I changed Nutella to blackcurrant jam, and later found that the jam was
too slippery. (My children do not like the hazelnut spread very much)
3. Spreading the jam right to the brim of the dough made things messy and
difficult . Leave a little clearance at the brim so that the ends can be
sealed better.
BLACKCURRANT JAM FLOWER BREAD
Ingredients
450g bread flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 tsp instant yeast
A pinch of salt
30g melted butter
3/4 to 1 cup warm full cream milk
2 egg yolks
Some oil
Some egg white for brushing
Some confectionery sugar (icing sugar) for dusting
Methods
1. In a mixing bowl, mix 1st four dry ingredients evenly. Next pour in the melted butter, warm milk and egg yolks. Use a fork to help gather into a dough.
2. On the counter top, knead the the dough until soft and elastic. You know it is done when you poke a hole with your finger and the hole bounces back.
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| some hard work here! |
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| Perhaps this was still not good enough. The hole had not fully sprung back. |
3. Lightly oil the dough and place in mixing bowl, cover with cling wrap. Let it proof until doubled in size, about one hour.
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| Place a cup of hot water in oven to assist proofing in switched off oven |
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| before proofing |
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| after proofing |
4. On a lightly dusted counter top, punch out all the air in the dough. Roll into a log, and cut into equal quarters.
5. While working on one ball, cover the rest to prevent drying out. Roll out with a roller pin to about 10 inches in diameter, the thickness should be about 2 to 3mm.
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| place baking sheet onto the tray. Immediately rest the rolled out dough on the paper. |
7. Repeat rolling out the balls, stacking on the previous layers and spreading the jam. Leave the last layer without the jam.
8. Invert a round plate onto the dough and using a sharp knife, trace and cut out a nice circle.
10. Now using a sharp knife, slice out quarts, followed by eighths, and then sixteenths.
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| relatively easy slicing here |
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| Not too bad, although it was getting slippery |
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| OK, by the time I'm at this stage, the jam was squeezed out and becoming messy and sticky. But never give up! |
11. Holding two adjacent petals, give a double twist in opposite directions, twisting outwards. The left hand twists in anti-clockwise direction, the right hand twist in clockwise direction. At the end of each pair of petals, pinch the twisted petals together to seal. (I could not do this part. Too much jam was squeezed out!)
12. Work on the next two adjacent petals until you finish one round.
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| I decorated the middle part with some dried cranberries. This is optional. I couldn't seal the ends; they looked like tentacles to me. hahahah |
13. Cover the bread with the previously used plastic wrap and proof for 20 minutes.
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| after 2nd proof |
14. Lightly brush the bread with some egg whites (I did not bother... my bread was already stained with jam). In preheated oven at 180C, bake for about 20-25 min.
15. Dust with some icing sugar and allow to cool.
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| looks a bit charred because of the sweet jam |
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| braid the trimmed out dough and bake it too =) |
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