World Bread Day 2008

Today is World Bread Day. I've decided to participate in this event hosted by 1x umrühren bitte this year as I happened to bake a new bread.

Tomato Bread


It has been a while since I tried to come out with any new bread recipe. I like to experiment with bread. Sometimes they turned out successful (like my Orange Bread), other times they just ended up in the bin aka my tummy.

I took the plunge and decided to create one recipe involving tomatoes, mainly because I've got loads of them in the fridge. Since tomatoes are full of goodness, tomato bread shouldn't be too bad...lol...

The experiment wasn't exactly smooth this time round. I got a very wet dough at the start (very much similar to the first Orange Bread dough).

I decided I won't spend time trying to knead it till it's manageable (that will probably take an hour by hand) since exam fever is so very near. So I chose the easy way out to add more flour. In the end I had to add another 50g of flour to get it down to a manageable state. I started worrying whether the bread will get too dry with the addition of so much flour. No better choice, so I just left it to prove. It took longer than my usual bread since the amount of yeast wasn't adjusted for the additional flour. But I was glad everything turned out fine.



The texture was soft like the usual bread I've made. The tomato flavour wasn't prominent though the color was a nice shade of orange (perhaps next time I will experiment with a little tomato sauce). I would probably prefer it to be sweeter the next round. I'm documenting the first version of recipe here for my own reference. Will modify it after a better version is arrived.

Tomato Bread

Dry Ingredients
300g bread flour (this is the final amount after adding the additonal 50g)
10g milk powder
40g sugar
4g salt
3g yeast

Wet Ingredients
25g egg (half an egg)
25g butter
120ml fresh tomato juice/puree (blend 2 tomatoes well to get that)

Method
1. Place the dry ingredients into a big bowl and mix well.
2. Add in the wet ingredients to form a dough.
3. Knead dough until dough is elastic and smooth.
4. Place it in a large greased bowl. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth or cling-wrap and leave it to proof in a warm place till double in size (about 1.5-2 hrs).
5. When proofing is completed, punch down the bread dough to release the air.
6. Divide the dough into 12 equal portions (about 48g per portion).
7. Shape each portion into a smooth ball and place them onto a lined baking tray.
8. Cover the balls of dough with a cling wrap and allow the dough to go for second proofing until double in size again (about 1.5 hr).
9. Brush the top with a little egg wash.
10. Bake in preheated oven at 170C for 20-25 minutes.
11. Remove bread onto wire rack to cool completely.


Mood: tired