Sunday, June 1, 2008

Hearty Bread


It's been a long time since I last baked a loaf of bread. As I had half a packet of wholemeal flour still remaining the fridge, I thought of kwf's self-created Mixed Herbs Wholemeal Bread. I've always loved the aroma of herbs but haven't had the privilege of my own pots of fresh herbs.

From my last attempt at baking wholemeal bread, I had learnt that wholemeal breads tend to be denser and shorter. Although the proportion of wholemeal flour to bread flour this time is 1:3, the bread was still shorter than usual white bread. Oh, I used the breadmaker completely from kneading the dough to baking the bread.

Everyone loves the lovely fragrance of baking bread. With the addition of mixed herbs, it gives another dimension to the aroma. It's also been such a long time since I last baked a loaf for my mom, this bread was baked for her in mind. That was why I cut down the amount of mixed herbs to 1.5 tsp. As I had ran out of olive oil, I used canola oil instead.

I'm sure olive oil would give this bread an even better aroma. As I didn't try this bread, I can't say how good it tastes. Other than the crust, the rest of the bread was fairly soft, given that it's a wholemeal loaf. I was surprised how "wholemeal" the loaf looked given that wholemeal flour accounted for one-third of the total flour used.

Will update on taste in due course. I will also keep in mind to bake this as individual rolls for the next dinner party. I would also have to think of suitable dishes to go with it as well. Any suggestions?

Mixed Herb Wholemeal Bread

Ingredients
Water 165g
Olive oil 30g (I used canola oil)
Bread flour 200g
Wholemeal flour 100g
Sugar 20g
Salt 5g
Milk powder 10g
Yeast 4g
Mixed Herbs 2.5 tsp (I used 1.5 tsp)

Method
1. Pour the water into the breadmaker bucket. Add in oil and half the flour (bread + wholemeal).
2. Sprinkle with the salt, sugar and dried milk powder. Cover with the remaining flour.
3. With a finger, make a small indent in the centre of the flour, and place the yeast in the indent.
4. Fit the bucket into the breadmaker, and set to Wholemeal. Select the desired colour of the crust. (Choose the smallest loaf size.)
5. Add herbs when machine sounds the beep for raisins.
6. When the cycle completes, carefully shake the loaf out of the bucket and let it stand the right way up. Leave the loaf to cool for at least an hour before cutting and remove the blade/paddle if necessary.

3 comments:

KWF said...

Hope your mum love the bread too. I haven't been baking myself too...slacked for too long...lol... and yes, go ahead and place the recipe into your blog. :)

Yuri said...

Thanks wf, haven't called her to ask yet :P

michelle said...

You are so clever to use canola oil. You know, I used virgin olive oil and I find that it is not 'wangi'. It is different from using butter or margerine. Anyway the recipe is good.