Sweet Bread Loaf (5°C 冰种法)

Oh wow, I'm amazed at my own diligence, heehee. :D Three posts in a week! Where do I find the time? I guess just squeeze it out here and there and voilà！ This recipe was made 1 months back and I nearly forgotten about it, well until I was looking through my photo folders. So why not post it up now?! I got this recipe from a new bread cook book I bought at Taiwan airport awhile back, call "面包教室 : 5°C 冰种的美味". Actually got recommended by my good friend Reese. Since it is a new technique, I chose one of the easier recipes in the book. a simple sweet bread loaf.

Ingredients for Sweet Bread loaf (5°C 冰种法): (makes two 9"X5"X5")

Starter Dough:

250g bread flour

162ml water
1g instant active yeast

Knead everything together till form a soft dough. Let dough proof in room temperature for an hour. Punch out the air and place in a large Ziploc bag and chill in the fridge (supposing 5°C) for 20~24hrs.

Main Dough:

350g bread flour

100g caster sugar

5g salt

8g instant active yeast (original calls for 15g fresh yeast)

1 whole large egg beaten

300g of starter dough

75ml fresh milk

50g unsalted butter

Filling:

Chocolate chips

Cranberries

Method:

1. Knead everything together except the butter till it is not sticky. Add in the butter and continue to knead till it passes the window panel stage. Whole process takes about 20 minutes.
2. Let dough proof, covered for 45 minutes. Then punch out the air and divide the dough into 6 equal portions. Or if you prefer to bake the dough in a different pan rather then a pullman tin, weigh and divide as desired. Roll round the dough and let rest for 10 minutes before shaping.
3. Meantime, preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease the required baking pans.
4. If you want to use fillings like chocolate chips or cranberries, add them in during the shaping step. After shaping your dough, place them in the greased pan and let proof for another 30 minutes till it fills 80% of the pan.
5. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes or till the top is golden brown. If the top brown too soon, cover it with aluminum foil and continue to bake till the time is complete.
6. Once removed from the oven, remove from the pans and let cool on rack completely before slicing.

As you can see I used the dough portion to make it into 2 different shapes. The round loaf is with chocolate chips which is my kids' fave and the big loaf is with cranberries. :) The bread did turn out nice and soft and was well liked by my family. :)

This book actually has 2 starter dough method; one is like Tangzhong (汤种法) method while the other is like the refrigerated pre-fermented dough method. So far this recipe gave a pretty good result, but I will have to explore more recipes inside the book to better advice everyone. Hopefully will post up more recipes from the book in the near future.

Hope this photo of the fluffy soft center is enough to tempt you folks to try it out, hehehe. :D

I hope I can make it in time for Aspiring Bakers #8 - Bread Seduction (June 2011) hosted by Jasmine from Sweetylicious. Thanks again Jasmine! Yes....it's my last submission for sure. ;)

Cheers all!