Beetroot bread with Apricot and Cream Cheese

Yes guys, you see right. It's Beetroot bread! I actually had this idea of incorporating beetroot into my bread recipe for the longest time, just never really execute it. It comes to no surprise why I want to try it...mainly because of it's vibrant magenta colour of course. Adding it to bakes just makes it look so "catchy", nice I hope and not in any way scary haha! But often too many times I turned away the idea because I was worried about the stain of the root vegetable getting on my kitchen tiles haha! Well, this time I was well prepared! So these lovely (really la) breads were born. ;9

Okay, the colour does look a little unusual on a bread I admit...but still not bad aye? I'm getting quite fond of that sweet pink in case you don't know haha! But in terms of taste, texture and flavor...I have to say I've got it on point. Yes, I may sound a little overrating my own creation here...but I was truly please with my new bread creation, woot! (Omg...what's with the big head? lol)

Recipe for Beetroot bread 

Pre-fermented dough recipe

250g bread flour

160ml water

3g instant dry yeast

1g salt

• Knead everything together till it forms a soft pliable dough. No need to be smooth. Divide dough into 50g or100g portions depending on your needs and let chill in fridge up to 12 hours. Alternatively store in freezer up to 3 months.

Main Dough recipe
200g pre-fermented dough (above for recipe)
150 beetroot, pierced, steamed l, peeled and blend (~200g with skin before steam)
300g bread flour
100ml water
20g milk powder
5 g instant active yeast
3 g salt
50g caster sugar
30g unsalted butter room temp
1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

• Rinse the beetroot clean, then pierce with a sharp knife so it will steam up easier. Then place the whole root vegetable into the steamer over medium high fire. Steam for a good 15minutes or till a toothpick can pierce into it easily. 
• Remove from steamer and let cool before working on it. 
• Please wear cloths before handling the beetroot...unless you don't mind having pink hand for the next day or two! Peel the beetroot, cut into large chunks.

 

• Place the beetroot chunks into the blender and blend till puree. Need about a good minute on that.
• Then in the mixer, add in pre-fermented dough, beetroot puree, bread flour, caster sugar, salt, instant active yeast, milk powder and water. 

• Starts kneading till the dough comes together. It might be sticky at first, but DO NOT be tempted to add in more flour. Give it time to knead through 8-10minutes, break 2 minutes, knead another 8-10 minutes till the dough pulls away from the mixer bowl completely.

•  Just look at the vibrant pink! No edit at all, this is the true natural colours of beetroot bread dough. Love much aye?
•  Once the dough pulls away from the bowl, add in the unsalted butter and continue to knead. It should take at most another 4-5 minutes for the dough to knead through and pull away from the mixing bowl or reaches window panel.

•  Okay I have to admit guys, it's hard to stretch the dough to thin window panel in one hand while the other is holding that heavy DSLR trying to snap a good picture. So pardon me if this picture didn't really show the window panel clearly, but you get the idea ya?
• Place dough in a greased bowl and let proof covered for 1.5hrs or till the dough doubled in size.
• In the meantime, make your apricot and cream cheese filling.

Ingredients for Cream cheese filling
150g cream cheese 
30g confectioners sugar
20g unsalted butter
100g dried apricot 

• In the blender, add in all the ingredients except the apricots. Zap at high speed till the mixture is smooth and creamy. Scoop out and set aside for use later.

• Next you cut the apricots into smaller chunks.

• By now the dough should have already doubled. Check out the big pink ball!

• Punch out the air and divide out dough portions of 520g and 80g. The remaining dough can be shaped into a flower bun like what I did. Where each ball is about 50g.
• Roll out the 520g into a flat rectangle of 35cm by 25cm. Then spread the cream cheese mixture over the rectangle dough surface, leaving about 1 inch of allowance on the sides.

 

•  Next you sprinkle the cut up apricot chunks over the surface as seen above. Distributing the dried fruit evenly over the surface.
• Then from the shorter end, roll it up like a swiss roll.

• Once you rolled all the way to the end, seal up the sides by pinching in the dough.

• Once sealed, gently place the whole rolled up dough into a greased loaf pan.
• Next you can make some patterns using the remaining 90g dough; divide into 3 equal portions of 30g. Roll into long logs about slightly longer then the length of the loaf pan. Pleat into a ponytail and place over the loaf in the pan.

• Shaping the flower buns is easy. just divide the dough into 7 equal portions. Take one of the portion and add in 1 tbsp of unsweetened cocoa powder and knead in. The colour will become slightly darker. The rest of the 6 dough just roll round and seal necessary edges. Place the dark brown dough in the center and the rest of the six buns around it. I have chose to leave these buns plain without filling. Feel free to fill them with anything you fancy.

• Let the shaped out doughs proof. It should take no longer then 45minutes. Preheat the oven to 175C in the meantime. (My oven is slightly on the high side) Mama Mia...look at the colour! I swear I didn't add filters!
• Once the dough in the loaf pan proof and filled till rim of the pan, it's ready to be baked. Bake in the preheated oven. 20-23 minutes for the flower buns while 28-30 minutes for the loaf.

The dough did becomes a little toasty brown on the surface after baking, but it still look awesome. ;) And if you follow me on Instagram, you would have seen how I have torn up my bread in that little "bread porn" video to demonstrate the fluffiness and softness of the bread. Yes go watch and don't get too excited about it please haha!

A look at the sliced interior...since I ain't uploading any video here haha. Ahh...so loving the well proofed interior! Though the cream cheese filling did weigh down a little but it was so delicious, I regret not adding it in at all! :9 

Of course the bread is delicious on it's own. But with a little more butter and wildflower honey, it gonna taste amazing, yummy! So happy that my first attempt of this beetroot bread turned out successful! Gonna attempt more exciting flavors real soooon! Why? Because I love bread and I love baking it even more!

Have a great day ahead all!