Matcha & Chestnut Bread

Yet another overdue post. These bread were done before my Hokkaido vacation.  I wanted to bake something that I could relate with Japan. On first thought, I thought of matcha! I cannot express enough on how much I love matcha. Anything matcha goes for me okay!

These babies were so soft and fluffy I could die.

Wanted some bite to the bread, so chestnuts were added.  Chopped a handful of chestnuts to small pieces and that did the trick.  Left 3 whole pieces and halved them horizontally, and then used them to top the bread.  Love how the bread turned out to be.

Proofed, egg brushed and topped with chestnuts!

Ready to be sent into the oven :)

Soft fluffy strands of bread showing!

See how fluffy these babies are. I was somewhat captivated with how I could tear these bread apart and still see stands of bread stringing to each other. Hehe!

Sliced into dainty little pieces.

Good to eat it on its own with no need for jam and all.

Homemade bread can be as good (and definitely healthier) than store bought ones. 

I love homemade food.  Knowing how my food was prepped and what goes into them are important to me.

 I have never been to any cooking or baking lessons.  Only cooking and baking lessons I have ever been to was during my Home Econ classes during secondary school days. 

Gained my baking knowledge from reading books and recipes, and surfing the net for food blogs plus exchanging info with friends with these same interests. Learnt cooking from my mum who is a good cook! It all boils down to having the interest and patience to learn and pick up. If I can do it, anyone else could too. This is a never-ending learning journey for me and I will persist on :)

It's Friday today.

Have a good weekend Everyone ;)

Matcha & Chestnut Bread

(Original recipe adapted from Alex Goh's Magic Bread Recipe book - Two-tone bread)

A (Scalded dough)

50g bread flour

35g boiling water

B

400g bread flour

5g milk powder

17g coconut milk powder (I used milk powder for this)

35g sugar

3g salt

4g instant yeast

C

85g cold water

1/2 cold egg (I used the other half for egg brush)

D

40g butter

E

some green colouring (I used 3 tsp of matcha powder)

F

25g toasted chopped macadamia nuts

50g raisins

(I used a pack of ready-to-eat chestnut, left 3 whole pieces for toppings which I cut horizontally into equal halves and chopped the rest into smaller pieces for fillings)

1. Add the boiling water from A into flour, mix until well-blended to form

dough. Cover and set aside to cool. Keep it into refrigerator for at least 12 hours. - This is scalded dough

2. Mix B until well-blended.  Add in C and knead to form rough dough.  Add in A and knead until well-blended.

3. Add in D and knead to form elastic dough.  Take 400g of the dough and mix with E untill well-blended. Add in F and mix until well combined.  The rest of dough remains in plain.

(I used bread machine for mixing and I did not do the bread into 2-tone, I did just the following - Add all wet stuff i.e. water, egg and scalded dough into BM, followed by dry stuff (bread flour, milk powder, matcha powder, sugar at one corner, salt at the other, and yeast at another corner.  Set BM to work to mix till it comes together and then add in butter and let it knead till elastic dough is formed)

4. Let it proof for 40 minutes.  Divide the plain and green dough into 2 portions each and mould it round.  (You may use the whole dough, no need for the division into 2 portions.  I divided them into 6 equal portions though)

5. Let it rest for 10 minutes then roll it flat. (After rolling the 6 portions of dough flat, I sprinkled the chopped chestnuts evenly over the flattened dough and then rolled them up like Swiss roll)

6. Place a piece of flatten green dough on top of plain dough, roll it up like Swiss roll. (Skip step if not doing 2-tone bread)

7. Place it onto a greased 17 x 9 x 7cm loaf tin.  Make 2 loaves.  Let it proof for 50 minutes. (I left it in 2 long rectangle bread tin I bought from Daiso and let it proof for 50 minutes. Lightly brush the proofed bread top with the balance egg and then place half of the chestnut on top of each dough.)

8. Bake at 180deg C for 30 minutes.