Thursday 23 September 2010

Earl Grey Tea Milk Loaf 伯爵奶茶麵包

White Toast

Been playing around with flour and yeast again today.  I needed a break from cake making as I've made ummmm.... five six cakes in the space of a week?  I had a trial run for a sponge baked in a roasting dish (wanted a shape that can be portioned easily) that ended up being a mango & cream filled sponge for Mum's b'day (belated as I was still "In Confinement" and wasn't allowed to go out and see her); a fruit pastry cake to take into work place to show off baby (I'm still on Maternity Leave); carrot cake for some friends that were visiting; a fruit filled sponge; chocolate chiffon filled with berries and cream (both sponges for my son's Full Month Celebration,) and another sponge filled with cream and fresh fruit for my "Uncle" (long-standing friend of my dad's who is like an uncle to us).  Good job I wasn't eating them all I'd soon look as if I was pregnant again!



I made a batch of 17 hour pre-ferment dough (it makes enough for two 1lb loaves) and I used half to make White Toast (I still couldn't help adding extra flour to the wet sticky dough!) the other half was turned into Earl Grey Tea Milk Loaf.  I changed it very slightly as I forgot I was making half the quantity in the book and made the full amount of Earl Grey Tea Milk Concentrate (7 tea bags steeped in hot milk). As I was out of eggs (can you blame me after the marathon cake-a-thon the past week has been?!?!  Actually, the chickens out in the back garden have some - it was too wet and rainy this morning to go out just for 40 g of egg!?!!) I just used double the amount of milk tea concentrate and skipped the egg part.  I guess it would result in a more intense tea aroma to the finished bread.

The recipe is again from Kin's Book, Natural Breads Made Easy.  (天然麵包香 ~ 獨角仙@藍色大門.)

Looks like wholemeal bread but the colour comes from the brewed tea

The finished loaf was beautifully moist and airy.  The scent of bergamot is apparent but is lost on eating.  However, there is a delicious - almost malty taste to the bread.  Certainly is different and I'm pleased with how it turned out.

See the little bubbles in the bread? 

The White Toast dough

Cutting the pre-ferment dough in small pieces

Adding the pre-ferment dough piece by piece

Adding butter


Butter kneaded until dough is of a stretchable consistency


Earl Grey Milk Tea Bread 伯爵奶茶麵包

Pre-ferment Dough
bread flour             70%   464g
water                    40%   265g
sea salt                   1%   7g
skim milk powder    2%   13g
fresh yeast              2%   13g *

Dissolve the yeast in water. Add bread flour, sea salt, skim milk powder and knead until soft. Cover the dough in cling wrap. Refrigerate to let it prove for 17 hours.

* Author forgot to quote yeast in the book - I'm assuming it is 13g here based on her other recipes.
  
Dough
bread flour              30%   199g
skim milk powder      4%   27g
sea salt                      1%   7g
sugar                        12%   80g
egg                           12%   80g
milk tea concentrate   12%   80g**
fresh yeast                  1%   7g
unsalted butter           10%   66g
ground Earl Grey tea leaves 2%   13g

**Milk tea concentrate: 133g milk, 20g Earl Grey tea leaves (I used 7 Earl Grey tea bags).  Heat milk and put in tea leaves.  Leave to brew for 15 minutes for thorough infusion.  Strain and take the amount required in recipe.  (I heated milk, added tea bags,, stirred with a spoon and left it to brew whilst I did the weighed the ingredients.  I squeezed the bags to extract the tea concentrate.)

  • Cut the pre-ferment dough into small pieces.

  • Knead all ingredients of dough together (except the butter). Add pre-ferment dough piece by piece.  Knead after each addition until soft and smooth. Add butter.  Knead until stretchable consistency.

  • Put the dough into a big bowl. Cover with cling wrap and let it prove for about 25-30 minutes.

  • Divide the dough into six small equal portions. Flatten each portion with your hands to drive the air out. Hand square it and cover with cling wrap. Set aside to rest for about 20 minutes.

  • Flatten each piece of dough with your hands to drive the air out. Roll each out into a rectangular sheet with a rolling pin. Fold about 2cm from both sides towards the centre and roll it out again.  Roll the dough up (the width should be the same as the loaf tin) and put them into the mould.  Cover with cling wrap.

  • Let it to prove for about 40-45 minutes or until the dough has risen to 80% of the depth of the loaf tin. Close the lid. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 170-180 deg C for about 30-35 minutes.



    21 comments:

    1. Hi Plumleaf,
      Pls tell me how do u achieve such a nice and tall bread? Your bread looks so beautiful. I am jealous, my bread didn't rise as high but I was easily satisfied. :p
      I also have an earl grey tea bread from Alex Goh's book, yet to try it out. Btw, do u mind sharing this recipe?

      Thanks :)

      ReplyDelete
    2. I have an Alex Goh bread book - didn't realise he had an Earl Grey Tea Bread in it?
      I'm using this new book at the moment as it's on loan.
      I have no idea why the bread is tall - sufficient proving perhaps? Good quality yeast? Thankyou for your kind words :0)
      OK, as you are interested I will post the recipe for this when I get a chance! ;0)

      ReplyDelete
    3. Ah....my Alex Goh book doesn't have Earl Grey Tea Bread - only a Japanese Green Tea Bread (so does the book I'm using, the 17 hour pre-ferment dough. I should try both and see which has better results!).

      ReplyDelete
    4. Posted as per request! Enjoy & good luck! :0)

      ReplyDelete
    5. Thanks! It's on my to-do-list for next week. Will keep u posted :)

      ReplyDelete
    6. Wow, you have chickens in your backyard! That's pretty cool. Your bread is so nicely shaped. I wish I could bake as many cakes as you in one week too, sounds so fun. Thanks for the recipe. I would love trying to make one of these breads, but here in the US we don't have those pullman loaf tins. Well, we do but they are soooo expensive. Great job again!

      ReplyDelete
    7. Esther, I've never seen Pullman Loaf tins here in UK, so I usually ignore that bit. I think bread can be baked however you want. I just have two regular looking loaf tins. Have thought about putting a baking sheet on top of tin to act as lid but I guess it's hard knowing exactly how much dough to put in tin (don't want muffin-top bread here!) and knowing whether it's risen enough to fill the tin. Maybe I'll try one day when feeling brave, for the moment, am happy with the just bread as it comes! :0)
      The cake baking was a little crazy! It's not usually that bad - like buses I guess! ;0)
      Here's a link to see pictures of two of our chickens....
      http://alittlebitofplumleaf.blogspot.com/2010/07/garden-update_22.html

      ReplyDelete
    8. Your bread looks fantastic. Congrats on your 5th WA and your bouncy baby boy. And you have all the time to bake? Wow!

      ReplyDelete
    9. lol Sarah! I really wanted to make cake for my son's celebration and seeing as there were going to be 30 people, I needed 2 cakes. The others, well....I enjoy baking so I made the effort. Lucky for me son sleeps happily during day!
      Thankyou, we've had 5 happy years with plenty more to come I hope and now with a little bundle of love too!

      ReplyDelete
    10. Wow! 17 hours!! This bread must taste so good! I loved the way you shaped the loaf- it looks so cute! All your cakes sound delicious =) I've been doing a lot of baking this past week too, but not nearly as much as you! haha....

      ReplyDelete
    11. The thing is you have to start the bread a day before you want it and remember not to be so impatient to get the dough out from fridge and finish the process!
      That cake-a-thon was a one-off! I'd be thoroughly worn out otherwise! I plan to bake a cake this Thursday as I'm off for lunch at a friends on Friday and there is an Orange and Chocolate Loaf I have my eye on in the book! ;0)

      ReplyDelete
    12. PL...you made the most beautiful bread...tall and yet fluffy. Thanks for sharing the recipe. I have yet to try making my own bread...I find it intimidating though...I tried it once and it didnt turn out well. I am only good at making buns :) but I will try making this bread one day :)

      ReplyDelete
    13. Oh my goodness, I'm so impressed, you're on maternity leave and baking non-stop? Where do you find the time and energy! Wow! The breads look so good and the cakes sound so delicious. Congrats on your baby :)

      ReplyDelete
    14. Hi PL

      It's me again, just finished making ur preferment dough, now in the fridge. Just wanna check, the preferment dough can be used to make 2 loaves? I wanna try making a white loaf and an earl grey tea milk loaf like u did. But do I have to half the recipe for the WL and EGTML?

      I am abit confused... The preferment dough recipe u put up was it already halved?

      ReplyDelete
    15. Hi Miss B,
      what I did was make the preferment dough as per White Toast. (ie) 480g bread flour, 274g water, 14g fresh yeast, 7g salt, 14g skim milk powder...
      Next day, I used HALF the dough requirements for White Toast & HALF the requirements for Earl Grey Tea Loaf. I posted the full amounts as published in Yin's book - no alterations. So, for Earl Grey Tea Loaf, I used 100g bread flour, 13g skim milk powder, 3g salt, 40g sugar, (skipped the 40g egg) 80g milk tea concentrate (because I omitted the egg,) 3g fresh yeast, 33g butter, 6g ground earl grey tea leaves. I find her main dough quantities make a rather wet & sticky dough and I struggle to work with it. See how you get on, I do add a handful of extra bread flour if need be, but I do stress that too much will result in a heavy dense and tough bread.
      I think my loaf tin is for a 1lb loaf size, so the quantities will make 2 loaves of that size. If your tin is a 2lb size I guess it will make one. Or just make a free-form shape bread not in a loaf tin.
      Love to see how you get on! I may make her Orange and Choc Chip Loaf over the weekend!

      ReplyDelete
    16. Elin: I have attempted bread making in past & thought it was down to my inadequate kneading. Then with the machine to mix and knead I had slightly better results, but now I think together with a good recipe and GOOD yeast (not old and stale like I used in past), a satisfactory result can be achieved. I have been using fresh yeast and am pleased with the bread - although dried or instant yeast should still produce a good loaf.
      On my to-do list is buns....maybe BBQ pork buns! Although am intrigued by Everybody Eats Well in Flanders recipe for Ham & Cheese Bread by Alex Goh.

      ReplyDelete
    17. Shaz: I guess I had a craaazzy baking week!?!?!? lol - poor baby of mine, he doesn't have mummy to play with him as she's weighing flour, butter...and making cakes or bread!
      Plan to have an Afternoon Tea in a few weeks time and invite a few friends over and I will have to bake for that too! If it happens I will blog it!

      ReplyDelete
    18. Hey PL

      Do u know that the noise from the cake-mixer is "white noise", just like noise from washing machine or vacuum cleaner, its very conducive to baby's sleeping. Cos it sounds like the muffled sounds that the baby heard when he was in mama's tummy. On internet they even sell "white noise" cds to put baby to sleep. So next time put ur baby in the kitchen when u are baking, and let the noise be his lullaby !

      ReplyDelete
    19. I just finished baking your white loaf and earl grey milk tea loaf. OMG, I am so tired, 4 hours of kneading, proofing and waiting. They are both very good (very x100 times). My loaves didn't rise as high and took longer to rise, I suspect it is my calculation of dried instant yeast, think i put too little :S But the breads are really cotton soft & moist, never eaten something like that before. I used the EGMTL perferment dough for both WL and EGMTL. Agree that the WL is very wet, end up adding 6 more tbsp flour, whereas I added only 3 more tbsp for EGMTL. It's 10+pm now, I am too full and cant swallow any more breads, otherwise I would have finished all my breads alone. Will post the bread fotos tomorrow. :)

      ReplyDelete
    20. Miss B,
      Ha Ha, baby in kitchen - is that called starting them off at an early age? ;0)
      Have found that Minh loves the hair-dryer. When I used it on his hair after a bath he stopped crying and even turns his head left and right to get a good even blast! (It's on a low heat, low blow setting!)

      So pleased breads turned out well for you. I must admit to relying on the mixer to knead for me! Maybe as it's getting cooler now the dough is taking longer to prove? In Alex's book he says use twice fresh yeast to dry (he quotes instant yeast in his recipes,) whereas Kin says use 2/3 of the stated quantity if using instant? Are you unable to get fresh yeast in Flanders? Try asking at your local bakery - they may be willing to sell you some. I ask the bakery dept of a large supermarket (which have an in-store bakery)and 3 out of 4 stores have it.
      Well done on the bread - it's so satisfying finding a good recipe! Look forward to reading the post! ;0)

      ReplyDelete
    21. I just posted my breads http://everybodyeatswell.blogspot.com/2010/10/another-2-good-breads-earl-grey-milk.html.

      I quoted your ingredients and steps for completeness sake but I provided the links to your blog too, I hope you dont mind. If you do mind, just let me know, I will remove it, it's no problem. :)

      The recipe is really fantastic, my hubby likes the white bread very much and I think earl grey milk tea loaf has its own unique taste too. Thanks a million. We should bake breads in tandem and try out each others' recipe from now on :)

      cheers
      Miss B

      ReplyDelete