Asian Marble Bread | Chocolate Marble Bread | Roux Bread making method

Whoever said 'baking bread is therapeutic' is so right. Last week I was in a full time baking mode and that's when I tried to do this lovely Asian Marble bread. Firstly I have to tell you I am this big fan of Marble cake, I so love the chocolate and vanilla flavours together and not to miss those swirls you get to do with the cake batter. I was so excited to see this bread recipe. I have had many failures with baking bread and the big culprit would be the yeast, most times I would kill it. Thanks to blogging and a bunch of awesome bakers I fixed the issues and of all the bread baking method, I have always found the Roux/ Tangzhong method to be a child's play. No worries about the yeast and you are sure to get super soft bread. Although getting the roux right is something you need to master but tell you it isn't so complicated. 

Talking about roux method of baking it results in the softest bread that remains so for upto 2 days. A mix of flour and water gently simmering to form a paste that has ripples is prepared. Later it is brought to room temperature and then combined with other ingredients to form a soft dough, proofed and later knead to be baked. Breads prepared by this roux method doesn’t get stale and hard like other breads within a day of baking, it will stay soft and fluffy for several days. Mind you this marble bread is not sweet and hence you definitely need a spread to enjoy them.I think I need to master my skills in plating bread, hmm hopefully someday I will. I have learnt a lot from this challenge 

ASIAN MARBLE BREAD RECIPE

Recipe Source: here

Makes ~ 9" loaf, approx 10-12 slices

Serving suggestion ~ Along with Nutella/ jam

Storage ~ in an air-tight container for upto 2 days

Ingredients

For roux

All purpose flour, 1/3 cup

Water, 1 cup

Other ingredients

All purpose flour, 2 1/2 cups

Sugar, 2 Tablespoons

Salt, 1 teaspoon

Milk powder, 3 Tablespoons

Water, as needed

Unsweetened cocoa powder, 2 Tablespoons

Yeast, 1 1/2 teaspoons

Butter, 2 Tablespoons

For roux

• In a small pan, mix flour and water without any lumps and cook it in low heat stirring with wooden spoon to prevent from burning. 
• When the mixture starts to thicken and ripples are formed, turn off the heat.Set it aside to cool. You can cover it with cling wrap to prevent the top from drying. 

For Dough

• In a mixing bowl combine all purpose flour, sugar, salt, milk powder and yeast. To this add the roux (all of it) and knead well.  Then add Butter and knead till the butter is fully incorporated into the dough.Divide the dough into 1/3 & 2/3 portions approximately. Cover the smaller portion and set it aside.
• Knead the larger portion of the dough until it is smooth and elastic. Cover it and set it aside.Now to the smaller portion of the dough add the cocoa powder and water as needed and knead until it is incorporated well and the dough is smooth and elastic. Cover and set this aside too.
• Let both the dough proof until it is double its size (for about 2 hours).Then deflate the dough and knead them.
• Flatten the white dough to about  12* 6 inches rectangle and chocolate dough to about  6 * 9 inches. Layer Chocolate layer in between the while dough layers. Flatten them  and cut them into 2 equal portions, place one on top of the other and flatten them again. Repeat the process for couple of more times.
• Cut the flattened dough into 3 equal strips. Gently roll each of them and place them together and braid them. Place this braided bread in loaf pan.Cover it and let them rise till it  is almost tripled its original size.
• Pre-heat the oven to 350 F and bake it for about 20-25 minutes. Remove from the oven and brush it with melted butter. Remove from the loaf pan, let it cool completely. Then slice and serve.

Cooks Wisdom

- This marble bread is not sweet so make sure you use a spread like nutella or jam to go with it

- Make sure that the butter and roux is in room temperature

- Kneading well results in soft bread

- Make sure you allow the bread to proof well, if you start kneading it in a hurry it will proof again and result in the braids not holding the shape

- The actual method calls for bread flour but since I didn't have that I replaced it with all purpose flour.

- In case if you don't have milk powder, you can omit it.

Check out my Wholewheat Hot cross buns made in Roux method