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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

15 comments:

  1. Looks perfect and lovely bread...

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  2. Fabulous bread, the marbling effect is so pretty.

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  3. bread looks fabulous with stripes on to perfection

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  4. Delicious and lovely looking preparation of marble bread. Wonderfully prepared.
    Deepa

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  5. Wonderful to see you r in baking mode now, bread came out extremely prefect..Thanks for joining us.

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  6. marble bread have come out so well and looks so so soft dear :) perfectly made bread dear :)

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  7. Thats a perfect looking bread Priya,grt job with step by step clicks..I liked that bit of u killing yeast..he he..I used to have the problem with yeast too , u know what was my problem?? I used dried yeast in all recipes which called for fast action yeast, I didnt even have the patience to read the recipe properly :)

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  8. wonderful explanation n perfectly baked dear, love t he pattern...

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  9. Bread looks lovely, nice pictorials...well done da !

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  10. yum, yum, looks spongy and nice clicks...

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  11. Nice swirls, bread looks soft and delicious.

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Thank you for visiting, I hope you enjoyed my recipes :-) In case you have tried any of the recipes featured here, do let me know in the comment section. For any other queries email me - cooklikepriya(at)gmail.com

Love,
Priya Ranjit

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