Two Colour Milk Bread

I was browsing through Tastespotting one evening when I came across this recipe posted by Anh of A Food Lover's Journey . Anh recently did a posting on inspirational things that was green in colour and this bread recipe was included. I immediately zoomed in on the colour, which was so eye catching, so intensely green and it had one of my favourite flavours as well - pandan.




I decided that I would try it out over the weekend. To make the loaf stand out even more, I used green and pink as the alternating colour to each quarter. (I think my niece would love this!) The colours came out extremely well ... in fact you could probably have spotted this loaf of bread from the neighbour's apartment block. I was anticipating that the loaf would turn out soft, like some milk buns I've eaten before. Unfortunately it was not the case. It was good whilst the bread was warm from the oven but after it had cooled down, I found it to be somewhat heavy. I also think that the pandan flavour would have fared better if it had been mixed with coconut instead of milk. I always say, "you never know until you try it out".

Two Colour Milk Bread
Makes 1 large loaf

Ingredients:

260g fresh milk
1 egg
65g caster sugar
1/4 tsp salt
500g bread flour (and a bit more to knead)
2 tsp Instant yeast
70g butter (unsalted) - at room temperature
2 tsp pandan paste (available from Asian store)
1 tsp rose water
1 - 2 tsp pink colouring

Method:

1) Mix together all the ingredients (except for the pandan paste) in a bowl. Mix with a wooden spoon until combined.

2) Divide the dough into two portions. Add the pandan paste into one portion, knead well floured surface until the dough is elastic and the color distribute evenly (around 10 mins). Use more flour if the dough is too sticky, but try not to add too much. For the other portion of dough, add the rose water and colouring, and knead until elastic. (I used my KitchenAid to do the kneading for each portion and this took about 6 - 8 mins)

3) Put the dough in two separated bowl. Cover and let it ferment until doubled in size.

4) Divide each dough into 4 portions each (or more depending on the size of your loaf pan). Cover and rest for 10 mins.

5) Lightly grease a loaf pan.

6) Put the pieces of dough in alternate color layers




7) Cover and let the dough rest until doubled in size (about 40-60 mins).

8) Bake in the preheated oven of 180C until done (around 30-40 mins). The bread is cooked through if there is a hollow sound when knocking at the bottom of the bread.