My 5K Bread

Greetings to all my friends out there!  It has been months since my last post, if you still drop by once in awhile, i am thankful :)  

This is one of those that has been collecting dust in my draft folder.   If you are one who haunts recipe blogs (particularly Asian ones), you would not have missed a 5K bread dough recipe that went viral somewhere around middle of this year.   Apparently the name came about because someone paid 5000 RMB for it and if the story is true, we should consider ourselves lucky to find it shared on the web.  You will find many variations out there apart from the original and this was my take of it :)   

If you like cottony soft bread and don't mind putting a little extra effort (and time), try this out.   It follows a starter dough method but it doesn't require the dough to be left overnight which is good because one doesn't need to much planning ahead.  

You can make a plain loaf out of it but i missed a Kaya (coconut milk jam) loaf that i made a very long time back.  It was a cute looking loaf shaped by pilling up little bread balls on top of each other and it tasted really good with kaya slathered in between the layers.  And the cheese toppings?  The inspiration came from a Filipino cake known as the Taisan cake which a few of my blogger friends tried out around the time i made this loaf when Philippines was the featured country for the Asian Food Fest blogging event.  I was smitten by the look of the cake :))

Recipe
Reference: Baking Diary/Vivian Pang Kitchen

Ingredients

Starter dough

• 105g bread flour
• 45g cake flour (low protein flour)
• 12g sugar
• 3g instant yeast 
• 120ml water

Main dough

• 105g bread flour
• 65g cake flour (low protein flour)
• 35g sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 12g milk powder
• 1 egg (weight 57g without shell) my egg is exactly 57g without shell
• 10 ml water (add 1 tsp add a time if the dough is dry)
• 36g butter, room temperature

• Store bought small tub of kaya 

Method

Starter Dough

1. Add in all the ingredients and use a spatula/stand mixer to combine all the ingredients into a dough.
2. Cover the dough and let it rise for 2-3 hours at room temperature

Main Dough

1. Add the ingredients for the main dough except butter into the starter dough. Knead well.
2. Add in butter and continue kneading till form smooth and elastic dough. It should pass the window pane test at this point.
3. Cover the dough and let it rise to just about double in size. 
4. If you want a simple loaf, divide the dough into 3 pieces and shaped into rosettes or braid it.  For a kaya loaf, take 15g of the dough, press it flat and put in 1/2 tsp of kaya into the ball before wrapping it up.
5. Place dough into a greased loaf pan.  
6. If kaya loaf is made, lay the balls in a layer and try to close the gaps between the layers best possible.  In between the layers, drop blobs (around 1 tsp) of kaya on the dough for added kaya flavour.
7. Leave the dough to rise  till doubled in size. 
8. Bake in preheated oven at 170C for about 20-25 minutes until golden brown.
9. Remove from the pan and leave to cool on wire rack.When it's slightly cooled, brush with some butter and sprinkle grated cheese on top if you like.

Note: I used my breadmaker to handle steps 1 to 3 (with butter thrown in at step 1)