yoghurt bread

When I made the yoghurt bread that you see in the photograph above, I expected the bread to turn out to be a sweet bread because of the inclusion of yoghurt. However, the bread turned out to be not overly sweet and it is can be eaten as a sweet bread (eg. by spreading jam or peanut butter on it) or as an accompaniment to a savoury dish (eg. mushroom stew, curry chicken, etc).

The recipe in this post is sufficient to make two small loaves of yoghurt bread. As preservatives have not been added to the bread, you should refrigerate the bread after two days if you have not finished consuming the bread. What the mother of my friend used to do (when the family lived a distance from the town area in Kajang, Malaysia) was to buy a few loaves of bread each time she went went grocery shopping and freeze whatever she did not need. As and when she was ready to consume the next loaf of bread, she would defrost the bread, slice whatever she needed and toast the bread.

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup yoghurt (I used non-fat mixed berry yoghurt)
1/2 cup water
1 tbsp castor sugar
1 tbsp milk powder
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp butter (softened)
2 tbsp sesame seeds
2 1/4 cup bread flour
1 tsp dry yeast
1 egg yolk (for glazing)
2 tsp evaporated milk (for glazing)

METHOD

1. Grease and lightly flour two 4" x 8" loaf pans.

2. Add the yoghurt, water, castor sugar, milk powder, salt, butter and sesame seeds to the bucket of a breadmaker.

3. Add the bread flour, making sure that the flour covers the liquid entirely.

4. Add the dry yeast.

5. Place the bucket in the breadmaker and select "dough" cycle.

6. When the cycle has been completed, place the dough on a floured board. Using a floured rolling pin, roll out the dough until the entire board is covered.

7. Cut the dough into two equal halves.

8. Lightly flour the palms of both hands and shape each half into the shape of a loaf and place each loaf into the loaf pan.

9. Cover the loaf pans with a moist cloth and leave the dough to rise for 1 hour (or until it has doubled in size).

10. Bake in an oven preheated to 200 degrees celsius for 15 minutes.

11. In a small bowl, beat the egg yolk with the evaporated milk and set aside.

12. When the loaf pans have been taken out of the oven, brush the bread with the egg yolk mixture while the bread is still piping hot.