Purple Sweet Potato Black Sesame Tiger Stripe Sourdough Milk Bread
I’ve had my eye on this method of shaping a milk bread for sometime when I first saw this on my IG feed. This bake is inspired by Chiew See of Autumn Kitchen, she used a similar method of shaping a matcha milk bread last summer and I’ve wanted to try it ever since and finally got around to doing it this long weekend.
Overnight levain build
14 g starter + 86 g cold water + 86 g bread flour left to ferment at 74ºF overnight.
Take butter out when build levain.
For the Black sesame powder
Grind 86 g of toasted black sesame seeds (I used a coffee grinder) then combine with 18 g of sugar. Cover and set aside until the morning.
To prepare the purple sweet potato I used the instant pot to steam them, then removed the meat from the skins and mashed them until smooth. I have found that you can freeze the mashed sweet potato so you can make a fair amount and freeze them in small portions for future use.
The next morning mix the following except for the butter.
312 g bread flour (282 g if using 30 g to premix with the softened butter)
1 large egg
30 g sugar
126 g milk
6 g salt
180 g levain
Total flour = 402 g
30 g room temperature butter. Take out first thing in the morning.
After butter is softened mix it with 30 g of flour (so subtract 30 g flour from the dough above) because this will make the butter far easier to incorporate.
This time I didn’t use the standmixer, I am gradually killing my KA mixer by making pizza doughs and milk breads. I’ve decided I will try to handmix these doughs from now on to extend the life of my mixer.
In a bowl, mix the egg, milk, sugar, salt and levain until well blended. Then add the flour and mix until no dry flour remains, rest for 5-10 mins. The slap and fold until you have a strong smooth dough with a full windowpane.
Mix your 30 g of room temperature butter with 30 g of bread flour until smooth. The add this to your dough in thirds slapping and folding each time until well incorporated and fully developed. Rest for 5-10 mins then divide the dough into thirds, it is fine if they aren’t the same size since two of the portions will have inclusions.
Take the smallest third and combine with the black sesame powder and knead by hand until the black sesame powder is well incorporated. Shape into a boule and set aside under a tea towel.
Finally take the third dough ball and gradually combine with the mashed purple sweet potato smearing it on the surface and folding it in. Knead until the dough is a uniform colour and smooth. Shape into a boule and place under a tea towel to rest for 5 mins.
Lightly flour a work surface and the plain dough boule. Roll out to at least 12” in length and almost as wide as the length of your pan, set aside. Continue to do the same with the other two balls next rolling the black sesame dough out to 12” and placing that on top of the plain rolled out dough. Finally rolling the anko dough out again to 12” and finally placing that on top of the black sesame dough.
Roll the laminated three doughs out to about 16-18” in length. Next using a ruler and a pizza cutting wheel, cut the dough into strips lengthwise about 1.5-2 cm wide but leaving the last 2-4 cm of dough uncut at one end. Finally when all the strips are cut twist each strip in alternating directions. See my photos below. Once all the strips are twisted next roll the dough into a log starting with the uncut dough, roll tightly, again see the photos for the final appearance of the dough. I actually found transferring the dough into the pullman pan to be the most challenging part of the whole formula. Place the log in your prepared Pullman pan with the seam side down (I like to line it with parchment so it is easy to remove from the pan). Place in the proofing box set to 82-84ºF to proof until the dough comes to approximately 1 cm below the edge of the Pullman pan. This takes about 8-8.5 hours at 82ºF, the yeast isn’t likely to be osmotolerant so it will take longer than you would normally expect.
At about 30 mins before you think your dough will be at 1 cm below the edge of the pan, preheat your oven to 355ºF with a rack or baking steel/stone on the lowest rack. At this time prepare an egg wash and gently brush it on the top of the dough. When the oven is ready 30 mins later, brush the top of the dough again with the egg wash. Bake for 45 mins turning once halfway through. Keep an eye on the top crust and be prepared to shield it with either aluminum foil or a cookie tray above if it is getting dark too soon. After 45 mins remove from the pan to check for doneness. Place the bread back in the oven for another 5 minutes to ensure that the crust on the sides is fully set and baked.
Remove from oven and place on a rack to cool completely before slicing.
Comments
It baked up well.
4CF80954-C840-40B0-97CD-71A16A702FCA.jpeg
9AE37BA2-4455-4182-A2B8-F707B2D21B68.jpeg
6DB1DDD6-FAFE-415E-AEA4-7FC6351C2D58.jpeg
6B70070C-69C1-42D6-B22C-640EEC5B71B1.jpeg
F503A9D6-713C-4299-8320-DE8F149B7FD2.jpeg
Benito, I've never seen such a thing. Really good.
Thank you Gavin, it was really fun doing this loaf and it is different looking for sure. These milk breads are such a great palette to be creative with.
Benny
lots of hard work in that loaf! Amazing Benny!
Carlo, I found it to be a lot of fun. I thought that it would have been more difficult to develop this dough fully by hand with the enrichments, but in fact I doubt it took much longer than my KA mixer would have.
Benny
like Danni, Ian and very few others, and all of the amazing results they get on a consistent basis while employing their entire pantries. ButI have to believe that you are the most consistently innovative baker on TFL. And yes, you've mentioned that you have seen many (or all) of these elsewhere and perhaps by and large identify yourself as a copycat.
Nonetheless, I strongly doubt that I've seen anyone on TFL who posts, and with regularity, such an array of amazing and so well executed loaves. Sure, we've had some now way in the past, like Shiao-Ping and the gifted and tireless txfarmer who hit incredible home runs with Eastern inspired breads. But I can't recall anyone here with so broad a palette mixed with artistry and execution results as you. Saying more would only diminish the previous words.
Alan
Alan that is very generous a compliment, thank you very much. It is an honor to be included with the bakers you’ve mentioned.
Benny
I like how abstract the pattern is.
A51C5E3A-2A8F-4BD7-8AE1-0E0725EC7551.jpeg
28ECE531-C381-4039-A7EF-2F44BEFCC4DA.jpeg
5BA3653D-DA2F-4B73-929C-0D55F7AE5886.jpeg
56CC00F1-13C2-452E-8875-A8A0002C3680.jpeg
I would love to try this. What an imaginative method! Can’t wait for the crumb shot and taste test
Hi Glenn, I’ve just posted the crumb photos. The bread has a moist tender crumb with a slight sweetness. I’ve toned down the sugar compared to other Asian milk breads which often have more sweetness than I like. The black sesame really comes through along with the slight floral flavor of the purple sweet potato. I’d love to see you give this a try, the process isn’t difficult. The most challenging part was transferring the rolled dough into the Pullman pan. Unlike the swirl loaves which are a solid mass at that point, this one is a bunch of disks connected in the center but not stuck to each other so it wanted to come apart as I lifted it. Fortunately since it has a very long proof the fermenting dough is very forgiving. I love how this bread has a single fermentation.
Benny
I wonder if it would be easier to transfer with a parchment sling? What size is your pan? I have a fairly small pan and I don’t want to over fill it. The bread is a work of art for sure.
I used to do that but now I have taken to cutting my parchment to fully surround the dough and have it preloaded in the pan. I should try using it as a sling, I was just worried that it might tear since I have sections cut out. I will need to try it next time though.
Oops forgot to say that my pullman is 9x4x4”. I’ll update my post above with that info.
Benny
You've really outdone yourself , again. You are a true artisan bread maker.
That’s is very kind of you to say LL, thank you. I hope you give something like this a try sometime, it is a lot of fun to do and there are so many flavour combinations you imagination is the only limit.
Benny
My brain jumps to"what if you try" pretty easily, this may all just be goofy. Still, it might be interesting to experiment with parchment slings, maybe with a dough substitute just to see how the physics/kinesiology of it all might work without putting a bake a risk. 🤔
Random ideas: cut a long strip of parchment to line the bottom and short sides and out that in the pan. Then another wider strip that fits the bottom/wide sides. Use a ziplock full of flour (vs water? something else? Edit - rice?) about the size of your final dough, with the air pressed out, and center it on your wide strip sling. See how that goes when you try to lower it in the pan. Compare to using the narrow strip instead... Which is more stable? Where is the most pressure on the "dough", and does it matter? What happens if you get a helper and each of you holds a corner of the parchment while lowering into the pan, does that even the weight distribution out better or just smoosh it all to a center point? I would love to be able to play with this myself, but the kitchen is officially closed (remodel in progress, very exciting! But no access to things for a few more days.....). Fun with food, lol.
Mary
When I first started baking these pullman loaves, I used two parchment slings. I’d leave the narrow one in the pan and use the wider one to drop the dough into the pan. I found that the dough would grow into the corners of the pan and bake into the folds of the metal and make it hard to de pan. Now I’ve taken to using one large piece of parchment that I make four cuts into. This is folded in such a way to completely line the pullman and now there aren’t any spots for the dough to get out of and into the folds of the pan.
I like your idea of testing with non dough to see if my current parchment liner can work to sling the dough into the pan while getting the folds into the corners of the pan. Good idea Mary, thank you.
Benny
Really beautiful!! I'm continually amazed and inspired by your creativity and variety of breads. Being part of your post-bake clean up crew would be worth the reward of getting to taste these beauties, lol. Well done!
Mary
Thank you Mary, remember I didn’t come up with this idea of shaping the dough. Chiew See posted it a year ago. Now I’m not sure if she came up with it or not but she was the inspiration for me. I wish I was creative enough to have these original ideas myself. I’d be happy to share some with you even if you didn’t clean up LOL.
Benny
Do you do pastry? If not, you definitely should.
Thank you jl. I do pie pasty, but nothing fancier yet.
Benny
What an eye-catching loaf of bread! All the more intriguing since the shaping technique employs such a clever combination of elementary steps to produce a very complex pattern. Nicely done.
Paul
Thank you Paul, I’m so pleased with how it turned out. I had my doubts about the crumb all coming together and filling the gaps between the twisted rolls, but good ole sourdough microbes to the rescue with their gas production saves the day again.
Benny
Speechless Benny. Just speechless. Makes me appreciate it more having done your milk bread swirl. One thing I didn't ask you last time... Rather that steaming the sweet potato, I baked it. Do you find the flour gets really slimy when working it into the dough, or does the steamed potato have a firmer texture?
Oh it’s definitely a bit slimy Troy, eventually it incorporates but it is slimy until it does.
That's a work of art! Sounds like an amazing flavor combination as well.
Thank you Ilene, it does taste very good with the toasty flavour of the black sesame seeds and floral sweetness of the purple sweet potato.
Benny
And creative bake. This is what I love about bread. There’s so many ways to be creative with ingredients and shaping and scoring. Well done Benny!
Thank you Ian, so nice of you to say. I agree, there are always new things to try with bread, it is such a blank canvas that can be kept simple or complex in so many ways.
Happy Baking
Benny