Tomato Bread - My first!

Ever since I bought the OTG, I had been dying to bake my own bread. I thought it would be easy peasy, whats the big deal until I started googling out for recipes. Somehow I mustered all the courage and wanted to invest in a baking tin, S was against it. May be because, he would be the victim of my adventure. I backed out. Last week when we were shopping, I went to the cookware and crockery section as usual. My love for them never diminishes. My hands were on the bread tin before I knew it. S, again was against it. He said "A loaf of bread costs only 20-25Rs, I dont want you to get stressed over a simple bread" Yes that made sense. But again during this weekend shopping, I had to find a bread tin, atleast lay my eyes on it. This time S gave in and I got my first ever bread baking tin 😀

I had eyed the Tomato Bread recipe from Suma's blog and wanted to try it out.. it looked okay, with all the ingredients that I had. the only problem was with that of the yeast. I had normal yeast from regular stores whereas she insisted using Gloripan yeast. More on her blog - she has an awesome collection of information on baking and break making. I decided to use my yeast and try out the recipe. It was not that bad as I had expected it to be. infact its very tasty, fresh, light and full of flavors. A stire bought bread can never come close to this home made bread (though mine was not perfect). I made slight modifications to the original recipe and here it is.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

• All purpose flour - 3 cups + 2 tbsp
• Tomato puree thick (warm) - 1.5 cup
• Active Yeast - 2.5 tsp
• Warm water - 2.5 tbspn
• Sugar - 2 teaspoon + 1.5 tsp
• Salt - 1.5 tsp
• Tomato sauce - 2 tbsp
• Italian spice mix (leftovers from pizza dressing) - 2 tsp
• Chili flakes - 1 tsp
• Olive Oil - 2 tbsp

Preparation:

1. Prepare tomato puree - boil tomatoes in water for 10 mins until the peel splits and let it cool partially. Grind them in the mixer to a smooth paste without adding additional water. Make sure the puree is warm.
2. Take a mixing bowl and add maida, salt and Italian spices and mix well.
3. Prepare the yeast by adding them in a warm water with 1.5tsp of sugar. Let the yeast rest until its frothy. (This is called proofing)
4. Pour in the yeast mix with the maida. Also add the remaining sugar, tomato puree and tomato sauce(I used hot and sweet sauce, I liked the flavor)
5. Knead the mixture until it comes together, it might be very sticky. At this stage add the olive oil and knead for another 3 minutes.
6. Cover the dough with a damp towel or cling film and leave it in a warm place until the dough rises double the size. This may take an hour.
7. Remove the cling film and knock off the air from the dough gently.
8. Bring it to the shape of a loaf and put it into the greased bread tin. Let it rest for another 20 mins. It will rise again.
9. Meanwhile preheat the oven for 15 mins at 190°C.
10. Just before putting the tin in oven, brush some milk on the top of the load (milk at room temp)
11. Put in the bread tin in the oven and bake for 20 mins at 180°C. Its a must to cover the tin with aluminium foil or a lid to avoid browning or the top going rough.
12. Bake for an additional 15 min at 150°C. Let it cool completely before removing from the tin.
13. Once cooled, cut into slices and I loved my bread with some garlic mayonnaise. Perfect taste!