Milk Graham Bread

Last night I made this Milk Graham for this morning's breakfast. The recipe didn't let me down as expected. Soft with wholemeal fine grain, healthy and rich. The recipe can yield quite a big loaf. And I like that 'free style' shaping. I followed the book to make it looked like a gigantic bitter gourd! However, my shaping skill still far from ideal.

This is a very 'friendly' dough. Very easy to handle during kneading. Never sticky, never need extra dusting nor butter in order to have a smooth kneading. My usual way is always start of with my Kitchen Aid do the initial kneading before I do a further manual kneading. I believe most bakers will like to make this easy bread.

For mommies who have kids that don't like wholemeal bread, this may be a good substitute for them , as they can't really feel the grain in the bread.

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Recipe:

Bread flour 270g

Fine wholemeal flour 30g

Sugar 10g

Salt 1 tsp

Unsalted butter 20g

Warm milk 210g

Dry yeast 6g

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Method:

1. Melt sugar, salt and butter in 1/2 of the warm milk.

2. Add both flour and yeast into milk mixture and start mixing to form dough with the remaining milk.

3.Give a good knead to get that smooth and springy dough. Let it have a first rise in warm place and cover with cling film or wet cloth.

4. After an hour ( first rise) the dough should be 2-2.5 times bigger in size. Give it a small kneading and shape dough to a ball and let it relax for 15 minutes.

5.Roll the dough out to get a round disc. Shape the dough by rolling up to get a Swiss roll shape. Bring the shaped dough on a baking sheet to let it have a last rise before baking. You may put the dough into your over during this state. Bring the dough out 10 minutes before baking, while you pre-heat the oven at 200'c. The last prove you are looking at 2 times bigger in size.

6.Slit the dough to get that Bitter gourd effect just before you put it in to bake. Bake the dough for 25 minutes. Bring bread out to cool on wire rack. Brush butter on the hot bread to get extra buttery flavor and glossy look.