MANILA, Philippines — Matcha, which is a Japanese green tea flavor, is an acquired taste.
You either love it or you don’t. Many Filipinos obviously love it, because you can find matcha flavored breads, cakes, cheesecakes, cupcakes, cookies, doughnuts and other pastries in many bakeshops, coffee shops and restaurants.
If you want to bake your own matcha flavored loaf bread, here’s a good recipe from The Maya Kitchen.
Matcha Loaf Bread
For the preferment dough:
80 grams whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. yeast
1/3 cup water (add as needed)
PROCEDURE:
1. Mix all the ingredients together until well combined.
2. Place dough in a prepared greased bowl (with a little amount of oil). Cover with plastic wrap and set aside, at room temperature for an hour.
For the dry seeds:
3 Tbsps.flax seeds
2 Tbsps. sesame seeds
3 Tbsps.flower seeds
60 grams cold water
30 grams pistachio nuts, set aside (not included for soaking)
PROCEDURE:
1. In a small bowl, mix all the seeds together, except pistachio nuts, and let it soak in water overnight. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside in the refrigerator.
2. Set aside the pistachio nuts for later use.
For the dough:
1 cup fresh milk
prepared fermented dough
285 grams Maya All-Purpose Flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 tsps. instant yeast
2 Tbsps. brown sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 Tbsps. softened butter
1. Place all dough ingredients in a mixer bowl, and mix together using a dough hook for 5 minutes.
2. After 5 minutes, check the dough using window pane testing. Get a small piece of dough and stretch it until it does not break anymore. This means the gluten is ready. Then add in the seeds and process again for 5 to 7 minutes, then remove dough from the mixer.
3. Form the dough into a ball and place in a greased bowl, then cover with plastic wrap and set aside for half an hour as first proofing.
4. After the first proofing, get the dough and deflate the dough by punching down the dough using your fist to get rid of excess air.
5. Shape the dough into a loaf and place in a 9 1/2 x 5 1/2 x 3-inch loaf pan and second-proof for another half an hour or until it doubles in size.
6. Place the dough in a preheated oven 350?F/177?C and bake.
Yield: 1 loaf.
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