Brown Sugar Butter Braided Bread

Dark brown sugar bread inspired by renowned Taiwanese baker Wu Bao Chun 吴宝春's 黑糖吐司. The melted dark brown sugar created a series of "sweet tunnel" running through the bread was something I wanted to replicate in my bread. As I did not have the special dark brown sugar chunks the original recipe used, I only have to improvised my own - adding some glutinous rice flour to the dark brown sugar granules 😉 As that was my first attempt, I did not add a lot of the dark brown sugar granules. Maybe I would increase the quantity in my next attempt 😊


Yield: one loaf of bread
Pan size: 21.5x11.5x5.5 cm
Baking temperature: Preheat oven to 190℃, bake at 180℃ for 15 minutes, 170℃ for 15 minutes.

Ingredient A (sponge)
10g bread flour
2g instant dry yeast
10g water
30g natural yeast, 100% hydration *

* can be replaced by 15g each of bread flour and water.

Ingredient B (brown sugar syrup)
35g dark brown sugar
50g hot water

Ingredient C (bread dough)
110g bread flour
110g Prima plain flour plus
6g milk powder
10g fine sugar
2g fine salt
70g cold water
20g water, to be added depending on dough condition

20g unsalted butter, softened, to be added when the dough become smooth.

Ingredient D (filling)
10g dark brown sugar (based on estimation)
1/4 tsp glutinuous rice flour

Directions

1.  Mix Ingredient A into a paste, cover and let it proof for about 60 to 90 minutes.

2. Dissolve Ingredient B and bring to a boil. Cool down to room temperature before use.

3. Mix sponge from Step 1, and brown sugar syrup from Step 2, with Ingredient C. Knead into a smooth dough reaching window pane stage. Cover and let it proof for about 1 hour.

1 hour later

 4. Invert the dough onto a floured worktop, deflate the dough, and divide it into 3 portions. Shape the divided dough into 3 balls, cover with a lid, and let them rest for about 15 minutes.

5. Roll out one of the 3 dough balls into a long flat dough, sprinkle some of Ingredient D, and roll up into a long rope/log.

Let them rest for about 10 minutes.

6. Stretch the dough ropes to a longer length, about 30% longer than original.

Plait the three dough ropes into a braided shape.

Tuck both ends of the braided dough under.

Place the shaped dough into a loaf pan lightly coated with butter.

Spray some water over, cover with a tea cloth, and let it proof for about 40 minutes in room temperature.

End of 40 minutes proofing

7. Preheat the oven to 190℃. While waiting, dust some bread flour over the shaped dough.

Reduce the oven temperature to 180℃, and bake at lower rack of the oven for 15 minutes. Further reduce the temperature to 170℃ and bake for 15 minutes, or till lightly browned.

8. Transfer the bread out of oven and remove from the loaf pan immediately.

Let the bread cool down over a wire rack.

Cut and enjoy 😋

The melted dark brown sugar was something to look out for when munching