apigeonnapie: Sunflower Bread

Saturday 1 December 2018

Sunflower Bread

A wet wet day and you need some cheer, some sunshine in your life. Looking at the overcast sky I can see that the sun is not going to come out. So create some sunshine in the kitchen. I have been fascinated by the Sunflower Bread ever since I saw the pictures on Pinterest. It looks amazing and you feel it must be very complicated. But it is not. You can use ay yeast based dough as the base. You can use any kind of filling, vegetarian or non vegetarian. I am fond of eggs and feel that adding an egg to a bread dough makes it softer and tastier. However if you are not an egg eater you can skip using the egg. The sunflower petals appear as you gently twist the cut ends. And after baking it looks so very pretty that you don’t feel like eating it. A sunny sunny piece of sunshine on your plate.

Ingredients

For the dough
3 ½ cups flour
2 tsp dry instant yeast
1 tsp salt
¾ cup milk
A pinch of sugar
1 tsp garlic paste
1 egg (optional)

For the filling
1 bunch spinach, boiled
1 cup corn, boiled
½ cup grated cheddar cheese
¼ tsp salt
Sprinkling of pepper powder

Mix the filling ingredients and keep aside.
Now make the dough. Heat the milk and sugar till very lightly warm. Add the yeast, cover and leaves till it froths. Put the salt and flour in a big bowl. Add the garlic paste. Add the egg, if you using it. Then add the milk and start kneading. You will get a soft and sticky dough. If you are not using an egg then you might need to add some more water to make the dough.

Gather the dough together in the bowl. Now turn it over on a working surface and start kneading. You have to knead till the dough become soft, shiny and pliable. You can see the difference in both the doughs. Now oil the large bowl and put the dough in it. Cover with a cling film and keep for 2-3 hours till it doubles.

Once it has doubled up then take it out on the working surface again. Divide the dough into two. Make sure that one half of the dough is a little larger because you will need it to cover the filling.
Roll out the two dough balls. Now place the smaller circle of dough on a baking tray lined with baking parchment. Put a large spoonful of the filling in the centre. Now spread rest of the filling in a circle along the outer edge.

Cover the whole thing with the larger circle of dough.

Place a bowl on top of the centre filling.

Now press down the outer edges. Use a fork to press and seal the edges.

If the fork sticks to the dough then put a little flour on it. Make four cuts on the dough at 12, 3, 6 and 9 o’clock lines.

Now cut each quarter into three. This is how it will look now.

Gently hold the end of each cut and twist it so that the filling is visible outside.

Take the bowl off. You can leave it just like this. Or you can sprinkle some nuts or oregano on top. I have sprinkled a mix of flax seeds, sesame seeds, melon seeds.