Gluten Free Pandan Coconut Bread with a Black Sesame Swirl + Coconut Peanut Butter + The Custom Pro Loaf by Sage
This is a recipe for the #GFBakeOff hosted by Sage Appliances, using their bread maker the Custom Loaf Pro.
Yes, it's my second green bread recipe. Hurrah for green bread! But instead of matcha, it's pandan this time.
For those of your who didn't grow up eating pandan, it's a leaf that is often used in southeast Asian cooking. You make chiffon cake with it, you steam it to flavour kuehs or simmer it in curries. In coconut rice pudding or to flavour rice for Nasi Lemak. I remember eating a lot of pandan-flavoured waffles stuffed with warm, melty peanut butter. Which, as you can see, was probably the flavour inspiration for this.
Pandan has a flavour that is almost like vanilla, but less sweet and a lot more aromatic. It has hints of coconut, a bit of citrus. Slightly grassy (in a good way!). It really is quite hard to describe. Pandan is really easy to get if you live in Asia (my Grandfather grows the plant in his back yard), but otherwise look about your local asian supermarket for the leaves or the essence. It is sometimes called Screwpine, just in case mumbling 'pandan' a gazillion times doesn't get you anywhere.
So, anyway. The Custom Loaf Pro by Sage is an incredible bread maker, so simple to use. You can make anything from basic bread to custom loaves. It has settings for sweet breads and different kinds of dough. You can make the dough for a pizza base or pasta or buns. It can make jam, It even has a setting for gluten free bread, which I used in this case. It has a shorter knead and rise time, because there is no need to develop gluten strands, and I think it bakes at a higher temperature as well.
The bread maker comes with a little compartment to put all your nuts and dried fruit that automatically dropped into the dough after it has risen. You never really add raisins, for example, as you start off a dough just because it can affect the rising. The machine makes this really easy by letting you load everything in at once, then just adding it when it is time after the second knead. The paddle it kneads with is also collapsible. So that means there will only be a small hole at the bottom of your loaf than a huge paddle-shaped abyss (ok exaggeration, but as someone who used to hate bread makers because of the holes they leave, this is a huge YEY)
HOWEVER! I was silly and forgot my black sesame seeds, so I opened it up just in time for a final punch to pour the seeds it. I got a sesame swirl instead of having it beautifully studded throughout the load, but I kind of like it. Happy accident.
I haven't tried on the machine enough on other settings to give a review but once I have, I'll put one up stat. In the meantime, though, here is the recipe for this bad boy
For this recipe, I used a method known as Tang Zhong, or a water roux, which is used in a lot of asian bread recipes (Hokkaido Milk Bread, anyone?) to yield a super soft, pillowy bread. And since a lot of the time, gluten free breads aren't very fluffy, this works magic! If you are interested in Tang Zhong, my pal Lin actually has a really cool little bit of info on it here.
GF Pandan Coconut Bread with Black Sesame Seeds
Tang Zhong roux:
1/3 cup gluten free bread flour (I used Doves Farm)
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup water
Combine in a small saucepan and whisk over medium-high heat until thickened and the whisk leaves behind lines in the roux, it took me about 3 minutes but it will vary per stove. It should reach 65C at this point. Remove it as soon as lines are being formed by the whisk that hold their shape and cover with clingfilm or foil (i like to use foil so I can wash a reuse it a few more times!). Here is a video to help you judge when it is done
Bread:
420g GF bread flour
1 1/2 tsp xanthan gum if not in your flour blend
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
4 tbsp coconut sugar
1 packet active (7g) dry yeast
10g pandan leaves/1 tsp pandan extract/1 tsp pandan essence + 1tsp green food colouring if you are using the colourless essence
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup sparkling water
1/2 tsp pink himalayan sea salt
5 tbsp aquafaba (the water from a can of chickpeas, you can also make your own!)
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
4 tbsp coconut oil, warmed until it is a liquid but not hot!
130g Tang Zhong roux (about half of what you have made from the above recipe)
1/4 cup black sesame seeds
If you are using the pandan leaves, blend it with the coconut milk until it is nice and smooth. Otherwise, just add the extract and coconut milk together.
Place both the sparkling water and coconut milk in a microwave or saucepan and heat it until it is slightly warm, if it is not already. A good estimate is that is should be able the same temperature as your shoulder. Odd, but that's what I always do!
Add the ingredients to the bread maker pan in the order: warm coconut milk mixture, coconut oil, vinegar, roux, aquafaba, GF flour, xantham gum, cream of tartar, sugar and salt. Make a very shallow well in the flour and pour your yeast it. Make sure that the yeast does not touch any liquid before you start the machine! Do not pull a Sasha and forget the seeds, so pop that into the fruit&nut compartment.
Set the machine on the Gf setting for a 1kg loaf with a heavy crust. Although I suppose if you prefer a softer crust, anything works! Don't worry if it looks too wet for a bread dough, GF breads usually look more like a thick cake batter than a dough ball. Then let it do it's magic and you will have heavenly, fragrant bread. Just a note, though. during the second knead if you see any flour sticking ho the sides of the pan that is not being incorporated, just push it down gently using a spatula. I only had to do this once out of the few times I tried this recipe, but be aware! Let it cool significantly before slicing! It doesn't need to be cold but just not fresh-from-the-oven.
Coconut Peanut Butter
250g peanuts, roasted
1/4 cup coconut butter
small pinch of salt
1 tbsp rice malt syrup
Blend the peanuts into a paste in a high speed blender, then add the rest of the ingredients and whirl it until it's all well mixed. Then slather on some pandan bread, give it a couple of minutes in a toaster oven and SHAZAAM instant healthy(ish) deliciousness.
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