Strawberry Swirl Bread

This is one of my favorite breads. The strawberry flavor is completely natural and comes through nicely in this recipe. It’s not too strong and it’s not mild either, it’s just right. It’s great for toast, French toast, sandwiches, and just munching.

I won’t lie, I took the King Arthur Flour Japanese Milk Bread recipe and added strawberry powder to it. In the future, I may one day make my own milk bread recipe, but for now I use theirs.

Strawberry Swirl French Toast with Vermont maple syrup, vanilla whipped cream and thawed blueberries.

Nutella and Peanut Butter bread with coffee and a chocolate latte.

Black Forest Ham and Hatch Chile Cheese inside-out Grilled Cheese sandwich with candied jalapeños and buffalo chicken dip.

I highly recommend the French toast! As I was taking the pictures, I kept munching it off the plate. Normally, I have self-control, but one bite and it was over! I have 12 pictures, and most are of me eating it. I wanted the picture to come out nicely, so instead of using vanilla and a little sugar in my custard, I opted for southern butter pecan coffee creamer, just to keep the color lighter for the picture. Worked out well. I could taste the strawberry flavored bread through the other flavors. The same with the ham sandwich, peanut butter, and Nutella, the flavor of strawberry came through.

Please do not take my ideas or pictures for your blog. My breads are only intended to encourage communion, not generate traffic to blogs for personal reasons.

Strawberry Japanese Milk Bread

Visit King Arthur Flour for the original recipe.
https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/japanese-milk-bread-recipe

Strawberry Paste
1.2 ounces of freeze-dried strawberries, such as 1 bag of Trader Joes
3-1/3 tablespoons of milk

Tangzhong
3 tablespoons (43g) water
3 tablespoons (43g) milk, whole preferred
2 tablespoons (14g) King Arthur Unbleached Bread Flour

Dough
2 1/2 cups (300g) King Arthur Unbleached Bread Flour
2 tablespoons (14g) King Arthur Baker’s Special Dry Milk or nonfat dry milk
1/4 cup (50g) granulated sugar
1 teaspoon (6g) table salt
1 tablespoon instant yeast
1/2 cup (113g) milk, whole preferred
1 large egg
4 tablespoons (57g) unsalted butter, melted

Strawberry Paste
Grind the freeze-dried strawberries into a fine powder. I used a spice grinder. You can use a rolling pin, but you may have little chunks of strawberries in your bread. You can take it a step farther by sifting the powder through a fine mesh strainer to remove larger pieces and some seeds. That is optional.

Stir in 3 tablespoons of milk to the strawberries to make a paste. You want the strawberries to be rehydrated but not very wet, because you don’t want them to steal moisture from your bread dough. If you need the other half of a tablespoon, use it.

Tangzhong
Combine all of the ingredients in a small saucepan, and whisk until no lumps remain.

Place the saucepan over low heat and cook the mixture, whisking constantly, until thick and the whisk leaves lines on the bottom of the pan, about 3 to 5 minutes.

Baker whisking a mixture of flour and milk together over a burner to make a roux.

Transfer the tangzhong to a small mixing bowl or measuring cup and let it cool to lukewarm.

Dough
Weigh your flour; or measure it by gently spooning it into a cup, then sweeping off any excess. Combine the tangzhong with the remaining dough ingredients, then mix and knead — by mixer or bread machine — until a smooth, elastic dough forms; this could take almost 15 minutes in a stand mixer.

Shape the dough into a ball and cut off a little more than 1/3 of the dough. Shape the large dough into a ball and place it in a lightly greased bowl, covered.

Take the smaller dough and stretch it out on a work surface. Spread the strawberry paste on the dough, using gloves if you have them, fold the dough over itself and begin to knead. The consistence of dough you are looking for is a little more wet than the first. The strawberry will make the dough a little heavier, so a moister dough will make for a better rise. If you used too much milk, add a little flour.

Shape the strawberry dough into a ball, and place it in a lightly greased bowl, covered. Let both doughs rest for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until puffy but not necessarily doubled in bulk.

Gently deflate the white dough and roll it into a 12″ x 9″ rectangle, the short side must be 9-inches, but the long side can be an estimate. Then gently deflate the strawberry dough and roll it into a 12” x 9” rectangle. Move the strawberry dough on top of the white dough and press them together with your hand. The strawberry should be a little softer.

Roll the dough tightly along the 12-inch side, so your dough fits nicely into your pan. If you want your dough to have a pattern, you can rest the dough for 10 mins and cut it into even pieces with a very sharp knife or unwaxed dental floss.

Place your log or logs— seam side down— in a lightly greased 9″ x 5″ loaf pan.

Cover the loaf and allow it to rest/rise for 40 to 50 minutes, until puffy.

Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 350°F.

Bread Baking
Brush the loaf with milk and bake it for 30 to 35 minutes, until it’s golden brown on top and a digital thermometer inserted into the center reads at least 190°F.

Remove the loaf from the oven and cool it in the pan until you can transfer it safely to a rack to cool completely.

Store leftover bread, well wrapped, at cool room temperature for 5 to 7 days; freeze for longer storage. But my bread never lasts more than two days.

While I was making this bread, the Lord spoke this to my heart, “It’s better to over believe than under believe.” I have been thinking a lot about that statement. One day we’ll stand before the Lord, and we, as Christians, often think about what judgement will be like. None of us want to hear, “Oh ye of little faith.” I don’t think we can out believe or out faith God. I think what the Lord was trying to make me understand was not to set my faith goals too low.

As you take communion, keep this statement, or Holy Spirit Quote as I like to call it, in mind. Jesus died a gruesome death for us, the ultimate act of love. We don’t want to miss out on receiving any of those benefits by under believing by basing things on our past experience or teachings of other men.

Blessing in Christ,

Christi