My love for tea has incited my interest to explore more around its cup of warmth. I absolutely love English High tea. I feel it’s so classy and luxurious to spend your evening with a cup of tea being served with nice and fresh tea breads, scones, loafs, cookies, pies, cakes and bars…Umm Yummms. Sounds like pampering.
Basically this concept of high tea was started by British Royal ladies. In those times of tight corsets it was very difficult to eat much during lunch time. By early evening hunger use to strike back so this routine of having tea with small treats at 4 o’ clock started. This not only fill the stomach to go till dinner but tasted great with tea.
And now days as I am more inclined to bake bready things I thought of baking a chocolate tea loaf. I have been very nervous around yeast lately because most of the time it did nothing to my dough. The thing with instant yeast is you get your success sign in the very beginning. If you were ignorant like me, first thing you need to learn is to know whether your yeast is alive or dead. When you put your yeast with warm water, sugar and milk it start reacting to form a foaming mixture. If you see all that had happened and your mixture is bubbly and foamy, you have a alive yeast. On the contrary, if bubbles are not formed or very thin layer of froth has appeared, you very much have got dead yeast. Only thing you could do is to discard this mixture and start with a new yeast. It’s a must to have an alive yeast or your bread will not prove and rise.
2 tsp active dry yeast
1½ Tablespoons Lukewarm Water
½ Cup Lukewarm Milk
2 Tablespoons Superfine Sugar
50g Unsalted Butter, melted
2¼ Cups (335g) Flour
1 eggs
Dark Chocolate squares – 6
Place the yeast, water, milk and 1 tablespoon of sugar in a large bowl and set aside in a warm place for 10 minutes or until bubbles appear on the surface.
Add the butter, flour, eggs and another 1 tablespoon sugar to the yeast mixture and use a spatula to mix until a sticky dough forms. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth.
Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a clean, damp cloth and set aside in a warm place for 45 minutes or until doubled in size.
Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface for 5 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Make a ball of dough and roll out 1cm-thick to make a rectangle.
Divide it by cutting with a sharp knife into 6 rectangle pieces. Place a chocolate square in the middle and fold the dough inward like wrapping a gift and seal the ends to make loaf like shape.
**Please make sure that chocolate pieces are big enough to get wrapped properly and should not be too small or else you would not be able to get good bits of chocolate.
Place these mini loafs on a baking tray lined with baking paper and set aside for 30 minutes or until risen. Sprinkle some granular sugar on top.
Place them in a pre-heated oven at 220°C and bake for 20 min or until golden brown.
Cool on wire rack and you are ready to enjoy crusty from outside and soft buttery bread with a rich gooey chocolate.
Its a winner….and sure pleasure thing to bake and eat.
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