You must try this! It is going to be one of the more enjoyable breads you will boast of having made and eaten. This bread does not require access to breadfruit flour, rather, it uses the breadfruit itself. And guess what? It is made with the breadfruit when it is at the stage where most people discard it. For this bread, the breadfruit must be overripe – buttery soft, creamy, and sweet. Yeah, you read that correctly.
Several years ago, I shared with you about using the overripe breadfruit to make a sweet pudding. Today it is all about using that same overripe, soft breadfruit to make bread that you can eat as is, with butter or jam, as toast, or use to make sandwiches with any of the spreads I told you about last week.
Last Saturday, I bought a breadfruit at the market, planning to make Breadfruit fries to have with the roast pork I was making. However, I ended up doing a vegetable stir fry. I figured that I’d cook the breadfruit on Sunday. Sunday afternoon, when I went to get the breadfruit, as I touched it it was very soft. There were indentations from my fingers evident on the outside and I had to handle it very carefully. No worries, I decided that I was going to try making bread with it.
The following day, I measured out a pound of flour to which I added a pound of the sweet soft flesh of breadfruit along with yeast, water and other bread ingredients. I proceeded to knead the dough to make bread. The dough came together easily with little water; kneading was easy, only requiring intermittent light dustings of flour. There was nothing different from the usual way bread is made using a double proofing method.
The bread when baked and cooled carried a subtle aroma of the sweet flavour of breadfruit. Cutting into the bread, the crumb was cream in colour, like butter, and that was because of the natural colour of the variety of breadfruit I used, yellow meat. There are different varieties of breadfruit and some have white flesh. Personally, I prefer yellow-flesh breadfruit. I like the texture when it is cooked whether boiled, boiled and fried, pickled, roasted, or made into fries or crisps. The bread has a hint of sweetness from the natural sweetness of the breadfruit given its ripeness, the crumb was soft and not dry. It is the type of bread that you can eat just as is, without butter or jam. It is also the type of bread that instead of making loaves, you can shape into rolls that would be a delight as dinner rolls.
I ate the bread as is, with cheese spread, toasted with butter, and dunked into spinach dhal.
I shared half the loaf I made with a friend who loves breadfruit in all manner and forms, but who shies away from overripe breadfruit saying it has outlived its life. He ate the bread, loved it, but denied that I made it with soft, ripe breadfruit. Some people eh, with their doubting Thomas syndrome (lol).
I made a couple of sandwiches which I shared with a taste-tester friend who has a discerning palate. She commented on the texture of the bread – tender without being airy. And she mentioned something that we all noticed; the bread is very filling and satisfying. In other words, instead of eating 2 slices, you can comfortably eat one slice without needing another.
Seriously, give this bread a try. I have some of the flesh remaining that I have refrigerated. I am planning to use it to make pancakes. Will let you know next week how that turns out.
BREADFRUIT BREAD
Yield: 1 (9 x 5) loaf or 2 (9 x 5) loaves
INGREDIENTS
● 1 pound all-purpose flour, plus extra for work surface
● 2 tablespoons sugar
● 1½ teaspoons instant yeast
● 1 teaspoon fine table salt
● 2 tablespoons oil (any neutral oil)
● 1 pound ripe breadfruit flesh
● Lukewarm water
DIRECTIONS
1. In a large bowl, add flour, sugar, yeast, and salt and mix well. Add oil and mix.
2. Add breadfruit and thoroughly mix with flour first before adding a little water at a time, to form a dough.
3. Transfer to a floured work surface and knead for 15 minutes, lightly dusting the surface intermittently with flour. At the end of kneading, the dough will be a little tacky but not sticky in that there will be bits of dough on your hand.
4. Place the dough in an oiled bowl, rub the top and sides of the dough with a little oil, cover and put it someplace warm to prove for 90 minutes or until the dough has more than doubled in size.
5. Punch down the dough releasing the gas, shape according to your preference and place in oiled pan(s). Cover and let rise someplace warm for 40 minutes. Halfway through this second rise, preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
6. Transfer pan(s) to the oven and bake for 25 minutes or until brown and it sounds hollow when tapped.
7. Place pan(s) on a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan and cooling to room temperature before cutting.
NOTE
● It is optional to dust the bread and score it before putting it in the oven. I did, using cornmeal.
You really must try making this bread. I think you will like it.
Cynthia
