Steph's Sweet Blueberry Bread

One of my favourite things to bake just lately has been bread dough, nothing quite beats the smell of freshly baked bread filling the hallways of my home. There's a secret satisfaction to be had in enjoying home baked goodness and partaking in the therapeutic practise of baking. I've thoroughly enjoyed home made pizza dough & making fresh pizza's with the tribe as well as making some seeded loafs and crusty cobs.

This recipe came about as last week I was wondering what to do with my jam as I still had plenty left but it was nearing its use by date. Hopefully you all had a chance to read my jam recipe last month? After a little googling I came across a style of sweet bread called bakba, so I decided to use my own dough recipe, tweak it a little and henceforth created this beautiful sweet blueberry bread. I've enjoyed mine for breakfast with peanut butter or more blueberry jam for sweetness overload! 

It really is satisfying to me that once this was baked, I knew I'd created something special as it looked, tasted and smelt divine. But also knowing even the jam was homemade by myself bought me a feeling of pride and contentment, especially when seeing it enjoyed by my family. I even wrapped a few slices up and gave it to my mum to have with her mothers day breakfast.

Ingredients 
Bread dough=
500g Strong white flour
7g pack of yeast
300ml of warm water
1 Tbsp of vegetable oil
4 Tbsp of caster sugar

Extras=
6 Tbsp of blueberry Jam

Method
The secret to making a good dough that will rise nicely, really is in the method. If you put the effort in at this stage I pinky promise it will pay off later on.

Mix flour, yeast and sugar together in a mixing bowl and make a well in the centre once done.
In a jug mix your warm water and vegetable oil.

Pour your vegetable oil into the well and thoroughly mix it into your dry mix. 

Once all in combined, empty your dough mix out onto a lightly floured surface and beat/knead it. This is the most important part. You really want to give it a good battering, the only way I can describe my technique it to say using a fist drive your hand into the ball almost squashing it as you're rolling it forward, then roll it back towards yourself and repeat the method. Do this for at least 5 minutes.

Once done place the ball of dough in your mixing bowl again and cover with clingfilm. 

Leave the dough to sit/rise for at least 60-90 minutes.

Once done, remove your dough from the bowl, it should have risen nicely and be sticking to the side of the bowl, this is normal and shows your bread is ready. Beat/knead it once more for a further 5 minutes on a lightly floured surface.

Let sit on your surface for 10 minutes before rolling out your dough into a rectangle shape.

Spread your jam mixture on top of your dough and then roll your dough into a log like shape. Please make sure your surface was thoroughly floured as you do not want your dough to be sticking to your surface at this point!

Once you have a log shape, cut it in half length ways and then twist both lengths together into a sort of plait before placing your sweet bread into a 2lb loaf tin. 

Bake in the oven for roughly 30-40 minutes until lightly browned on top.

Let your bread cool before removing from your tin and slicing.

This should make 12 slices, as always nutritional information is below followed by further baking tips.

Nutritional info
Calories per slice 182

Carbs 33g
Fat 2g
Protein 5.6g

I think next time I make the blueberry bread I'm going to add a nice icing glaze to the top of my bread once it's cooled to make it almost like a jam swirl pastry type bread if that makes any sense whatsoever haha. You can use pretty much any jam for this recipe, I imagine raspberry would be quite moreish!! 

You could also use Nutella (which I am going to do next) on this bread to make a lovely Chocolatey swirled bread, which I reckon will be amazing and the kids will love it!!

As always, if you make this recipe in your own homes, please feel free to email me your opinions on it and any pictures of your bakes. I always love to see my recipes come to life in other peoples homes and being enjoyed by their families. Enjoy and much love Steph xxxx


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