Dragon Fruit Cream Cheese Bread

Perhaps you might wonder why am I still into baking food I couldn't eat right?  Well,  I guess its probably because a big part of me is still attach to reminisce the taste of it.  The other reason could be due to the availability of getting vegan ingredients here in Jakarta. It is hard enough to find vegan food here, and so far those I managed to locate are either far away in traffic congested areas. I searched throughout the internet for vegetarian restaurants in Jakarta and upon arriving the place, it would either be a disappointed "Shut Down / No longer in business" sign, or, if lucky we landed up in a vegetarian indian restaurant (more like a shabby kopitiam style). There is another vegetarian restaurant chain by the name Dharma kitchen found in many parts of Jakarta with relatively good selection of fusion style vegetarian food. The set back is not all their outlets are restaurants. In Senayan City (the equivalent of Pavilion in KL) they only have a tiny stall on the food court level. Imagine when one go shopping in such premium shopping place, its only natural for my husband to want to enjoy better eating experience being served by waiters rather than having to carry our own tray to queue up to buy 什菜齋饭 from their display of limited choices of precooked vegetarian food. May be not I guess. Recently we located another vegetarian restaurant which we agreed to be fairly decent among those we visited. The food are healthier with minimum oil fried and processed mock meat. The setting is like selling canteen food in a old style kopitiam, no frills, no extras.

Ah yes, the last vegetarian restaurant we visited is by far the most cozy one with ambience  of a decorated Mcdonald's outlet. The main food menu is centered around indian pancakes of various types ranging from roti canai, tossei, friend rice, sizzling fried noodles, vegan burgers, pasta etc. For some food, you have an option to omit garlic, onion, milk, eggs etc etc.  Our verdict, good roti but pricey for 2 piece costing from USD 5-8 (excl tax). Still, I must say its cosy and has the most diners, compared to the numerous we tried. At times, it would only be me and hubby (excluding staff) occupying the entire restaurant.

Now.. back to baking talk.  

From one of my posting last month on Dragon Fruit Chiffon cake? Yup, I have had some leftovers from that batch and instead of making cakes again, I opted to use it on creating bread.

I made these batch of bread with the '汤种' Scalded method.

Dragon Fruit Cream Cheese Bread 

( Recipe enough for 15 - 18 nos of 50g buns)

(A) 汤种 Scalded Dough / Water Roux

• Mix flour and water in a saucepan and stir well with a whisk. Heat up the mixture in the saucepan gradually until temperature reaches 65 C , stirring all the time. Remove the mixture from heat and continue stirring until water roux thicken. Stirring lines should be visible in the water roux.

• Cover the mixture with a layer of cling wrap until it cools down. Store the dough mixture into the fridge for at least overnight. The leftover dough mixture could be kept in the fridge for several days.

(B) Custard / Cream Cheese Fillings
300g Cream Cheese (softened at room temperature) 
90g Castor Sugar
2 regular eggs (lightly beaten , 50g each)
45g Low Protein Flour
30g Butter
240g UHT Strawberry Flavor Fresh Milk

• Combine cream cheese and castor sugar thoroughly with a whisk. 
• Gradually mix in the beaten eggs over few additions.
• Mix in the low protein flour and follow by the milk until combined.
• Transfer the mixture onto a heat proof pan and cook until the mixture thicken. Keep stirring to prevent the mixture from getting burned. Once the mixture start to thicken (not runny) and leave a trail while stirring, remove from heat.
• Stir in the butter until combine. Cover the custard / cream cheese filling with cling wrap and store it in the fridge until it is ready for use later.

(B) Bread

336g High Protein Flour
96g Low Protein Flour
32g Milk Powder
48g Castor Sugar
1 tsp salt
8g Instant Yeast
1 tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar
1 Large Egg (slightly beaten Grade A about 60-70g)
80 Water
50g Dragon Fruit (diced)
100g 汤种 Scalded Dough
40g Unsalted Butter 

Directions: 

• In a mixing bowl, combine flour, milk powder, sugar, yeast, vinegar, egg, water and dragon fruit. Mix  with a dough hook until the dough gathers to form a ball.

• Add Water Roux / Scaled Dough and continue mixing until dough gathers together. 

• Add butter and continue kneading for 15-20 mins on medium speed until the dough no longer stick onto the wall of the mixing bowl, or, when performing the window pane test, the stretch dough forms a thin pane without breaking.

• Gather the dough and roll it into a ball and let it proof in a lightly oiled bowl. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and leave for 60mins or until doubled in size  at room temperature.

• Remove the dough from bowl and punch down the air. Divide the dough into 50g - 60g portions (up to you). Roll each portion into a small ball, cover and let it proof for 10mins. 

• Flatten each dough and scoop about 25-35g of cream cheese filling and seal the dough to form a round bun.
• Place the buns on a lined baking pan and place another baking sheet and another layer of baking pan directly over it. Proof the dough for 40mins.

• Bake the buns / bread together with baking sheet and pan on top at 170C (Lower tray of the oven) for 20mins or 160C (middle and upper tray of oven) for 15-18 mins. Cool down.

Usually I would store half of the newly bake batch of bread in the freezer while the other half of the bakes for immediate consumption. This is to stop the aging of the dough / bread. The frozen breads can be taken out from the freezer and leave to thaw overnight. Once the bread has thawed or softened, you may toast it or lightly bake it for 5 mins at 120-150C. The bread will still taste as good as a freshly bake one.

Enjoy!