Beet Bread

Perfectly Pink Beet Bread

This Beet Bread is gorgeous looking (in a very shocking pink type of way) and ever so delicate and tasty. I made this bread for a pink themed baby shower and cannot wait for an excuse to make it again. What an incredibly fun (and delicious) discovery!

The only challenge with this recipe was that I do not own a kitchen aid stand up mixer. So I had to knead the dough by hand. Usually I enjoy feeling a dough slowly becoming soft and pliable. But in this case I had to wear gloves to protect my hands from the beets. However the dough started out so sticky that at first I could only work it with one hand ;  I needed the other one to hold up the glove! For ages I kept on adding a little flour and a little more (in the end I used about twice as much flour as the recipe asked for.) But the result was just stunning and worth the effort!

Ingredients
(Slightly adapted from the blog ‘Taste for Adventure’)
2 small loaves

300g beets (about 3 medium beets)
120ml milk
190ml warm water
2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
1 1/2 tsp sugar
650-1000g unbleached all-purpose flour (the recipe asks for 500-650g)
2 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
250ml boiling water

Recipe

1. Peel beets (use gloves). Cut into pieces and puree in a blender with the milk until smooth.
2. In a small bowl combine water, yeas and sugar. Let rest for 5-10 minutes until mixture turns frothy.
3. In a stand up mixer with dough hooks or in a bowl combine flour and salt. Add yeast mixture, beet puree and olive oil. Mix to combine.
4. Knead by hand (with gloves) or in the mixer for at least 10 minutes until the dough becomes soft and pliable.
5. Place dough in a bowl greased lightly with oil. Cover with cling film and allow to rise until doubled, about 1 – 1 ½ hours.
6. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper. Punch down the dough and shape into one or two round or oval loaves. Place on the baking sheet and cover loosely with lightly oiled cling film.
7. Allow to rise until it has doubled, about 45 minutes to 1 hour.
8. Preheat oven to 190C with an empty oven dish placed in the bottom of the oven.
9. Cut slashes or a cross into the loaves.
10. Place the baking sheet with the bread into the oven. Pour the boiling water into the oven dish. Immediately close the oven door.
11. Bake 30-35 minutes or until a thermometer inserted in the bottom center of loaf reads 85C.
12. Remove the loaves and allow bread to cool before slicing.

  

Serve with

Other pink foods for a baby shower:

• Quick Pink Salmon Mousse
• Quinoa Beet Verrine with Smoked Salmon
• Pretty in Pink: Devilled Eggs
• Raspberry Chicken
• Beet Hummus
• Mini Meatballs – Plain or Pink
• Raspberry Yoghurt

Perfectly Pink – Beet Bread and Beet Meatballs

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• baby shower
• baking
• bread
• make ahead
• pink