Whole Wheat Beet Swirl Bread (Vegan)

Love for Beets and love for baking bread had to result in this!

Beet festival has been going on in our home this season. Beets are regular in soups and salads. Recently we made beet wine for which fresh crunchy beets were bought from the market. Having kept the wine for maturing, the remainder was used to make an egg less beet cake. 

  I wanted to make beet bread but the drop in the temperature due to rain and hail here thwarted the plan.  Yesterday, I adamantly went ahead to bake a Beet Swirl Bread. A lot of tricks were applied to help the dough rise. I put the bowl with dough over hot water, then also heated the oven at 100 degrees, let it get cold a bit and placed the dough inside. Eventually the dough rose well and a lovely bread came out of the oven. And when it was sliced…..I had a reason to smile.

Here is my recipe of Whole Wheat Beet Swirl Bread

Whole Wheat Beet Swirl Bread

Ingredients

1 ½ cup whole wheat flour (atta)

1 ½ cup all purpose flour

1 cup warm water

3 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 teaspoons instant dried yeast

1 ½ teaspoon salt

4 tablespoons boiled and pureed beet roots

½ teaspoon sugar

Method

Take warm water in a bowl and dissolve sugar and add yeast. Keep aside for 15 minutes till frothy.

Whisk together both the flours and salt. Add oil and mix well.

Divide dry flour mix into two separate parts (1 ½ cups each) and keep them in separate plates.

Add 1/2 teaspoon sugar to yeast mix and stir till it dissolves

Add this water to the first plate and knead a soft dough. Keep adding water till the dough gets supple and elastic. It will take about 6 to 8 minutes. Keep it in an oiled bowl and turn the dough to around to coat it with oil on all sides. Cover and keep in a warm place to rise for 1 hour.

To the second plate, add 4 tablespoons of beet puree. Now add water and repeat the process (as with the first dough)

Grease one 9 inch x 4 ½  inch loaf pan.

Now we have two types of dough- the white and the pink. Remove white dough from the bowl to the working counter. Sprinkle some all purpose flour, punch and knead for 3 to 4 minutes. Now Roll out the dough into a rectangle ( about 12 inch x 5 inch) not bigger than the width of the pan you are using. Repeat  the same with the pink dough.

Place pink dough over the white dough. Dip your hands in warm water and spatter some water on the white dough (just to make it moist). Press gently.

Roll the dough towards you, tightly. Pinch seams to seal. Place the roll in the greased loaf tin with the seam side down. Cover and keep it to rise for 1 ½ hours in a warm place.

Bake in the preheated oven at 190 degrees C for 30 to 35 minutes or till the top turns brown and the bottom of the pan sounds empty when tapped. If the loaf is browning too quickly, tent the loaf loosely with a foil.

Remove from the loaf tin after 10 minutes. Cool in the rack.

Slice next day.

Linking to Vegan Thursdays and  Yeastspotting and Bake fest hosted by Priya