Kaya Bread

The 1st Bread-Bake-Out was a humongous success and hopefully inspired some more bread making amongst the Singletons.  We were still pretty divided over bread-machines and elbow grease, but that's ok.  And that's the beauty of bread-making.  You can choose either and it doesn't need much TLC.  As we are all busy multi-tasking career-women, something that Monster Mom said during our 1st Bread-Bake-Out made me think of this. 

After making kaya in the last post, I decided to see if I could combine baking out bread and kaya together to make a kaya bread.  If successful, I only have to spread butter on the bread slices and that will cut down breakfast preparation time.  How lazy is that?  Bake the spread together and you can even eat the bread on its own.  In my defence, I prefer to look at it as multi-tasking bread. 

I've made this loaf many times, and the trick is to slather on the kaya thickly.  A super-thick layer.  Don't be afraid.  The kaya won't bite.  Too thin and you'll only get a faint whiff of it.  And you'll end up having to spread more kaya in the mornings.  Sort of defeats the purpose, don't you think?

The basic bread recipe is from a previous post, Orange Swirl Bread, and you will need a couple tablespoons of kaya, preferably homemade.  If you are super-efficient, you can even make the kaya while waiting for the bread to proof.  Now, that's multi-tasking.

Kaya Bread

Makes a 9 inch loaf

Ingredients :

For the bread dough:

57 gms unsalted butter, cut into small chunks
1/2 cup hot water
1/2 cup milk
2 large eggs
3 1/2 cups plain bread flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp instant yeast
1 tsp salt

For the filling:
4 - 5 tablespoons kaya
2 tbsp milk

Method:

1.  Combine the butter and the hot water and stir until butter is completely melted.
2.  Stir in the milk into the butter/water mix and leave to cool before whisking in the eggs.  Be careful as you don't want to have scrambled eggs!
3.  If using a bread machine to knead, place the liquid mix in first before adding the flour, sugar, salt and yeast.  Knead in dough cycle until the dough is smooth and elastic.  If it is too sticky, just keep adding 1 tbsp of flour and continue kneading until it becomes less sticky. 
4.  If kneading by hand, knead until dough is smooth and elastic. 
5.  Cover the dough with a damp tea towel or clingwrap to prevent dehydration.  Allow to ferment and rise until doubled ( approx 1 hour). 
6.  Once the dough is doubled in size, gently punch it down and rest it for 10 minutes before shaping.
7.  On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out into a rectangle  12" x 18". 
8.  Lightly brush milk over the dough and spread the kaya over the dough.  Spread to within 1 - 2 cm of the edges to prevent any kaya oozing out later.
9.  Roll the dough up tightly into a loaf shape (like a swiss roll), and place it seam-side down into a loaf tin.
10.  Cover and allow to rise until doubled in size (approx 1 hour).
11.  Bake at 350F (180C) for about 40 - 50 minutes, or until internal temperature reaches 190F inside.
12.  Turn it out and while still hot, brush some butter over the top of loaf as a glaze.  Cool on a wire rack before slicing and serving.