Peanut Butter Loaf

February must have been a stressful month for me, I was just looking at the previous posts..and they're all bread. Bread is always my escape...I love kneading bread. Especially pounding the dough against the counter, the rhythmic sounds of the dough as it hits the counter is very soothing.

I saw this Peanut butter loaf on Angie's recipes awhile ago, and I finally decided to make it. The technique to make this loaf is similar to the laminated dough method required for any type of flaky bread, such as the Danish braid or a croissant. It's a bit difficult and time consuming to do, but I enjoy it.

The result is a very rich bread with a lot of peanut butter flavor. Imagine a cinnamon roll with the peanut butter as a filling. I think next time I make this, I will definitely decrease the amount of peanut butter. It was a bit too heavy for my taste. Too much peanut butter and not enough bread. Here's the recipe.

Peanut butter loaf
from Annie's recipes
total time: 3 hours

245 g Bread flour
130 ml Warm water
4 g Active dry yeast
20 g Sugar
1/2 Egg
4 g Salt
22 g Butter
120 g Creamy or crunchy peanut butter

1. Dissolve sugar with warm water in a mixing bowl. Sprinkle dry yeast over and let proof for about 10 minutes. Add in bread flour and egg. Stir at low speed until a rough dough ball formed. Stir in salt and butter until evenly dispersed. Increase the speed to medium and knead the dough until a soft and elastic dough has formed. The dough should pass the windowpane test. (stretching the dough to see if it thins out).

2. Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl. Cover tightly with a plastic wrap and let proof until doubled at room temperature. Coat one of your fingers with flour, then press it gently into the center of risen dough to the bottom. If the indentation remains, the dough is ready.

3. Press down the dough, round up, cover and let rest for 10 minutes. Flatten the dough and roll into a rectangle, about 30cmx20cm. Spread the peanut butter over the first two-thirds of the dough rectangle. Leave 1cm unbuttered all the way around. Fold the unbuttered third over the center third of the rectangle. Fold the buttered third top down to cover it. Give the dough a 90 degree turn to the left. Gently roll out the dough into a long strip 45cm by 18cm and fold the two shorter ends to meet each other in the middle. Rotate the dough 90 degree to the left again and roll it out into a 40cm by 18cm rectangle.

4. Roll up the rectangle along the long edge. Moisten the edge with water, and lightly press to close. Cut the loaf into three 6cm thick sections. Place them with cutting side up in a loaf pan lined with baking paper and let proof until double in volume. Preheat the oven to 350F and bake the loaf until golden brown, about 20 minutes.