Yoghurt Bread - Another Bread Experiment

yoghurtbreadthumb.JPGYet another bread-related experiment - I wanted to try baking a loaf of bread using plain natural yoghurt as the main liquid ingredient.

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It's a really simple bread recipe - just dry bread yeast, 450g of plain flour, 50g of butter and 500g of natural yoghurt - no water at all.

yoghurtbread2.JPGI put these ingredients in a bowl (melting the butter first) and mixed them thoroughly into a dough using a knife, then kneaded a little with the dough hooks on my electric whisk.

It's quite a wet, sticky dough, so would be difficult to knead by hand, but this recipe doesn't call for extensive kneading anyway - it could just be mixed thoroughly with the knife.

yoghurtbread3.JPGAfter a couple of hours in a warm place, it had more than doubled in size. I turned it out onto an oiled tray, shaping it only lightly into a rough heap, then I baked it in the oven at 180C for half an hour (quite a long cooking time, but necessary with a dough this moist)

I put a metal tray of hot water on the floor of the oven to make steam - this helps to form a crisp, crunchy crust..

The result was a rustic-style loaf with a beautifully crunchy crust and an almost cheesy dairy aroma.

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The Taste Test

yoghurtbread5.JPGI ate a slice with butter and blackcurrant jam - the bread has a light, crumbly almost cake-like texture and a rich, slightly tangy flavour.

The butter and yoghurt make this a really tasty loaf and it lends itself well to eating with jam or other sweet toppings.

I declare this experiment a genuine success!

About The Recipe

I'd been wondering about whether this was possible for quite some time, so I just decided to try it.

My loaf came out quite crumbly, with a thick crunchy crust - which was just fine - but I reckon this idea could probably be developed into something that ends up more like Brioche.