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Breaking Bread with Pesto Pull Apart Loaf

“The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight... [Breadmaking is] one of those almost hypnotic businesses, like a dance from some ancient ceremony.It leaves you filled with one of the world's sweetest smells...

Ingredients
  

  • 1/2 cup milk warm
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 2 tsps yeast active dry yeast instant / active dry
  • 3 cups all purpose flour (maida)
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 tbsps butter soft
  • 1 tbsp + 1 tbsp butter olive oil OR +
  • 3 to 4 cloves garlic , grated
  • 1/2 tsp garlic OR fresh paste
  • 3/4 cup milk (at room temp)
  • 1/2 cup Pesto
  • 2 tbsps butter melted

Instructions
 

  • Dissolve sugar in xbd cup slightly warm milk (slightly over room temp, any warmer and yeast will be killed).
  • Mix the yeast into this and cover for 5 minutes. Milk with froth and bubble, indicating yeast is active.
  • In a large bowl, take flour, salt, grated garlic, soft butter / olive oil, add this yeast mixture and use upto xbe cup more milk at room temp. Knead to make a soft pliable dough.
  • Grease a large bowl with oiled fingers. Place the ball of dough in this and allow to prove for 60-90 minutes, until dough doubles in volume.
  • After doubling- punch down air gently, make a ball again and on a clean floured surface, roll this out to a rectangle u2013roughly 20 x 12 inches. Using a measuring scale, cut out the rectangle into a square of 12 x 12 and use the remaining strip of dough to make other baby loaves or rolls.
  • Brush surface with melted butter and then smear pesto (or any other filling such as coriander chutney, tomato pickle, cheese for other flavours) all over the surface.
  • Cut this square into 6 equal strips 2 inches wide (a pizza cutter works well for this).
  • Stack the strips one on top of the other, pesto side up.
  • Cut these stacked strips again into 2u201d wide squares (6 squares). So you will get 6 square stacks of 6 layers each.
  • In a parchment / foil lined loaf tin (not the very broad kind) u2013 line the stacks next to each other like pages of a book, making sure the pesto smeared top of the stack are all facing one direction.
  • Cover with damp towel and allow this to rise in a warm place for one hour.
  • Preheat oven at 180C. Gently brush the top of the risen loaf with milk and place this in the middle of the oven. Bake for 30-40 minutes, till itu2019s lightly golden on the top. Serve warm with pasta or eat as it in like an appetiser.

Notes

You can make plenty of variations as mention in (6) – choose from spices like panch-phoron, chilli flakes, roasted ajwain, cumin seeds to sprinkle before cutting into strips and stacking.