Spinach Beet Bread: a successful experiment

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I had leftover beets, see….and leftover spinach. And I’m really intrigued with using vegetables in breads, so today I played. This is what I ended up with:

and here’s how I did it….

Spinach Beet Bread

I actually made two separate batches of bread to do this. I started by pureeing the two vegetables, spinach and beets separately in the food processor. I added enough milk to make two cups worth of puree. I probably started with 1 1/2 c. spinach and just over a cup of cooked beets.

I made both breads essentially the same way. I microwaved the vegetable-milk mixture until it was just warm. In my mixer I put:

• the warm vegetable/milk mixture
• 1/2 c. hot water
• 1 c. whole wheat flour
• 2 T. sugar
• 2 t. salt
• 2 T. oil
• 1 1/2 T. yeast

I let that mixture sit for about 25 minutes and get bubbly. Actually, I made both sponges at the same time. I put the beet puree in a different bowl for that. I wanted both doughs to be ready to form at the same time.

After the sponge was good and bubbly (and very colorful, I might add) I added 1 egg, 2 c. white bread flour and 2 c. whole wheat flour. I used the dough hook to mix the dough, adding flour until it formed a lump on the dough hook. It’s important not to add too much flour when you use whole wheat flour because it doesn’t form the same side-clearing ball on the hook that white bread flour does.

Because I needed to use the mixer for the next batch right away, I turned out the dough onto the counter and kneaded it by hand for about a minute. I used just enough flour on the counter that the dough wasn’t sticky.

Then I quickly washed the bowl and hook off and made the second sponge into dough. For some reason, I ended up with a larger lump of green dough than red dough.

I let the dough rise until it had doubled in size. I punched it down and began to form loaves. I made one spinach loaf because I didn’t know what spinach bread would taste like. Then I braided ropes of the beet dough and spinach dough together.

If I had been really thinking, I would have made a third batch of regular white bread, but I didn’t think of it.

I let those loaves double in size on the pizza stones while the ovens heated.

I wanted really crusty crust on these loaves, so before I put them into the 400° oven, I misted them with a water bottle. I also put a pan of water in the bottom of the oven to create steam while the loaves baked.

Because I really wasn’t sure how brown these loaves should get, I paid much more attention to my quick-read thermometer when these loaves were baking. When they hit 190°, I pulled them out of the oven.

Splendid!

The spinach bread tasted surprisingly spinach-y. I really liked the flavor. It tasted green!

The braid turned out really fun. It was more red than green because two of the three ropes of dough were beet bread. The texture was super moist and it had a wonderful flavor. The crust was REALLY crusty–just like I wanted. Most of the bread is gone already, down the throats of hungry snacking boys. I can’t wait to make this for Christmas dinner!

BK

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