How to make apple cider bread with yeast part 1 – The Accidental Recipe Modified

Homemade Apple cider bread Wednesday 15th June 2011
Recipe 20110615

Apple Cider Bread Introduction

If you read my article on Guinness Stout Bread how to make a guinness stout bread with yeast you would have noticed that I had mentioned using Apple Cider to make bread. Well I tried it and the aroma is simply gorgeous, you must try it too. The whole kitchen fills up with this wonderful, wonderful aroma when the bread is being baked.

By the way cider is made from apples so I do not know why I am using the term ‘Apple Cider’. I guess it was written on the tin as ‘Apple Cider’ as a marketing ploy as many Malaysians are not familiar with cider but then again there may be someone somewhere who is using other fruits to make cider. It is mentioned on the tin can that it is imported and the wording says ‘Crispy Apple Cider’ and ‘Premium Sparkling’. I do not know whether the ‘Premium Sparkling’ is marketing hype or cider is graded just like champagne. Anyway it is imported cider, as mentioned on the tin can (or rather aluminium can) and as Malaysia is not capable of growing apple trees.

I didn’t have a choice of ciders to choose form as this supermarket had this one particular brand.

The Apple Cider Bread recipe is as follows – the Straight Dough Method.

You will notice I had dropped off all the oils and butter as I wanted to know how good it would taste with just the apple cider. Hence the bread is made the straight dough method – everything mixed in one go. You will notice that there is 8% sugar and that is because I had originally planned it for 7% sugar but while weighing the sugar a little extra fell into the sponge mixture.

Photos of Apple Cider bread making process

Mix all the dry ingredients so that they are evenly distributed within the bread flour then pour in the apple cider.

Fold the sponge on its self with a spoon. You will notice that this was so easy to do that I didn’t even take the sponge mixture out of the weighing machine’s weighing bowl. I just mixed in where I had made the measurements.

I have combined the fermentation and proofing into one step and allowed it to ferment for 4.5 hours, right in the baking tray to cut down on washing and transferring dough from ‘here’ to ‘there’. Do notice I did not put the dough into a baking tin as I was hoping it would come out as round bread, like those fancy breads in the bakeries.

After four and half hours the dough had risen a little but not as much as I had expected.

I baked it for 40 minutes at 210C (410F). In fact I did panic a little as the crust was turning very brown and I decided to take it out of the oven after baking for 40 minutes.

You will notice the bread was very white inside and slightly ‘wet’ or ‘damp’ or ‘not quite sticky’. When slicing it, the crumbs roll up and did not powder. Could this be partly due to the high sugar content? The high sugar content would result it the crust turning very brown within a short time. I think I could have baked it a little longer as it was very slightly damp in the center and just may be slightly undercooked. The next time I make this apple cider bread I will make sure it bakes right through to the center.

This bread was still soft and moist after 4 days. I did check the cider can and it is mentioned that they have added extra sugar, apple juice, citric acid and cider 15%. No wonder it was sweet. What did they mean by cider 15% and 4.7% alcohol? Did they dilute the cider with apple juice to bring the alcohol content down to 4.7%? Or did they top up extra ethanol to the apple juice to make it like cider? The English on the labels was a bit obscure … I no know understood … I no no understand … this cider apple.

It was sweet. This apple cider bread was good with cheese and mustard. The cheese and mustard covered up the sweetness of the apple cider bread.

This article “How to make apple cider bread with yeast part 1″ was researched and written by Peter Achutha.