Pesto Bread

Soft, fluffy bread with a gorgeous, green swirl of flavoursome pesto.

Prep Time: 20

Cook Time: 20

Resting Time: 1 30

Total Time: 2 10

Servings: loaf

Ingredients

2½ cups (300 g) plain flour (all purpose)
1 tsp (1 tsp) dried yeast instant / fast action
1 tsp (1 tsp ) sugar
1 tsp (1 tsp) salt
⅞ cup (200 ml) warm water
2 tbsp (2 tbsp) olive oil
½ cup (135 g) pesto
(1 tbsp) soy milk for brushing

Instructions

Making the dough

Add the flour, yeast, sugar and salt to a mixing bowl. Briefly whisk to combine.
Add the water and olive oil, and roughly mix into a dough. Depending on the absorbancy of your flour, you may need to add more to make it not too sticky.
Transfer the dough onto a well floured board and dust your hands with flour.
Knead the dough by stretching and folding the dough on itself for 10 minutes. If after the first couple of minutes it’s not getting less sticky, then add a bit more flour and keep kneading until the dough is elastic and has a smooth surface.
Form the dough into a ball, and place in a bowl lightly greased with oil.
Cover the bowl with a damp tea towel, and leave to rise in a warm spot for an hour, or until the dough has doubled in size.

Shaping and baking

Cover a large board or work surface and a rolling pin in a good dusting of flour.
Gently tip the dough out of the bowl onto the centre of the board and roll out the dough into a circle around 30 cm (12 inches) in diameter.
Spread the pesto out on the dough circle, leaving a 3 cm (1 inch) margin around the edge.
Roll up the circle into a loaf shape.
Gently transfer or slide the loaf onto baking parchment on a baking sheet.
Cover with a tea towel and leave in a warm place to prove for around 30 minutes. To test the loaf is ready to bake, gently press your fingertip into the dough. It should slowly bounce back most of the way.
Brush the surface of the loaf with soy milk.
Bake the loaf at 220°C (420°F) on top/bottom heat for 20 minutes, or until golden brown. You'll know it's fully cooked when it sounds hollow when you tap the bottom.
Let the pesto bread cool down on a wire rack.

Notes

You can make your own vegan pesto really easily from all kinds of greens. See the post above for a simple recipe which you can adapt to what you have at home.

Flour:

Depending on where you are in the world and the humidity, the absorbancy of flour can vary a lot. We can make this bread in the UK with plain flour, to the above metric measurements. When we bake in Austria, with Universal Mehl , it requires more flour to get a smooth, workable dough. See Suzy's comment below for her experience baking in the Midwest.

If it's too sticky to knead at first, add more flour gradually. Though don't add too much, as the dough will become less sticky as you knead it.

Nutrition

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