Flower shaped pesto bread

My new found love of baking keeps me experimenting.  I recently saw a video of bread braiding that someone shared on facebook. That was a spark enough to ignite my creative flame. Came the next day, I warmed up some milk for yeast proofing even before brushing my teeth. 🙂

The only problem with bread is.. we don’t get to use it as much. My calorie cautious hubby monitors his carb intake way too seriously. Though I do most of my baking with whole wheat flour, rather than APF.  Still… i just can’t make dough for less than 2 cups of flour! any less than that.. and all the hard work I put in doesn’t seems fair.

Long story short.. I wanted to bake.. but also wanted to make it more of a dish, rather than just plain old bread which will need another associate.

I pondered on the idea of making something sweet.. Danish? chocolate filled croissants? pie? .. nah..  I better watch out on calories

So.. I had to bake.. fill something in, so that it’s a complete dish.. and it’s not going to be sweet! How about calzone? sounds good! I ran to the Italian bakery down the street to grab a pack of fresh pesto. (my little patio garden is out of basil)

I can’t pinpoint exactly when in the process, but I decided to make something else. Armed with fully raised dough and pesto.. I started playing around and ended up with this 🙂

Looks tempting? So without any delay, let’s jump to recipe

Bread Dough Ingredients :-

• 2 1/2 cups flour (I used whole wheat)
• 1 tbsp active dry yeast
• 1 cup warm water
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp olive oil

Filling :-

• Pesto

Note – I made dough using 1 cup of whole wheat flour and that was enough for one flower bread. Adjust the measurements according to your need.

Instructions for making dough

• Proof the yeast using sugar and some milk
• Mix salt into flour and sieve.
• After the yeast has proofed, add oil.
• add the yeast and oil mixture to the flour.
• Knead until a dough forms, and then continue kneading for an additional 10 minutes.
• Cover and let rise for 3-4 hrs OR until double in size
• Punch down and knead for another 3-4 minutes. Keep covered.

Flower bread procedure:-

• Preheat the oven to 350 F
• Divide dough into three equal portions
• Roll out in a circle with help of a rolling pin
• Apply a generous coat of Pesto

• Stack the three dough disks with pesto layers
• At this point, Your bread should look something like this

• Place something round in the center of your bread to make markings. I have used my little Bodum Coffee cup

• Mark four perpendicular cuts, leaving the central circle intact
• Make two more cuts in each quarter, creating three sections. Now you have a total of 12 sections.

NOTE: You can increase of decrease the number of sections according to you preference. Just make sure you end up with a even number.

• Now comes the fun part! Hold up one section of your bread (making sure you have grabbed all the 3 layers of dough) and give it a 360 Degree turn and place it back. Repeat for all 12 sections.NOTE: Twist sections clockwise and counterclockwise alternatively
• Once done, it should look like this

• As a result of twisting in different directions, you can see pairing in their twist lines.
• Grab two adjacent pieces making a pair, and pinch together the outer circle area of both pieces. This will give your bread the nice 3D flower shape.
• Once done, bake in a preheated oven at 350 F for around 40-45 Mins.
• When you see browning, take your creation out of oven and relish your not so hard work 🙂

I hope you will enjoy cooking and serving this beautiful pesto bread. Don’t forget to share your experiences and feedback with me.

Happy Cooking! 🙂

Tags: Bake, Baking, Bread, Cooking, Delicious, eggless, eggless baking, Eye catching, Heavenly, Italian, Pesto, Tasty, vegan, vegetarian, zerotohero