Purple Sweet Potato Milk Loaf

After my successful attempts in making bread and especially carrot loaf, i toyed with the idea of baking a purple sweet potato bread. However, i couldn't get any purple sweet potato in the supermarket, there were only yellow ones available. Few days later, i saw Honey Bee Sweet posting a Purple sweet potato milk loaf, and it made me more determined to bake this one. Hence, on Saturday morning, i woke up rather early and took a bus to our nearest wet market, hoping that these purple sweet potato are available there, together with my little one. At 2+, little zak still wants to be carried most of the time. But he can somehow understand now when we tell him that we are tired and got no more energy to carry him. So last Saturday, he obediently walked from our block to the bus-stop, and throughout our walk to the foodcourt and thereafter to the market, we held hands and took small little steps that whole morning. A good feeling!

Turning to getting the purple sweet potato, all the vegetable stalls do not carry them, except for one, and they cost about $3/kg. I didnt get to start preparing the bread until after our dinner as i only realised that i don't have enough bread flour after our morning marketing. Although the preparation is easy, the proofing time is rather long. By the time i finished baking the bread, i think it's around 3am! That's how bad my time-management is ;-( I didn't take any pictures when the loaves are out of the oven, which i usually do, as i'm dead tired!

I like the purple colour, they look so sweet and so 'Barney'. I told my little zak that he can call it purple bread or Barney bread, which the little purple dinosaur is his favourite character. By the way, purple is the first and only colour that he can confidently identify at the moment!

Ingredients/ Method

400g bread flour

220g purple sweet potato (peeled, sliced, steamed-10mins and mashed)

60g sugar (i reduced to 25g, which is still sweet)

1 large egg

1 tsp salt

1 tsp instant active yeast

60ml fresh whipping cream

100ml fresh milk

60g unsalted butter

1 cup cranberries/ raisins (i omitted this)

1. Put all ingredients except butter (and cranberries/ raisins) in the BM and let it knead for 20 mins, restart the BM and knead for a further 10 mins. Add in the butter into the dough after about 8 mins of kneading.

2. Place dough in a greased bowl and cover with cling wrap and allow to proof for at least 90 mins.

3. Punch out the air in the dough and divide into 4 equal portions. ( I divided the dough into many portions cos my bread tin is too small to 'accomodate' everything, and I'm managed to fill up another tin with the remaining dough.)

4. Flatten the dough and roll from the short edge like swiss roll.

5. Cover the dough with cling wrap and let it proof for another 90 mins.

6. Preheat oven to 180 deg C.

7. I omitted the egg wash on the loaf top and put the loaf tins into the oven and bake for 30 mins at 180 deg C (i feel my oven is slighter hotter and reduce the temp. to 170 deg C throughout the baking process.)

8. Remove the loaf from bread tin immediately when done and cool on rack completely before slicing.