Heart Shaped Tiger bread | Tijgerbrood | Giraffe bread

This time of the the year is for celebration of Love.. Its "Saint Valentine's day"

The rose is red, the violet's blue,

The honey's sweet, and so are you.

Thou art my love and I am thine;

I drew thee to my Valentine:

The lot was cast and then I drew,

And Fortune said it should be you.

Wanted to make something special which can signify the day, and as I am baking bread all this week, it has to be bread. Today's recipe is heart shaped bread with tiger/ giraffe like print on them. Tiger bread is the commercial name for a loaf of bread which has a unique mottled crust. It is also sold as Dutch crunch in the USA, tijgerbrood or tijgerbol in Netherlands. The bread is generally made with sesame oil and with a pattern baked into the top made by painting rice paste onto the surface prior to baking. The paste dries and cracks during the baking process. The rice paste crust gives the bread a distinctive flavour. It has a crusty exterior, but is soft inside. Typically, tiger bread is made as a white bread bloomer loaf or bread roll, but the technique can be applied to any shape of bread.

I am making a basic white bread but any of the breads can be made with these dutch icing to get the tiger pattern.

Serve:              4-6
Preparation time:   2 hrs  (including rise and bake)

Ingredients:

For White bread
All purpose flour/ White bread flour:            600 grams

Active dry yeast:                                         2 tablespoon
Sugar:                                                         1 teaspoon
Salt:                                                            1 teaspoon
Oil:                                                             2 tablespoon
Warm water:                                               400 ml

For tiger paste
Rice flour:                                                  160 grams
Warm water:                                             150 ml
Active dry yeast:                                       2 tablespoon
Sesame Oil:                                              2 tablespoon
Sugar:                                                       2 tablespoon
Salt:                                                         1/2 teaspoon

Method:

1)  Put all the ingredients in a bread machine or in a large bowl if you want to do it by hand.
2) Bring it all together to make soft but not sticky dough.
3) Transfer the dough into a clean bowl and coat it with oil. Put it in a warm place and let it rise for an hour until it doubles in size.

 4) After an hour, punch the dough down using you hand. Cut it into 8 even pieces or depending upon the size of the bread you require.
5) Shape them in form of heart using your hand. Make a round of the dough and the press it from the top side to give it a shape of heart. Place it on the baking sheet.

6) For tiger paste whisk all ingredients together in a small bowl. Cover and leave to rise for 10 minutes.
7) After the bread hearts have been rising for 10 minutes, stir the paste vigorously and then brush lightly over the rolls you use your finger or back of spoon to do so, it gives a better result.
8) The paste will have the consistency of thick, pouring cream. Thicker the layer of paste, larger will be the pattern on the finished bread.

9) Pre-heat the oven to 190 degree Celsius and then bake for 25-30 minutes. Turn the baking sheets around after 15 minutes, to get an even coloring.
10) Leave to cool on wire racks.

BON APPETIT...