Veggies Stuffed Braided Bread – Yeast Free

Yeast Free does catch your eye, doesn’t it? For all of us who are fighting this love hate battle with this fermenter, this recipe comes as a welcome relief.

I find yeast moody. Sometimes it plays well and sometimes it just messes up my dinner.
Now I happen to find this yeast free dough formula, a patterned pretty lookin bread, some healthy cheesy filling and an assignment for my photography challenge, all in my lap at the same time. What do I do? I combine all of it and present you with this crunchy, super tasty, eye-catching stuffed bread – without the tormentor!! 🙂

Stuffed Braids

I’ve always believed the fact that we eat food with our eyes first, but to make delicate patterns with bread is another story altogether! Some fine nimble hands, a good work surface, great ingredients and a whole LOT of patience is all that you need 😉 I messed up the design of my first one – not even worth a picture. By then I had my 6 year old mildly amused and highly entertained. Homework ditched, she pulled a stool to try her hand.

bread patterns

I let her fiddle here and there with my not so proper braid, but when I gave her a bit of dough, she tried to fill them like momos. Now mother is impressed – what the little one did was cute and easier 🙂
So, we made two full braids, but soon half moon shaped little bites were more in action.

Playing with leftovers

The Recipe:
Adapted from here:

Ingredients

For the yeast free dough:

• 3 cups of all purpose flour or maida
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup curd/yoghurt
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 tsp powdered sugar
• salt to taste

For the filling:

• 2 cups chopped assorted vegetables like carrot, beans, peas, cauliflower, potato, broccoli, sweet corn
• 1 big onion, chopped
• 4-5 pods of minced garlic
• a tiny piece of ginger
• 3-4 minced green chilies
• salt to taste
• 2 tsp of crushed dried mixed herbs
• 1/2 tsp pepper powder
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 3-4 tbsp of grated mozzarella

Method

For the Dough:
In a large bowl, sieve flour, baking powder, soda, salt and sugar. Make a well in the center, pour oil in it. Rub together with your fingers and palms. The oil flour mix will look like a crumbled coarse mix. Add curd at this stage and start kneading the dough. It might be messy and not pliable, but keep working on it and you will have a super smooth and soft dough by the end of it. Cover the dough with a damp cloth and let it rise for at least 5-6 hours.
The dough would have almost doubled at the end of 6 hours. Knead for a minute or two again and use as required.

For the Filling:
In a pan, heat oil. Saute garlic, ginger, green chilies and minced onions. Once almost done, throw in the chopped vegetables along with salt. Cover and cook till they are almost done. Now sprinkle herbs and pepper powder. Give it a final mix. Cool before filling it in.

For the Braided Bread:
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Grease a baking tray and keep aside.
Sprinkle flour on your kitchen top. Knead the dough for a minute or two. Now using a rolling pin spread the dough into a rectangular or oval shape of thickness between 1/4″ to 1/6″. Add more flour is required.
In the center, spread the prepared cooled vegetable filling. Place grated cheese over the vegetables. Now, using a sharp knife, make inclined cuts of 1 ” width along the sides of the rolled out dough. Repeat the same on the other side. for best results, try and make equal number of cuts on either side.

Ready to be patterned

Now take two strips from opposite sides and place them overlapped on the vegetables maintaining a criss cross pattern. Stretch the strips to seal the beneath layer. To seal the edges, gently fold and press the top and bottom section. Then braid with few strips on it. Brush off excess flour.

Now gently brush the braid with melted butter. Place in the oven and bake for 20 minutes at 180 degrees, or till the crust is a beautiful brown.

Cool the bread completely before running a knife through it. Enjoy while it’s still warm.

Yummy Bites

I know it looks like a huge effort, but SO worth it once in a while. And if you have a dancing prancing little human monkey around you, then the whole process can be fun too!

They tasted like Vegetable Puffs