Pink and Earthy Beetroot Bread

Pink and Earthy Beetroot Bread
Delicious Beet Bread made from raw beetroot
Delicious Beet Bread made from raw beetroot

ThermoHubby John is the ideas man in this house. When we plan our wine tasting dinners, it’s he who chooses the wines, does the research and pairs them with appropriate dishes. Each time he gets more and more inventive – read that as complicated! – and then hands the ball to me to interpret and execute. I manage to rise to the occasion and ensure that the food is tasty and well prepared, thanks for a good part to my trusty brigade of Thermomix sous chefs, of course!

Really pink Beet Bread dough has raw beetroot purée and all the classic bread ingredients
Really pink Beet Bread dough has raw beetroot purée and all the classic bread ingredients

Surfing the web on Sunday, ThermoHubby John decided to begin researching and preparing a dish based on bread flavoured with beetroot (or beets, as we say in America). He found the recipe, bought the ingredients and made it himself in the Thermomix. OK, I helped him a little by giving him times and speeds to use and generally helping to adapt the recipe by basing it on the Thermomix bread recipe from Fast and Easy Cooking and on my own recipe for beet purée, but he did it himself. Mind you, this is my wonderful ThermoHubby who every year creates an 8-course meal for me on Valentine’s Day (because there are 8 letters in “I love you!”) so it’s not unusual for him to cook some fantastic dishes. But this was his first Thermomix recipe conversion, which I am delighted to offer you here.

This Beetroot Bread is a cinch to make, and yields an amazingly light and tasty loaf. Its quirky pink colour belies the earthy, deep flavour that develops in the crumb and the crust. We almost expected it to taste sweet (a preconceived idea that all things pink taste sweet) but the truth is that it almost tastes a bit like rye bread. ThermoHubby John likes a light, airy crumb and a crisp crust, and this loaf is a real winner on that score. He’ll be making it again and again!

Beet (Beetroot) Bread
Adapted for Thermomix from a recipe by Girlversusdough, found on Tablespoon.com. Makes one large loaf or 18 to 24 bread rolls (depending on size).

We dropped the dough for our Beet Bread from the Thermomix bowl straight into a bowl
We dropped the dough for our Beet Bread from the Thermomix bowl straight into a bowl

Ingredients
2 large or 3 medium raw (uncooked) beets, peeled and quartered (you can wear gloves for this!)
120 g milk

175 g water
2 ¼ tsp active dry yeast – or – 30 g fresh yeast
1 tsp sugar

600 g extra strong bread flour, plus extra if needed
30 g olive oil, plus extra for the bowl and the cling film
2 tsp salt

Method

  1. Weigh yeast, sugar and water into your Thermomix bowl. Warm 37° C/5 minutes/Speed Spoon to activate the yeast.  Transfer to a small bowl or a ThermoServer, or set aside and use your second TM bowl for the next step.
  2. Make the beet purée: add quartered beets to TM bowl and chop 5 seconds/Speed 4. Scrape sides of bowl. Add milk and purée 1 minute/Speed 10 or until mixture is smooth and free of lumps.
  3. Add the yeast mixture to the beet purée, then weigh in the flour, olive oil, and salt. Mix 20 seconds/Speed 3. Check consistency and if it’s too wet and sticky, add more flour. (We added another 60 g.)
  4. Knead 3 minutes/dough function. Place dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover with oiled cling film and let rise until doubled, anywhere from 45 minutes to about 1 ½ hours.
  5. Second rise: Knock back risen dough, remove from bowl and shape into a round ball. Place dough on a baking stone or parchment paper-lined baking sheet and cover loosely with a lightly greased piece of cling film. Let rise until doubled, about 45 minutes to 1 hour.
  6. Preheat oven to 190° C/375° F with an empty roasting pan placed on the bottom rack. Sprinkle the top of the bread with a little flour and cut an X shape on the top with a serrated knife.
  7. Place the bread on the middle rack of the oven and half fill the roasting pan with hot water, closing the oven door immediately. Bake 35 to 40 minutes, or until the crust is crispy and the bottom sounds hollow when tapped. For an extra crispy bottom crust, slide the loaf off the baking tray directly onto the rack for the last five or ten minutes of baking.
  8. Allow bread to cool completely on a cooling rack before slicing or serving. Serve with salted butter, eat with a goats’ cheese salad, make into sandwiches or spread with black olive tapenade. Let me know your chosen uses and accompaniments, please – we’ll need lots of ways to eat lots of loaves of this beetroot bread 🙂
Our Beet Bread dough has risen and we've slashed an X into the top
Our Beet Bread dough has risen and we’ve slashed an X into the top
Here's our beautifully baked Beet Bread
Here’s our beautifully baked Beet Bread, fresh from the oven
Beet Bread slices up nicely to reveal a quirky pink colour all the way through
Beet Bread slices up nicely to reveal a quirky pink colour all the way through
ThermoHubby John ate three pieces of this luscious Beet Bread as soon as it had cooled - even though we had already eaten dinner!
ThermoHubby John ate three pieces of this luscious Beet Bread as soon as it had cooled – even though we had already eaten dinner!

Bon appétit !

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4 thoughts on “Pink and Earthy Beetroot Bread”

  • Hi Sonia, There’s such a time difference between Oz and France and I’m sorry that this reply will arrive with you after you’ve baked your Pink and Earthy Beetroot Bread. I’m pretty sure it turned out well for you, because bread dough is usually nice and cooperative, even if it has a bit too much moisture in it 😉 If it had a lot too much moisture in it, though, it will most likely have risen and then flopped down again to yield a dense, rather flat loaf.

    I love your idea of pureeing the beetroot with the milk and the water and then adding the yeast and heating the whole shebang to activate it. You’re a great step saver!

    As far as your zucchini goes, yes, zucchini is a very moisture-laden vegetable and it would had changed your dough substantially and perhaps produced the effects described above. Many recipes call for it to be grated, left to drain in a tea towel and then squeezed to remove the excess water. I love the idea of it, though, to soften the flavour for toddlers as well as adults who aren’t crazy about beetroot. As for how sticky the dough needed to be, that’s a tough one. I imagine it didn’t “need” to be sticky, it just comes out sticking to your fingers rather than a classic dough that’s easy to work with. You could always add even more flour to make it easier to work with, and you would end up with a bigger loaf with a less concentrated colour and flavour. And one that would perhaps rise better and stay risen.

    Next time you make this bread I’d suggest removing the excess moisture from the zucchini as above, and your dough will be more as you would expect.

    I do hope your Pink and Earthy Beetroot Bread came out acceptably at least, and that you’ll leave another comment to tell us how it went. This will help other readers in similar situations!

  • I only had 1 beetroot, so substituted with 1/2 zucchini, which I think may be a good thing to get my toddler to accept the not-as-strong beetroot taste. I ended up pureeing the beetroot with the milk and water, then adding the yeast and heating it all up to 37. Saves having to set it aside and the extra water was needed for a smoother puree. How sticky does it need to be? Mine was quite sticky even after adding 100g flour. I can’t imagine that the zucchini added much more moisture?

  • Yes, Nora, it’s absolutely amazing! I was especially impressed at how well it rose, and what a light, fluffy crumb it has. My bread is usually flat and dense because I don’t let it rise enough – too impatient! This loaf took off and rose much faster than we thought it would. I believe it was the combination of lovely fresh yeast and the sugar content of the beets themselves. The result is really good. Try it, you’ll like it!

  • Never heard of beetroot bread before but I trust you and thermohubby that it tastes great, very inventive indeed 🙂

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