Creative Champion Whole Grain Bread Fruit Filling Makes It More Delicious

In order to encourage the public to eat more whole-grain bread, which is richer in fiber than ordinary pastries, the Tung Foundation held the "Whole-Grain Bread Master PK Competition" for the first time, and the results were announced this afternoon. The chief judge said that the contestants racked their brains to overcome the shortcomings of whole-grain bread, such as being too hard and difficult to make, and made good use of seasonal fruits such as mangoes and bananas, and reduced the content of oil, sugar and salt, to bake whole-grain bread that is healthy and delicious, which greatly subverted the stereotype of whole-grain bread. (Video/Photographer Huang Zhiwen)

Yang Zhiwei, the baking master of "Xiangyangfang", incorporates mangoes and bananas into the production process of whole-grain bread to make the bread taste richer. (Photography by Huang Zhiwen)

Making delicious whole-grain bread that meets the 51% ratio is a big challenge for bakers. Shi Kunhe, deputy director of the Chinese Cereal Food Industry Technology Research Institute, who served as the chief judge of the "Whole Grain Bread Master PK Competition", said that Chinese people prefer soft bread with fillings, but bread with a high proportion of whole grains has poor gluten, the dough is not easy to expand, and the taste is relatively dry and hard; the bran in whole wheat flour or whole rye flour has an unpleasant odor that ordinary people cannot accept; and adding fillings such as red beans, sesame seeds, and milk crisps will not only lower the proportion of whole grains, but the oil and sugar content may also be higher.

In order to improve the taste of bread and increase the proportion of whole grains, the participants put a lot of effort into research and development, eliminating the unpleasant smell of bran, and cleverly using fruits to replace beans, walnuts, sesame seeds and other ingredients as fillings, creating delicious whole-grain bread with their skillful hands.

Yang Zhiwei, the gold medal-winning baker of "Xiang Yang Fang", just won the championship in the soft European bread category of the "2012 California Raisin & California Yogurt Baking Competition" at the end of February this year. This time he challenged himself again and successfully incorporated the rich flavor of mango and the mellow taste of banana into the production of whole-grain bread, completing the "Whole-Grain Caramel Mango Bread".

Yang Zhiwei said that in the process of making whole-grain bread, if the amount of whole grains is to be increased, the moisture content of the dough will decrease, causing the bread to taste hard. It was not until many attempts that the appropriate ratio of grape bacteria to water was found. After soaking the whole-wheat flour overnight, it not only increases the moisture content and improves the taste during the fermentation process of the dough, but also increases the flavor and aroma of the bread.

In addition, in order to make the taste of mango and banana reach a harmonious state with bread, Yang Zhiwei spent about a month on repeated research. He soaked the dried mango in specially prepared sugar water to dilute the original sweetness and heavy aroma, and abandoned fresh bananas and used dried bananas instead to enhance the taste. The last one, the "Whole Grain Caramel Mango Bread", first has the aroma of mango, then the aftertaste of banana wafts out, plus the original whole grain bread flavor, the taste is quite rich.

Chef Zhang Shibin from Weizhen Cake, which won the silver medal for its "Whole Wheat Taiwanese Mango Bread," believes that the most difficult part of bread making is "mixing," as over-mixing can easily damage the gluten and lead to failure. It was not until he tried many times that he finally discovered the secret, which is that the mixing speed should be "slow" at the beginning.