Jujube Bread

I'm a big fan of Samhwa Hanyan's Yuzu/Yuja tea (Honey Citron) and Ume Honey tea (Honey Plum) so I was keen to try their version of Korea's celebrated Jujube tea.

It was good, but I guess I like my hot sweet drinks to have more of a sour taste. I also don't much like the texture of jujube as part of a beverage, they're a little too fibrous for me. This meant that I've had a jar of this in my fridge for weeks.

I decided to make a bread recipe from an Anna Thomas book and see if it could be adapted for the bread machine. The oat bread with maple syrup recipe looked good, but the stumbling block was realising that I didn't have enough maple syrup. I decided to use the jujube tea jam instead.

For a small to medium sized loaf in a basic bread machine, here's the adapted recipe:

Oat and Jujube Bread

500 ml (8 fl oz) water
125 ml (4 fl oz) milk
70 g (2&1/4 oz) rolled oats
1/2 packet dried yeast
40 ml (2 oz) Jujube 'jam'
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon butter
215 g (15 oz) white bread flour
215 g (15 oz) wholemeal bread flour

Heat the water and milk together until hot enough to scald you (70C - 180F?) then pour over the rolled oats in the bread bin. Leave for about an hour (at least until tepid).
Start the bread machine so that it starts stirring and add the yeast, jujube jam, salt, butter and finally the white flour (only). Once the mixture looks like a thick batter turn off the bread machine completely and leave the mixture to rise for an hour (hopefully the machine will have reset itself).

After an hour, select the basic bread setting with light crust and turn the machine on again. With the paddle turning, add about 60 g (2 oz) of the wholemeal flour at a time. Keep adding flour but ensure the dough remains a little sticky. If you are unsure, check your bread maker manual to see the recommended consistency for bread dough - you don't want to veer too far from that. (I needed to add a touch more flour to mine and sprinkled a few extra tablespoons of the white flour).

That's it.

A few hours later and the most gorgeous aroma filled the house. The result was delicious and the Jujube flavour shone through (sort of like a cross between maple syrup and dates).

Jujube jam is obviously sweeter than maple syrup, so the result has been a rather sweet loaf. If you don't have a sweet tooth, you might like to reduce the amount of jujube jam by about a third.