Piña colada bread recipe

Details

• Cuisine: British
• Recipe Type: Bread
• Difficulty: Easy
• Preparation Time: 25 mins
• Cooking Time: 60 mins
• Serves: 16

Step-by-step

1. First activate your yeast and give it a little warm bath to encourage it into life. Don’t make it too hot, though. The optimum temperature is somewhere around 40°C/104°F, or just comfortably warm. Too hot and you’ll kill off the yeast which means your bread will sulk and refuse to rise. Pop it into a small cup with 50ml/1.6floz of warm water, and leave it for a few minutes to start to bubble and grow.
2. In the meantime, blitz the pineapple chunks and coconut milk in a blender. This step is not strictly essential: if you don’t have a blender, you can use the pineapple chunks whole. It makes for a different result but still a deliciously pleasant one.
3. However you use it, tip the coconut milk and pineapple into a large mixing bowl.
4. Add half the flour and the warm yeast mixture. Mix swiftly but firmly to form a batter.
5. Gradually incorporate the remaining flour into the mixture, a large heaped spoonful at a time, until a dough is formed. A non-serrated butter knife is the best implement to bring a dough together, as it doesn’t stick awkwardly to any edges. If you don’t have one, the well-oiled handle of a clean wooden spoon works just as well.
6. When you have a soft, squashy dough, heavily flour your worktop and tip the dough carefully onto it. Knead it for around 5 minutes, pushing it away from you with the palm of your hand, then folding it in half, giving it a quarter turn, and repeating, getting faster as you gain a little confidence with it. You should feel a change in the texture of the dough as you knead it. It will become springy and slightly buoyant to touch – this is when you need to stop and leave it alone. 
7. Scoop it back into the mixing bowl and cover with cling film or a loose plastic bag with the handles tucked beneath the bowl so no air can escape and dry out the dough.
8. Leave it to rise for 2 hours in a warm place, or 3 in a not-so-warm one. If your kitchen is generally cold, wrap the base of the bowl in a thick towel or fluffy dressing gown to snuggle it and get it going.
9. When risen, the dough should be doubled in size. Shape it into a round or a log, pop it on a greased baking tray or into a large, greased cake tin (a 1-litre/34floz bundt tin or 900g/2lb loaf tin would be great). Leave it for another hour to prove – that’s a second rise.
10.  Preheat your oven to 170°C/320°F/gas mark 3 about 10 minutes before the proving hour is up, and make sure there is a shelf positioned just below the middle of the oven.
11.  Pop the bread in for 1 hour, until risen and golden. Remove from the tray or tip out of the tin and allow to cool on a wire rack.
12.  Enjoy warm or cool. Store leftovers in an airtight bag or container for up to 3 days, or in the freezer, in slices, for up to 6 months.

This recipe is from Tin Can Cook by Jack Monroe. Published by Bluebird, £6.99. Photography by Jack Monroe.