Getting in the Valentine’s Day spirit early with a swirly pink loaf. # 208: Raspberry Swirl Bread

I spy, with my little eye, a heart-shaped rock that’s thrilled to finally make it into one of my photoshoots. It’ll be signing autographs from 1-3pm.

I discovered this year that I have an unofficial Valentine’s tradition: make heart-shaped macarons and then promptly eat all of them when they turn out unevenly. For the past three years in the first week of February, I’ve attempted to make pink macarons with some sort of chocolate filling. (Shout out to my 5-year journal for highlighting this pattern!)

This year I made an Earl Grey tea-infused chocolate ganache that knocked my socks off, but the shells were still lumpy and just vaguely heart-shaped. If I ever manage to get them right, I’ll do a post about them! Scout’s honor.

Lots of things to celebrate the shortest month of the year:

• More sunlight! The sun sets after 5:30 now and I’m living for my post-work walks.
• Black History Month – check out this article from Roxanne Jones to kick off your February.
• Galentine’s / Valentine’s Days – I’m ready for some cheesy rom coms, chocolate and over-using heart emojis. Bring it on!

I’ve had this bread recipe bookmarked for awhile, from Mei Yee’s Instagram (@nm_meiyee). Her version uses butterfly pea flower and it’s pastel blue swirls are mesmerizing! I substituted freeze-dried raspberries in place of the butterfly pea flower powder since I had them on hand. My dough also over-proofed a lil bit so it didn’t soar to the lovely heights that her loaf did. Letting your dough proof for too long allows all the precious bubbles it’s built up to pop, leaving you with a shorter, squatter loaf. BUT it still tastes delicious!

You could also use beet powder for a bright pink color, but you’d have to be down with a more earthy, savory flavor.

I couldn’t bring myself to use vegan butter like her recipe calls for, but I did make my own condensed coconut milk. All you need to do is add a little honey to some coconut milk and boil it until it’s half the volume it was when it started. Voila! The slight coconut flavor goes really well with the raspberry swirl.

It’s an enriched yeast dough with no eggs and only a small amount of butter. The texture once baked is similar to a brioche, but this one only had to rise for two hours total. Magic cheater brioche!

*In your best Dory voice* Just keep kneading, just keep kneading . . .

Ta-da! Smooth and ready for a nap.

No dough was hurt in the making of this blog post.

Ready to roll.

It’s a super soft dough, but surprisingly didn’t need any flour on the board! I know it feels crazy, but it won’t stick, I promise.

My Little Loaf The Could didn’t rise to the heights that it should have, but the internal temperature was 190F and the bottom was nicely browned so I pulled it out anyway.

Happy munching!

Recipe mostly from: Mie Yee’s Instagram @nm_mieyee