Name: Eggless leopard print bread
Yield: 4 Servings
Ingredients: All purpose flour: 3 cups; Instant yeast: 2 1/4 tsp; Warm milk: 3/4 cup; Warm water: 1/4 cup; Salt: 1 tsp; Sugar: 1/4 cup; Oil: 2 tbsp; Milk: 1 tbsp; Unsweetened cocoa powder: 1 1/2 tbsp; Milk: 1 1/2 tbsp; Unsweetened cocoa powder: 4 tbsp; Milk: 3 tbsp

Ingredients

3 cups All purpose flour

2 1/4 tsp Instant yeast

3/4 cup Warm milk

1/4 cup Warm water

or a little more if necessary

1 tsp Salt

1/4 cup Sugar

2 tbsp Oil

1 tbsp Milk

for brushing on the loaf

FOR THE LIGHT BROWN DOUGH

1 1/2 tbsp Unsweetened cocoa powder

1 1/2 tbsp Milk

FOR THE DARK BROWN DOUGH

4 tbsp Unsweetened cocoa powder

3 tbsp Milk

Directions

Leopard print bread is one those few breads which are visually very appealing. The subtle colour between the the light brown and dark brown makes the whole bread look very beautiful.

leopard print bread

Leopard Print Bread

If you love bread and if you like the flavour of chocolate in your bread then this bread is for you. This bread uses small quantities of cocoa to get the leopard patches. Hence this bread can be said to be a sweet bread too. I guess a very creative baker came up with this design in bread making. Though making this bread looks very complicated, it is quite easy with the alternate use of cocoa patches strategically placed to get that leopard print patch look.

I have used small quantities for the dark coloured patch. You can choose to use the food colour to get even more dark blackish colour. As much as possible, I avoid artificial food colours, hence I have changed the quantities of cocoa in both patches to get different shades of brown. Now as I write this post, I can imagine the many variations you can do with this bread dough and this technique. I shall leave it to your imagination to come up with yet another creative bread. I have book marked this recipe from Mayuri.

Steps

1 Done	Mix the cocoa and milk for both the light and dark brown dough seperately and keep aside
2 Done	Mix the flour, sugar, salt, yeast in the bowl of the stand mixer. Switch it on to the minimum speed and start mixing adding the milk , water and oil. When it is all mixed, run the stand mixer in first speed for 7 minutes to get a pliable dough.
3 Done	Divide this dough into 2 equal parts. Transfer one part of the dough to a well oiled bowl, cover and let it rise for an hour
4 Done	Now take the other part of the dough and divide it unequally. The light coloured dough should be a little lesser in quantity than the dark coloured dough. Add the respective cocoa mixtures. Knead well and let it rest in a well oiled bowl to double in size for nealry an hour
5 Done	Now pinch balls from the dough as shown.. The number of balls being equal to get a nice symmetric print
6 Done	Now roll each ball into ropes as shown
7 Done	Take a dark brown ball. Flatten it into a rectangle so that it is enough to cover a light brown rope as shown.
8 Done	Now take a white rope and flatten it into a larger rectangle so it it can cover the dark brown rope just made
9 Done	Make all the ropes in the same fashion and place it in a prepared bread mould randomly one on another and on sides too. Do not worry about the gap in between the ropes as the dough will rise now for the second rise
10 Done	Keep this cover in a warm place for another 1 hour
11 Done	Preheat the oven to 190 C
12 Done	Brush the risen dough with the milk, bake for 30 -35 minutes or till the bread sounds hollow
13 Done	Transfer the bread to a cooling rack
14 Done	When completely cooled, slice and serve with nutella

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8 Comments Hide Comments

great looking bread Veena. I want to try my hand on these, but the fear of not having those distinguishing colours eludes me ..

Beautiful bread ! All light and dark colours are showing up very well . The pattern also is perfect and the flavour naturally being chocolate would be awesome . Maybe one fine day I shall try my hands on this bread .

Fantastic bread Veena and so good you have the instructions captured too..

I had tried this sometime back and thanks to my impatience, I ended up with a marble loaf rather than a leopard loaf… hehe… looking at the pics, I am thinking if I should make them one more time, with loads of patience… it looks really good….