The Clitoria Ternatea (commonly known as Asian Pigeon Wings, Blue Bell Vine, Blue Pea, Cordofan Pea and Darwin pea, ‘Butterfly Pea’) is named as such as the flower has the shape of the human female genital. According to research, many benefits can be derived from this flower. Just Google and you can read about these benefits.
The flower is used as a natural food colouring, for example, it is used to colour glutinuous rice to make pulut tai tai and nyonya chang. It is also used to colour the rice to make nasi kerabu. Another way of using these edible flowers is to dip them in batter and fried. Besides these, the blue pea is also used in making desserts such as acar-acar. And nowadays, due to the many benefits that can be derived from the flower, it is common to find them being made into tea.
I have experimented with them and used them to make my soft and fluffy bread.
I used the Sponge and Main Dough Method to make this bread. The ingredients are as follows: (Note that the moisture content for flours bought from different shops varies. Thus, you have to feel the dough during mixing to ensure that it is not too wet or too dry.)
Sponge Dough:
- 1 tsp yeast
- 1 tbsp warm water
- 210 g bread flour or high protein flour
- 1 tsp sugar
- 110 ml blue pea water (I used 50 dried flowers to make 130 ml of water to get a pastel shade. Keep 20 ml for Main Dough.)
Main Dough:
- 60 g plain flour
- 30 g bread flour or high protein flour
- 1/2 tsp yeast
- 10 g milk powder
- 20 ml blue pea water
- 55 g sugar
- 5 g salt
- 1/2 egg (Grade B) or 27 g
- 30 g butter
Method:
- For the sponge dough, mix instant yeast and warm water and set aside for 10 minutes. Then pour the yeast mixture into the mixing bowl.
- Add the remaining ingredients and knead to form a dough.
- Cover with cling wrap and let it proof for 1 hour or double in size.
- Add the sugar, salt and egg from the main dough ingredients.
- Mix until they are well blended.
- Then add flours, yeast, milk powder and blue pea water.
- Mix all ingredients till well blended. Knead to form a dough.
- Add the butter and knead to form a smooth and elastic dough (window-pane stage).
- Remove the dough from the mixing bowl onto a slightly floured dough mat. (I apply a thin layer of oil instead.)
- Slightly flour the rolling pin. (I oiled the rolling pin.)
- Roll out the dough into long rectangle. Then fold into 3. Do this 6 times.
- After the 6 roll-outs, cut the dough into 3 pieces of equal weight.
- Grease a loaf pan (8 in x 4 in x 4 in). (I greased and lined the pan with parchment paper.)
- Shape the (3) pieces of dough to fit into the pan side by side.
- Cover the pan with cling wrap and let the dough proof for an hour or until it doubles in size.
- Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 deg C for 25-30 minutes.
- Remove the bread from pan immediately when it is baked.
- Let it cool completely on a metal rack before cutting.