How to easily make Agege Bread at home

With this simple steps, you can now easily make your own delicious Agege Bread at the comfort of your home.

Yes!

INGREDIENTS FOR AGEGE BREAD

550g (3.6cups) strong bread flour

3 and 1/8 teaspoon (8.8g) active dry yeast

1 and 1/8 teaspoon (6.4g) salt

4 tablespoon sunflower oil

70g (1/3 cup) sugar

150ml milk

80ml lukewarm water

200g tangzhong (Find below how to make tangzhong)

How to make tangzhong:

50g (1/3 cup) bread flour

250ml (1 cup) water

Mix flour in water and stir well so you don’t have any lump. Cook on medium-low heat, stir consistently with a spoon or whisk to prevent the mixture from burning and sticking while you cook it.

The mixture will become thicker and thicker. Once you notice lines start to appear in the mixture for every stir you make with the spoon the tangzhong is ready or if you have a thermometer use it to check the temperature. Once it’s 65degrees it’s done. Remove it from heat.

Pour this mixture into a bowl and cover with a cling film sticking onto the tangzhong. Leave to cool to room temperature.

HOW TO MAKE AGEGE BREAD (NIGERIAN BREAD)

In a mixing bowl mix the flour, salt and sugar.

In a different bowl put the water, 1 teaspoon of sugar and yeast and whisk. Leave the mixture for 5-10 minutes till the yeast foams.

Activated yeast
Activated yeast
In another bowl, whisk together the milk, tangzhong(all) and sunflower oil.

Make a well in the center of the flour and add in the yeast mixture and milk mixture. Mix and knead until the dough comes together. Keep kneading until the dough is smooth.

Note: The dough will be wet and sticky at first but when you knead and knead well it becomes elastic. Work that arm????

It should not be too sticky on the surface. I kneaded the dough for about 50 minutes by hand. Trust me you want the strongest person in your household for this task.

If you’re fortunate to have a mixer , use the dough hook and knead with it or a food processor that has that function. This will take about 15-20 minutes. Rest the processor at intervals.

You need a floured surface because the dough will be wet and sticky at first.

When the dough is ready, you should be able to take a piece of it and stretch it to a very thin membrane before it breaks and the break should be from a circle (Window pane test).

FIRST PROOFING AGEGE BREAD

Knead the dough into a ball shape. Grease a bowl with oil, place dough into the greased bowl and cover with a wet towel. Leave the dough till it’s doubled in size. This takes about 50 minutes.

Punch down the dough and put onto a flat floured surface and divide into 5 portions. Knead into balls. Cover with cling film and let it rest for 10
minutes.

Shape and place each of the rolls into greased bread pan, cover with the wet towel and let them rise until double the size. This will take approximately another 50 minutes.

Bake bread in pre heated oven and bake at 180 degrees Centigrade (370F) for 30 minutes. Preheat for 5 minutes. After the 1st 15minutes baste the bread with egg for a shiny glaze. You can skip this part if you wish.
Check the pictures below, the loaf on the right wasn’t basted.

That’s the bread done. The look, the smell, the texture and taste is definitely Agege bread like!

Take bread out of the pan and put on a cooling rack to cool.

Unlike many homemade breads this bread remains soft and fluffy for days not just when it’s out of the oven! Follow the measurements very carefully and follow the recipe and you can even open Agege bread bakery in your house..