Recipes: Kūmara Rewena Bread

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Difficulty: Easy
Prep Time: Minimum 24 hours. The longer you feed your bug the better it will taste.

Kūmara Bug

• 150g Large Kūmara, peeled and diced
• 150g Hi-Grade Flour
• 20g Sugar
• 2g Dry Active Yeast

Kūmara Bug Food

• 100ml Warm Water
• 5g Sugar
• 100g Hi-Grade Flour

1. Place the peeled and diced kūmara in a medium sized saucepan along with just enough cold water to cover the kūmara. Put the saucepan on the stovetop and bring up to a boil. Cook until soft, approximately 10-15 minutes. Then leave to cool to room temperature.
2. Add sugar, flour and yeast to the cooked kūmara and mix together. This is your bug for the dough. Place the mixture in a large container and cover with a lid. The bug will need to be fed every 1-2 days using the Kūmara Bug Food recipe above. The longer a bug is left to ferment the better, at least a week.

Kūmara Rewena Loaf

Makes 2 Large Bread Loaves
Difficulty: Medium
Prep Time: 3 hours (Sometimes more in cooler temperatures)

This recipe is easiest if you use a Stand Mixer with a dough hook attachment, otherwise you will need to knead the dough by hand which is a bit harder but a great workout!

• 5g Dry Active Yeast
• 240ml Water
• 285g Kūmara Bug
• 100g Kūmara - Peeled, cooked, diced
• 10g Dried Rosemary
• 43g Honey
• 540g Hi-Grade Flour
• 15g Iodised Salt

1. Combine the yeast, water, kūmara bug, cooked kūmara, dried rosemary and honey in a bowl. Mix well and set aside for approximately 5 minutes to allow the yeast to activate.
2. Combine the hi-grade flour and iodised salt in the bowl of the stand mixer.
3. Add the kūmara-yeast mixture to the flour and salt. Attach a dough hook to the stand mixer and begin mixing at speed 2 for 5 minutes then increase the speed level 5 and leave to mix for a further 5 minutes. The dough should pull away from the sides of the bowl and be smooth and elastic. (If you don’t have a stand mixer, combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix until it is just starting to come together. Once it has just started to come together, remove dough from bowl and place on a kitchen bench then knead by handing for 10 minutes.)
4. Lightly spray a bowl with cooking oil and place kneaded/mixed dough inside the bowl. Wrap tightly with plastic wrap and leave to proof at room temperature for approximately 1 hour.
5. Once the dough is proofed, remove it from the bowl and shape into a loaf then place in a lightly oiled loaf pan. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and leave to proof until again until it’s doubled in size.
6. When the dough is almost fully proofed, preheat your oven to 190°C.
7. Remove plastic wrap from your fully proofed dough. Place loaf pan on a tray and place in the middle of the oven. Bake for approximately 20-25 minutes or until golden brown and the loaf sounds hollow when tapped.
8. Take out of the oven and immediately remove bread from the loaf pan and cool on a wire rack.