Panda Bread (kinda sorta)

Not every cooking adventure can be perfect. I accept this; I have had to, because bread in the microwave is not the easiest thing to figure out.

My friend asked if I could figure out a way to make Panda Bread, which she found at Perfect Pandas, in the microwave. She says that "i want pandas in college." I figured, I've made cake, so why not try bread. It was not a failed recipe...but...it could use tweaking.

First step was changing the ingredients from grams to measurements the average ones of us could understand. Thank you, WikiAnswers. I've listed the exact measurements I used, suggestions for previously mentioned tweaking in italics.

• You will need a microwaveable circular container, if not circular some parts will cook more than others.
  
• 1 egg yolk then fill up with milk to 7/8 a cup
• 4 teaspoons melted butter, brought back to room temperature.
  
• 1.5 teaspoons yeast
• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup cake flour
• 2.5 tablespoons sugar I would add more sugar, maybe even double it.
  
• 1 teaspoons salt
• 3.25 teaspoons Matcha powder mixed in 2 teaspoons boiling water I would increase the amount of Matcha (and proportionally the water), because the flavor in my bread was like a tease; flirtatious but nothing happened.
• 3.25 teaspoons cocoa powder mixed in 4 teaspoons boiling water I would increase the cocoa powder for the same reasons. Silly coquette flavors.
  

Beat the yolk with the milk, then microwave on high 30 seconds. Let cool to a warm temperature, closer to room temperature than anything. Add the yeast, mix it in and let it sit for a few minutes. Mix in the melted butter. Pour the mixture over the flours, sugar, and salt and knead together. Take out half of the dough and knead in the Matcha paste. Take out a quarter of the remaining dough and knead in the cocoa paste.

Now, here comes the tricky part: proofing. I didn't quite proof correctly, so when I baked my bread went from fitting perfectly to that fun image on the right. I would go by this recipe from allrecipes.com, where every 10 minutes you microwave on 50% intensity for a minute until the dough rises to about twice it's size.
Moral of the story? Proofing is important.

Alright, so your dough is all proofed, lovely and full of flavor. Now, you can arrange your different doughs. We'll just rely on the original images for that.

Baking is not so complicated. That same recipe says to bake for 10 minutes, but after about 4-6 minutes you want to keep a close eye on it because it can dry out quickly. Trust me.

All and all it's not bad, and really cute. Oh, also pretty good with milk. I'll take my drier pieces and make french toast tomorrow probably.

omnom!