Thursday 13 - Bread

13 breads I either have made or would like to make - All from the basic Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day Method.

1. Of course, I started with the basic recipe and the basic Boule shape. The method took a bit of getting used to but I got there in the end.
   
   
2. The next thing I did was play with different shapes, so I made French sticks and used a linen lined bowl as a batard as well as using loaf tins.
   
3. Soon I started playing around with adding things to the basic loaf, when shaping. This is usually done by rolling out the dough after cloaking, spreading with your added items, then rolling up like a swiss roll and tucking the ends in underneath to get back to a more or less loaf shape.
   
   In this way I have made bread with chopped olives, sundried tomatoes and parmesan, pesto and parmesan, tapenade, and a mango chutney one. We weren't keen on the mango chutney one and the favourites so far seem to be the sun dried tomato one and the pesto one.
   
4. Then I started playing around with the flat breads. It took me a few attempts to get the pitta breads right, I think I was rolling them out too thickly, but in the end I worked it out.
   
   
   
5. Next I started playing around with the enriched doughs. I made a batch of the Bricoche dough and made Cinnamon Swirl Brioche loaves as well as Beignets, or odd shaped doughnuts as they are known in my house.
   
   
   
   
6. Then I made Challah Dough and of course made a challah loaf. I feel there was much more definition in the braid before baking than after, but it tasted fantastic and went down really well with our friends.
   
   
   
   
   
7. Also from the Challah dough I made pletzel, that stuff is DELICIOUS and has to be my favourite so far.
   
   
   
8. My final attempts with the enriched breads has been to make a batch of the chocolate bread dough. Somehow I don't think I mixed everything quite well enough because when used to make a loaf of bread patches of the bread tasted fantastic and patches weren't so good. More mixing next time! BUT it did make awesome chocolate beignets.
   
9. Back to un-enrinched doughs and the most common dough I mix up these days is a batch of the peasant bread. That uses mainly white flour still but part rye flour and part plain wholemeal. I do all those things I mentioned up in point number 2, with this dough and they come out great.
   
10. That only leaves 4 points for beads I still want to make with this method, so I had better choose my absolute favourites that I want to attempt. hmmmm........
    I REALLY want to try the apple and pear coffee cake made with Brioche dough, it looks fantastic.
    
11. Some time if we have guests stay over I'd love to try the breakfast Pizza recipe.
    
12. The fresh picked strawberry Danish looks amazing and just the thought of it makes me feel summery.
    
13. And i really would like to try the lemon poppy seed mini Brioches. In fact, I might even have a go at that over the next day or two.
    
    

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