On this second day of Christmas I would like to share with you my humble beginnings at bread making.
Adding beautiful ingredients to a bread loaf is a great way to dial things up a few notches. For our Christmas Eve feast, I decided to make a version of a garlic, olive, spinach loaf I made last time we had company for dinner. Being out of spinach and only having about 6 olives, but with lots of other yummy stuff on hand, I decided to be creative and wing it. Some of the ingredients I used were Feta and Romano cheese, olives, garlic, shallot, sun-dried tomatoes, a small bit of fresh parsley. I am so looking forward to it : )
Classic bread loaf
1 pkg of active dry yeast
3/4 cup warm water
Pour warm water into yeast and let stand for five minutes.
1/2 cup milk
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon salt
Place ingredients in a saucepan and heat over medium heat until just warm. Mix milk mixture into yeast mixture.
2 1/2 cups of flour
Add flour to wet ingredients and combine. Place dough in a large bowl sprayed with cooking spray and cover with plastic wrap that has also been sprayed to avoid it sticking to the dough. Place into the frig and let it chill overnight.
The next day, remove the dough from the frig and set it out on a well floured surface, cover loosely with greased plastic wrap and allow to rest there for thirty minutes.
Grease a baking sheet and sprinkle it with cornmeal, shape your dough into an oval shape and place it on the baking sheet, let it rest in a warm place for about an hour or so to allow it time to almost double in size.
Mix a small amount of water with a beaten egg and brush over the entire loaf before baking.
Bake in a preheated oven set at 400 degrees for 25-30 minutes.
To bump things up a bit in a regular loaf of bread, I add fun ingredients.
This time I added...
2-3 large cloves of sliced garlic
4 chopped sun dried tomatoes
6 sliced kalamata olives
1 sliced medium shallot
3/4-1 cup crumbled feta cheese
small handful of chopped fresh parsley
I mix them into the warm milk mixture before adding it to the yeast mixture, then continue following classic bread loaf directions.
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| After the dough has sat overnight, turn it out on to a floured surface, cover, and let rest for thirty minutes. |
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| Looks yummy |
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| After allowing it to rise, shape dough into an oval shape. Brush with an egg wash (beaten egg with a splash of water). |
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| Bake to a golden brown |
Delicious!
I need a name for this bread, I was calling it my kitchen sink loaf : )
My first baking of this loaf found me putting these ingredients in...
Olive Garlic Loaf
Spinach
Garlic
Feta Cheese
Kalamata olives
Parmesan Cheese
It was delicious...
Original recipe and directions for the Classic Bread Loaf, and the Olive Garlic Loaf can be found in the Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publications, Holiday Recipes - 2011, Pg 93.