The next recipe in the King Arthur Baking School book is called Tender Sweet Bread. The recipe makes two loaves, and once again I am trying two variations.
Mise en place:
I started by combining my dry ingredients …
… then added the butter and worked it in by hand. The recipe instructed that the butter should be worked into the flour until it was “evenly dispersed,” but did not recommend a method to achieve this, so I rubbed the butter into the flour in the same way I would for biscuits or a pie crust.
Finally, I added the wet ingredients and mixed the dough together.
I kneaded the dough for 4 minutes, then set it aside to rise for an hour.
Once the bulk fermentation was complete I divided the dough in half and pre-shaped it. One half was further divided into three logs for a braid. The other half stayed in one piece.
While the dough was resting I mixed up the poppy seed filling for the 2nd loaf with canned poppy seed filling, egg white, and orange zest. Prior to reading this recipe I didn’t even know that poppy seed filling existed! My local grocery store does carry it, but I had to go twice to find it. If you’re looking for canned poppy seed filling, look in the aisle with the canned pie fillings.
Once the dough had rested for 15 minutes I shaped it. The three logs were rolled out very long and thin and braided. I learned that rolling dough into a thin log works best when you only roll one direction (toward your body or away from your body) instead of rolling back and forth (toward and away from your body).
The other half of the dough was rolled out into a large rectangle (yay! I got to use my rolling pin!), spread with poppy seed filling, then rolled up like a cinnamon roll. Finally, I used a bread knife to cut the roll down the center and twisted the two halves together decoratively.
I left both loaves to finish proofing, which took about 30 minutes.
Before baking I mixed up an egg wash and brushed it over the plain braided loaf.
Then both loaves went into the oven. They both baked up beautifully in 30 minutes.
This bread is quite good. It is sweet, but not too sweet. I plan to make this bread again, but I will leave the vanilla out next time. I found the vanilla flavor to make this bread less of a multipurpose bread and more of a dessert. I do not want a sandwich with vanilla-flavored bread, for instance. The bread excels as French Toast, though!
We tried French Toast with both the plain bread and the poppy seed bread. The orange zest in the poppy seed bread was a bit strong for us in this application. Frankly, the orange zest was a bit much in the poppy seed bread for me overall. Lemon zest would have been better here. My husband made a lemon frosting to eat with this, which was divine.
Until the next time: may your yeast always rise and your flour never run out
A Baker's Education 