happy tuesday morning, and here's the latest bread from the peter reinhart bread baker's apprentice challenge. this bread is a very close relative of challah - one braided finish loaf with 2 entire eggs in the dough and a finish taste very similar to the jewish sabbath bread we baked earlier. but there are few technicalities in baking this bread that should be noted (for interest and baking ease). first off, something that clicked for me on this recipe is the significance of baker's percentages. flour in a recipe is always 100% and all other ingredients are compared to it by a percentage - i.e. french bread has yeast, salt, and water, and different bakers can compare french bread recipes by their water percentage as a total volume compared to flour weight. i have been aware, and sought after, rich, or enriched breads for our friday and saturday morning breakfasts, but i hadn't been using baker's %s to make the comparisons. this recipe has 13.5 oz. flour, and 12 oz. dried fruit (we subbed apricots from china for the walnuts). that's what, 90% fruit or more? and, wow, did the finished bread show that super high fruit content. rich, and like eating two food groups in one. as a result, the final loaf was rather difficult to shape, as in making three strands for the braid, it is impossible to surround all the fruit in dough, and fruit on the outside of a loaf burns. so as i put the braid on the baking sheet, i was stuffing cranberries that were popping off into the middle of the braid!
our final opinion is that this bread is even better toasted and eaten with butter. its richness and complexity of flavor has grown over a few days. fantastic bread...
Entered on 07.28.2009 at 8:58
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