| BBA Challenge #11 & 12 | | Print | |
| Monday, 27 July 2009 12:26 |
 I am going to post two weeks bread challenges in one because if everything goes as planned I hope to be sitting by the sea next week and writing about bread will be the last thing on my mind. The first of these two breads is called Cranberry-Walnut Celebration Bread and although this is the type of bread I normally would only make for the Christmas holidays, I found myself making it in the heat of the summer. Finding dried cranberries is not such an easy task in Italy, so I decided before I even started on this bread that my version would include dried apricots in place of the cranberries.
As usual, while working on my celebration bread, I had a number of other projects on the go at the same time so I lost track of my proofing time and in fact my bread over-proofed. It seems since my kitchen is so warm that the first rise took much less time than the suggested 2 hours, and once braided and left to rise for the second time, it had doubled in less than an hour. The result was that instead of rising and puffing up while baking, my bread spread and seemed to flatten. The finished bread, although not as pretty as it should have been certainly tasted just fine. Luckily I was more successful with the English muffins which I made along with the celebration bread. I used my stand mixer to both mix and knead both doughs as it was simply too warm to be doing a lot of kneading by hand. The English muffin dough also rose much quicker than suggested in the book, but after my experience with the first bread I kept a closer eye on it. The dough was divided into six equal pieces, shaped into small boules, and left to rise again. The muffins are first grilled on the stove top before being placed in the oven to complete baking. I did notice that the first three muffins I put into my grill pan did not flatten out as expected, so I used my spatula on the second batch to gently flatten them a bit. Although I am normally not a huge fan of English muffins, it was nice to see how easy they were to make. I have yet to ever see an English muffin here in Italy, so if I ever get a craving for them I will know I can simply bake up a batch myself!  My Somewhat Flattened Apricot Walnut Celebration Bread  I Was More Successful With The English Muffins For those who haven't read my earlier post about the BBA Challenge, this group has taken on the challenge of baking every bread in this great book written by Peter Reinhart on a schedule of about one bread per week. I will post the schedule I am following and invite any IFF readers to join me as we develop our bread baking skills. We have decided that we will bake the 43 main bread recipes in the book, not taking on all the many variations of each. You can join me at any time during this challenge, the only requirement being that you have your own copy of the book as I cannot share recipes from the book as it would in fact be copyright infringement. Here are the upcoming breads listed in order that I will be baking in the upcoming weeks if you want to bake along with me. Focaccia French Bread Italian Bread Kaiser Rolls Deborah Mele July 27th, 2009  To order this book simply click on the photo below!
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Looking at your apricot walnut bread has made me hunger for those loaves again. I think the fennel bread was made with a different dough -- ever seen such a thing and any thoughts on the sort of recipe it might have been?
One thing I'd love to see on your page is the photo of one of your breads once cut into (either a slice or cross section view so that we can see the inside of the English muffin or apricot walnut bread).
Hope you're enjoying your vacation.
Have fun on your SEA vacation.
Hey, I think if you place your comment section up higher you would get more responses. :) I almost forget to scroll way down. :)
Have fun,
Susie