It's All Greek to Me

I tackled the "Greek Celebration Bread" this weekend and am ready to report my results.

Approach Taken:

My palate is pretty simple, and I'm not a big fan of dried fruits, so I stuck with the simplest of options when making this bread. I opted to use the poolish and I made the simple Greek Celebration Bread without attempting any of the more complex or fruit variations.

Observations:

I made my poolish (simple and easy) the day before and let it sit out to ferment. The book says 3-4 hours, but mine was out much longer as we went out in the afternoon and I didn't get to put it in the fridge til much later in the evening.

For my citrus flavoring, I opted to zest a lemon - I didn't have any orange or lemon extract and one .50c lemon was way cheaper than a $6 or $7 bottle of extract.

When mixing my dry ingredients and adding my poolish - I once again blew up my kitchen. Flour flew everywhere and curses were uttered. Not appropriate, I know, but I beg forgiveness, especially since the Redskins were playing while I was attempt to bake.

I tried to augment the batter by adding more flour, but have no idea how much I lost. I was going for the "soft, but not sticky" ball, but I fear my dough fell on the sticky side. Even after 12 min. of kneading in the mixer, my dough ball was very tacky. Tried the windowpane test and failed again. I got closer, but it didn't seem windowperfect. None-the-less, I soldiered on.

After reading RW's post, I got bold and made some deviations. Instead of one giant loaf, I decided to make 3 smaller boules. I wasn't sure about the glaze, so I halved the recipe and only glazed one of the boules.

I'm not sure my boules doubled in size before I put them in the oven, but I was ready to bake and threw them in. They definitely took less time since they were smaller. After the initial 20 minutes, I think they only baked another 10 or so (maybe 15?). Here's how it turned out:

The glaze certainly adds visual appeal

The two I didn't glaze

A view of the inside

Outcome and Lessons Learned:

#1 - My bread turned out looking nice, but I agree with RW, the glaze didn't do much for me. I glazed one mini-boule, but only seeded half of it.

#2 - The combo of spices sounded and smelled appealing, but wasn't a big hit with either hubby or I. He reported he doesn't like allspice (or cloves ... or nutmeg - who knew?), so he wasn't wowed by the flavor, though he did give his approval to the texture. I kinda agree. The spices were okay, but didn't blow me away and I'm not sure what sort of meal I would serve this bread with/for - the sweetness seems to say it is more of a dessert bread, but it wouldn't be my first choice. The texture of the bread did turn out pretty well.

#3 - In the future, make sure you use the $#@!$% pouring shield when adding a bunch of dry ingredients at once. Seriously, if I flour bomb my kitchen again I'm gonna... well I don't know what I'm gonna do - hopefully I've learned my lesson now.

That's it for me - I look forward to hearing what the rest of the half-baked beauties thought.

Kendra aka The Meanest Momma