Hooray for Hollywood!
Yeah, not the bright lights, big city place. I'm talking that intensely blue-eyed baker-turned-judge of The Great British Bake-Off, Paul Hollywood; that's his real surname, too. He is a second generation baker and though he has certainly turned celebrity, I love that this passion for baking is undiminished. His books are wonderful to read, I enjoy watching his Master Class videos with Mary Berry and his independent stuff on YouTube. He makes it look incredibly easy while really making you feel that you can do it, too! The mark of a good teacher, in my opinion.
I love bread and having a bread machine and a ready supply of sourdough starter means that I am baking one to two times a week. However, there is nothing like mixing up the dough yourself and really getting your hands in there from start to finish. And, as any fan of Paul knows, his recipes expect you to do just that.
Today's recipe: Chocolate and Sour Cherry Bread from Paul Hollywood's "100 Great Breads." I got so into prepping the dough that I forgot to take pictures at the very beginning of the process. You can't blame me. Bread. Chocolate. Cherries!
The base dough is super simple--bread flour, salt, yeast, olive oil and warm water. Don't forget to keep your salt and yeast away from each other in the bowl!
The ingredients made a shaggy ball that I knew would come together well. Partly because of the way it felt and partly because, you know, Paul's recipe.
And, I was right! The dough started coming together immediately. So satisfying.
About 5 minutes later, the nice smooth ball went back into the bowl with a dough-designated towel to go over it.
After an hour, a nice puffy dough!
I split it into two--again, with the portion challenge!
The recipe called for a "tin of black cherries, drained." I used a tin of sour cherries, drained. However, I did not reckon with just how much liquid these suckers hang onto.
Cherries and chocolate chips going in!
Therefore, the first loaf, on the left, has quite a lot of moisture from the devious sponge-like action of its share of the cherries. For the second loaf, I squeezed out the moisture and added the remaining pulp. Let me tell you, that was a lot of juice!
I don't have a lamé to make slices on the bread so I used kitchen shears to help the steam escape.
Cooking time is 20-25 minutes at 400. I gave them 25 and even though they weren't as dark as I had anticipated, they sounded hollow when I tapped them.
The loaf that had the wet cherries did much better than I had hoped--though the cherry mixture sank to the bottom and made the bread a bit heavier, it still tasted really good and the texture was not off-putting.
The loaf with the squeezed-out cherries rose more and the texture was much airier. However, because I was feeling nervous about the first loaf, I did not incorporate the chocolate and cherries evenly throughout. That was a baker error, not a problem with the recipe. The smell from these loaves was so enticing that I had a really hard time sticking to my "one bite to taste" rule. One day...
The guys all gave it a thumb's up and I give it a turtle rating of 5--I am definitely going to try this one again with dried cherries and white chocolate chips!
Here are the promised links:
Paul Hollywood
BBC Recipe
It's interesting to note that I got the recipe from his book but his website does not have the recipe and the recipe on BBC's website is for a plaited loaf, rather than the two round loaves his book recipe contains.
I love bread and having a bread machine and a ready supply of sourdough starter means that I am baking one to two times a week. However, there is nothing like mixing up the dough yourself and really getting your hands in there from start to finish. And, as any fan of Paul knows, his recipes expect you to do just that.
Today's recipe: Chocolate and Sour Cherry Bread from Paul Hollywood's "100 Great Breads." I got so into prepping the dough that I forgot to take pictures at the very beginning of the process. You can't blame me. Bread. Chocolate. Cherries!
The base dough is super simple--bread flour, salt, yeast, olive oil and warm water. Don't forget to keep your salt and yeast away from each other in the bowl!
The ingredients made a shaggy ball that I knew would come together well. Partly because of the way it felt and partly because, you know, Paul's recipe.
And, I was right! The dough started coming together immediately. So satisfying.
About 5 minutes later, the nice smooth ball went back into the bowl with a dough-designated towel to go over it.
After an hour, a nice puffy dough!
I split it into two--again, with the portion challenge!
The recipe called for a "tin of black cherries, drained." I used a tin of sour cherries, drained. However, I did not reckon with just how much liquid these suckers hang onto.
Cherries and chocolate chips going in!
Therefore, the first loaf, on the left, has quite a lot of moisture from the devious sponge-like action of its share of the cherries. For the second loaf, I squeezed out the moisture and added the remaining pulp. Let me tell you, that was a lot of juice!
I don't have a lamé to make slices on the bread so I used kitchen shears to help the steam escape.
Cooking time is 20-25 minutes at 400. I gave them 25 and even though they weren't as dark as I had anticipated, they sounded hollow when I tapped them.
The loaf that had the wet cherries did much better than I had hoped--though the cherry mixture sank to the bottom and made the bread a bit heavier, it still tasted really good and the texture was not off-putting.
The loaf with the squeezed-out cherries rose more and the texture was much airier. However, because I was feeling nervous about the first loaf, I did not incorporate the chocolate and cherries evenly throughout. That was a baker error, not a problem with the recipe. The smell from these loaves was so enticing that I had a really hard time sticking to my "one bite to taste" rule. One day...
The guys all gave it a thumb's up and I give it a turtle rating of 5--I am definitely going to try this one again with dried cherries and white chocolate chips!
Paul Hollywood
BBC Recipe
It's interesting to note that I got the recipe from his book but his website does not have the recipe and the recipe on BBC's website is for a plaited loaf, rather than the two round loaves his book recipe contains.
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