Portuguese Sweet Bread: BBA

Today in the bread-baking blog, we're making Bread #27 - Portuguese Sweet Bread.  This dough is so flavorful, I wanted to make cookies out of it instead of bread.  It uses some of the same flavorings that my favorite Holiday sugar cookie recipe uses, but it's an enriched yeast bread.  Delicious!  I loved making this bread but it took all day and most of the evening to do it.  Don't let that scare you - most of the time is spent fermenting and proofing the dough, so it really is just a matter of timing. If you plan to make this bread, be sure to start early in the day. It's definitely worth it!

It just so happens, that the  Artisan Bread Baker's Group chose Portuguese Sweet Bread for the Bread of the Month this month. That worked out great since I was already planning on making it for the BBA Challenge. I like it when that happens!  The Bread of the Month virtual bread-baking party started at the beginning of November and runs through the end of the month so you still have time to bake this delicious bread. Click here for details.

Portuguese Sweet Bread
Makes: 2 Loaves

Recipe found on page 215 of the Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart.

Ingredients:

Sponge

• 1/2 cup (2.25 ounces or 64g) unbleached bread flour
• 1 T. (.5 ounce or 14.18g) granulated sugar
• 2 1/4 tsp. (.25 ounce or 7.08g) instant yeast
• 1/2 cup (4 ounces or 114g) water, at room temperature
  

Dough

• 6 T. (3 ounces or 83g) granulated sugar
• 1 tsp. (.25 ounce or 7.08g) salt
• 1/4 cup (1.25 ounces or 35.44g) powdered milk
• 2 T. (1 ounce or 28g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 T. (1 ounce or 28g) vegetable shortening
• 2 large (or 94g) eggs
• 1 tsp. (.17 ounce or 5g or 5ml) lemon extract
• 1 tsp. (.17 ounce or 5g or 5ml) orange extract
• 1 tsp. (.17 ounceor 5g or 5ml) vanilla extract
• 3 cups (13.5 ounces or 382g) unbleached bread flour
• Up to 6 T. (3 ounces or 84g) water, at room temp
  

Egg Wash

• 1 egg, whisked with 1 tsp. water until frothy
  
  

Directions:

Making the Sponge
Make a sponge by stirring together the flour, sugar, and yeast in a bowl. Then add the water and stir until all the ingredients are hydrated and make a smooth batter. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough ferment at room temperature for 60 to 90 minutes, or until the sponge gets foamy and seems on the verge of collapse.

Making the Dough

To make the dough, combine the sugar, salt, powdered milk, butter, and shortening in a large mixing bowl or in the bowl of your electric mixer. 

Mix in the sponge and the flour.  Add water as necessary to make a very soft dough.

 

Kneading the Dough

Knead the dough by hand or use the dough hook on your mixer.  I decided to knead it by hand.  I don't like to miss out on this part.

 

The finished dough will be very supple and soft, easy to knead, and not wet or sticky.  In other words, perfect!  It will take about 15 minutes to achieve the right consistency. This is because dough with high amounts of fat and sugar takes longer to develop the gluten.

 

Fermenting the Dough
Lightly oil a larger bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl. Roll it around to coat it with oil and cover the bowl with plastic wrap.  Ferment the dough at room temperature for 2 hours, or until the dough doubles in size.

 

Shaping the Boules
Remove the dough from the bowl and divide it into 2 equal pieces.

 

Form each piece into a boule (refer to page 72).

 

Lightly oil two 9-inch pie pans and place 1 boule, seam side down, in each pan.

Proofing the Loaves

Mist the dough with spray oil and loosely cover with plastic wrap. Proof the loaves at room temperature for 2 to 3 hours, or until the dough fills the pans fully, doubling in size and overlapping the edges slightly.  I proofed my dough for 7 hours and it still didn't completely fill the pan but I decided to bake it anyway at this point.

See that little dent in the left side of the loaf?  I dropped the extract bottle on it.  Don't ask!

Gently brush the loaves with egg wash.   Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F with the oven rack on the middle shelf.

 

Baking the Loaves
Bake the loaves for 50 to 60 minutes. After about 30 minutes, check the loaves and if necessary, rotate 180 degrees for even baking. Due to the high amount of sugar, the dough will brown very quickly.  It will get darker as the center gradually heats through, but it will (should) not burn.

The final color will be a rich mahogany brown.

 

Cooling and Serving the Loaves

Remove the bread from the pans and place on a wire rack to cool. The bread will soften as it cools and will become a very soft, squishy loaf.  Let it cool for at least 90 minutes before slicing or serving.  Man, that's the hardest part!

Here is the cooled and sliced loaf.  Delicious!

Thanks for joining us this week in the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge.

The next bread in Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge is Potato Rosemary Bread (page 219 in the Bread Baker's Apprentice). I'm looking forward to making this flavorful and delicious bread.


Happy Baking!
Cathy

Cinnamon Raisin Bread: BBA Challenge

For Day 9 of the BBA Challenge, we made Cinnamon Raisin Walnut Bread. Oh boy! Is this bread good! And, it's relatively easy to prepare! The only problem with this bread is that my taste tester and I cannot decide which cinnamon bread we like better - this one or the no knead version. I think it's a tie! Both breads are great!

This cinnamon bread can be made in an evening. In fact, I started the dough after work, set it out for the first rise, made dinner, then walked on my favorite trail for an hour, came back and shaped the loaves and let them sit for the second rise, then baked them the same night. Granted, it was a little late when I finished and went to bed, but it was worth it. I had a delicious piece of cinnamon toast for breakfast the next morning! Yummy!!!

Peter Reinhart recommends a couple of substitutions to add additional flavor to this bread. I tried them and recommend them as well. It's worth the little bit of extra time & effort it takes to roll the dough out (instead of shaping in into a loaf), and then sprinkle it with cinnamon sugar before baking. Once it's done baking, you can brush the top of the loaf with butter and add additional cinnamon sugar on top. Mmmmm...


Let's get started baking.

If you're baking along with us, turn to page 147 in the Bread Baker's Apprentice to locate the recipe and list of ingredients.


Cinnamon Raisin Walnut Bread

Mixing the dough:

Make sure you have all of your ingredients together. Stir together the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Add the egg, shortening, buttermilk, and water. Mix with a large spoon until all the ingredients come together and form a ball.




Kneading the Dough:

Transfer the dough to a counter sprinkled with flour. Begin kneading. The dough should be soft and pliable, tacky but not sticky. If necessary, add a little flour to achieve this consistency.




Sprinkle in the raisins and walnuts during the final minutes of kneading. You want to distribute them evenly without crushing them too much.  Keep kneading in the raisins and walnuts until they are thoroughly incorporated into the dough.



1st Rise:

Lightly oil a large bowl and transfer the dough. Roll it around to coat it with oil.



Cover the bowl with plastic and let the dough ferment for about 2 hours, or until the dough doubles in size.




Shaping the loaves:

Divide the dough into two equal pieces and form them into loaves.



At this point, you can shape the dough into loaves and bake them. Or, for additional flavor, roll the two pieces out into rectangles and add more cinnamon sugar before shaping them into loaves. That's what I decided to do.

Sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top.



Starting to roll the first loaf.



Continue rolling...

 

There, now we have the first loaf.  Be sure to pinch the seems together.



Then place the loaf seam side down in a lightly greased 8 1/2 by 4 1/2-inch pan. Mist the top with cooking spray.



Shape the 2nd loaf using the same process and cover both loaves loosely with plastic wrap.







2nd Rise:

Proof the loaves at room temperature for 60 to 90 minutes, or until the dough crests above the lips of the pans and is nearly doubled in size.





Baking the Loaves:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F with the oven rack on the middle shelf. Place the loaf pans on a sheet pan. Make sure the pans don't touch each other. Bake the loaves for 20 minutes. Rotate the pans 180 degrees for even baking and continue baking for another 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the oven.

The finished loaves should be golden brown on top and lightly golden on the sides and bottom. The loaves will make a hollow sound when thumped on the bottom.




Cooling the Loaves:

Remove the loaves immediately from the pans and cool on a wire rack for a least an hour. It is best to wait 2 hours before slicing or serving. This is the hard part!




To give the bread even more flavor, brush the loaves with melted butter while they are still warm and sprinkle cinnamon sugar over the top.

Now, all that's left to do is to eat a slice... The best part!



Thanks for joining us this week. Next time, we'll be making Corn Bread. Yes, you heard that right. Corn bread is not normally a yeast bread, but Peter Reinhart included corn bread in this book because he claims it's such a good recipe. Well, we'll just have to see about that! If it's anything like the rest of his breads, it will be fabulous! I'm ready to try something different. How about you?



Happy Baking!
Cathy