After the mostly-failure of my Anadama bread on week 1, I made sure to be extra-vigilant on the next bread, the Greek Celebration bread Artos. I measured slowly, tested and re-tested the temperature, and watched the bread like a hawk through the dirty oven door (note to self: that oven really needs a good scrubbing!). This bread calls for either a barm or poolish starter, and I chose to go with the poolish version because it was quicker and required only flour, water, and yeast, so I didn’t have to go out and buy anything (namely pineapple juice). There are lots of ingredients in this bread, but it is TOTALLY worth it. This loaf is by far the best bread I have EVER made!
This is the poolish starter, which is really easy and just takes a second to mix and several hours of waiting . . . actually, that’s exactly what bread baking is come to think of it! I mixed it up the day before and let it sit on the counter for 3 hours, then stuck it in the fridge until an hour before I was ready to start the bread. Mixing the ingredients was quick work and the dough came together really nicely. The only change I made to the recipe is that I didn’t have any zest on hand so I left that out, otherwise I followed everything to a T. For this bread I still measured by volume, but I am now the proud owner of a digital scale so will be using that from now on for all my baking! That should also improve my results, I think.
I have kind of a love-hate thing with nutmeg, one of the many flavorings in this bread (along with cinnamon, allspice, almond extract, etc). I tend to leave it out of foods but I’ve found that the fresh-grated is quite good in some applications — I considered leaving it out of this bread, too, but I really am trying to stay true to the book for this challenge, so I decided to break out the microplane grater and put some fresh-grated nutmeg in. And I’m so happy I did, it tasted absolutely wonderful!
Because this bread is quite a large loaf, I decided I would do all the kneading by hand. It changed consistency right away and by the end of the kneading time I could really see the results of all that “hard work.” As I said to Adam at the time, kneading this bread was the most exercise I had all weekend! Hopefully this means I’m beginning to get a “feel” for bread, that’s one of the stated goals of this book and it’s certainly something to aspire to. I stopped when I thought it was ready and did a windowpane test, but it didn’t give me the results I was looking for so I went back to kneading for a few more minutes. The second time around, I got a great windowpane!
(ugh, when I look at this picture all I see are the scars on my hands! The one on my left hand is the burn I suffered baking my first pie and the one on the right wrist is from my ganglion cyst removal surgery)
This is the dough after proofing and forming the boule, ready to rise:
It grew from this size:
To this size:
Here’s a closeup so you can see the flecks of spices and the great texture:
I baked this huge bread (it was SO HEAVY!) on the cookie sheeet with the sheet sitting on top of my bread stone, after heating my oven extra-long to get it up to temperature (remember I told you I just discovered this problem? This is when I discovered it!). When I went to turn it after 20 minutes, I stuck one of those thermometers that measures internal AND oven temperature, and found out the oven was STILL not hot enough! I cranked it up even higher and left it that way until the dough hit the right temperature. When it came out it was so gorgeous I wanted to dive in immediately:
But I held off and waited like a good girl, then finally sliced into it and had a taste. And all I can say is WOW! I’m not a huge fan of sweet breads but this one is not too sweet, full of flavor, and has an excellent crumb. Here’s another look at the inside:
Especially coming from the failed Anadama bread, this bread turned out so good that I could hardly believe it! It surpassed my every expectation and I simply could not get enough, I ate several (huge) slices with butter and wished I had some good preserves so I could eat even more!
I think it’ll make some excellent french toast, too . . .
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Gorgeous!! I can’t wait to make mine this weekend. I love that it’s got all of those spices, and I’m totally taking your lead and will dust off my microplaner and grate some fresh nutmeg.
Looks like the bread turned out pretty good. Congrats. Just a thought about your oven taking so long to heat up. Is it an electric oven? If it is, try checking the heating element. I had one like this when I lived in Colorado and the heating element was damaged. It only cost like $30 for a replacement. Easy to put in yourself, just a couple of screws. Have fun with the baking.
This is such a great post…I love that windowpane photo especially as it really shows what it is supposed to look like. I am making this bread today…so what great timing! Yours looks so beautiful. It sure grew a lot in that rise!
Love your pictures. I’m going to do mine tomorrow. I too have all sorts of scars up and down my arm (mostly from baking)… my cyst still resides in my wrist, though– I’ll have to read your post about the removal– I need to do that.
GORGEOUS!!!
Great post. Love your photos. It looks so good.
Great baking with you,
Susie
Congrats on your success. Nutmeg – it has it’s place, but don’t use too much. On getting the feel for bread – that’s the real secret
You got great ovenspring and a wonderful crumb. Your pictures are great – very descriptive. I wavered with the addition of cloves and allspice as I don’t like them. I decided to give it a try but I was disappointed. I still don’t like them.
Wow, what a perfect boule! And great pictures, I love to see process pics, especially if there as good as yours. So fun that you so hesitantly added all the spices but ended up liking it! I believe that all spices taste much better when they are freshly ground or grated.