Since this was a holiday weekend, I extended my own deadline for doing the second Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge, Artos, or Greek Celebration bread, and finished it today.
I started last night by putting together Peter Reinhart’s standard poolish of flour, water and yeast. It sat overnight in the fridge, and I took it out this morning to get up to room temperature. I like to get all my ingredients ready, so I pulled up the recipe and saw I needed a couple of eggs, olive oil, milk, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and cloves. Other than that, I just needed the typical flour, yeast, water and salt.
I think the humidity was affecting the dough when I mixed it, because I needed to keep adding flour to keep the dough from being too loose or wet. As I kneaded the dough, I added extra flour until it stiffened up a bit.
There are variations listed in the Bread Baker’s Apprentice that can add raisins or dried cranberries. The Christopsomos form takes the standard boule (round loaf) and adds a fancy cross of dough over the top of the bread. I decided to do the Lambropsomo shape, which is braided, but I didn’t add any of the extras to the dough, partly because I don’t care for some of them, and partly because the dried cranberries I had in the cupboard were a year out of date!
To braid the dough after the first proof, I separated the dough into three equal parts and rolled each section into equal length strands, then simply braided them together. I thought this would be tougher to do, but a three strand braid is pretty easy.
I got my XL Big Green Egg going about the time the first proof was almost done. The BGE set in at 350 and just stayed there and wouldn’t budge. At the end of the 2nd proofing, I just took the loaf out to the BGE on a peel. After 20 minutes, I turned the loaf around.
I knew the loaf was good sized, but the oven spring this thing got on the BGE was amazing! It had doubled in size again! This was a big loaf o’ dough! And on the BGE, it took a bit less time than in a typical oven. After just over 30 minutes, the internal temperature was at 191, so I took it off and let it cool a bit.
However, the bread smelled soooo great, I couldn’t wait long. We had friends over for Memorial Day, and we all tried it a bit. I really liked the first BBA bread, Anadama bread, and thought I’d do it again, but this bread puts it to shame! Man is it good! Just carrying the bread in on a peel from the BGE, I was surrounded by the aroma… oh man!
So far, I’ve tried peanut butter and jam on it (great), and toast with butter and honey (great). I’m expecting French toast to be even greater, and I think even a good ham and cheese panini would be delicious on this stuff.
Next on the list for the challenge is… Bagels!
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Looks fantastic! I’ve never braided bread dough before, I should have done it this last time, but I was lazy!
YUM! Sure looks beautiful and so tasty.
Great job.
Susie
Nicole,
Thanks. I think next time, I’ll try to get the dough a bit firmer first, so the braiding stands out a bit more. I didn’t really how big this loaf was going to be, or I might has split it into two loaves, too.
Definitely try the braiding; it didn’t take much time at all, and even I could do it, so it must be easy. I do have to say that there’s something about doing a livefire cook that adds something, too.
I liked the braided idea. I did the cristo….. bread and the flavors were ok.
Nice pics and I can’t wait for bagels. You BGE them too?
Jeff,
I can’t see why I wouldn’t use the BGE on any of these breads; it does such a great job.
I thought the flavor of this bread was great. Try it with a pb&j!
Hey Curt, I made a brisket on the BGE yesterday and put a link to your blog. Pretty bread!
N,
Great looking brisket! Now that you have the egg, you can start doing bread on it; it’s a great bread oven.
Hey Curt, thx for your comment on my brisket. So which piece should I try? The point? I have the placesetter — they should just make it part of the package b/c you really can’t smoke without it. And when I start baking bread, I’ll try it out on the egg. So far, the only bread I’ve made more than once is the no knead bread which you cook in a dutch oven in the oven.
N,
I agree on the platesetter. When you do any baking or pizzas on the BGE, make sure you have an air gap between the platesetter and the baking stone so the bottom doesn’t burn, and things should work great!
Your artos looks fantastic. I especially love the last picture of toast. YUM.
Wendy,
Thanks; the French toast was really good. I couldn’t believe how huge that loaf got! I don’t know if I would divide it to make two smaller loaves or not, but I do know I would make the dough a bit firmer.
I didn’t put the loaf on parchment to proof, which was a mistake. I’ll put it on parchment immediately next time, so I don’t have to try to lift it to get it on the peel.