I was feeling a little deprived in the baking department by the time I got back from Washington – I really don’t why, I did plenty of baking while I was there but still I felt the need to make a delicious, yeasty something – and I have this scrumptious cookbook called, “A Romance with Baking” which was given to me quite a few years ago by Jeremiah’s grandmother who is an unknowing contributor to this site. It is probably my favorite cookbook. This is one of the recipes in there but I am a bit baffled by the fact that this particular recipe instructs you to triple the bread recipe to make this. I decided not to and only made the recipe as stated and I am very glad I did – you can see in the photo that it fills out my pizza stone! There was plenty there for probably 10 adults at least. So I will just write out exactly what I did and if for some reason you have like 30 people you are making this for, then triple it, but otherwise I certainly wouldn’t!
Ingredients
For the Bread:
1 1/4 cups warm water
1 tablespoon dry yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour OR 2 cups freshly ground hard white winter wheat + 2 tablespoons gluten flour
2 tablespoons melted butter, cooled
2 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 – 2 cups extra flour for kneading (I don’t THINK I used any extra, but check you dough, it should be still be sticky but if it’s runny still you may want to add extra flour)
For the Herb Filling:
3-4 cloves of finely grated garlic
2 finely grated shallots
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/2 cup chopped fresh sage
Preparation Instructions
Pour the warm water into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the bread hook and sprinkle on the yeast. Beat in the sugar and the two cups of flour and beat until smooth.
Mix in the melted and cooled butter and then eggs and salt. Beat until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl (this is where you may need to add a little extra flour) Knead for about 2-3 minutes for all-purpose flour and about 3-4 minutes if using the fresh whole wheat flour.
Cover with a clean tea towel and allow to rise until doubled, at high altitude I let it rise about 45 minutes if you are at sea level you may need more like 2 hours.
While the dough is rising you can get your herb filling put together. So grate your garlic and shallots and chop the herbs. Then combine the garlic, shallots and olive oil in a small bowl and set aside, keep the herbs separate for easier sprinkling.
Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface into a rectangle. Roll it out quite thin (you will need a pretty large space to do so) I got mine to about 1/8″. Then drizzle the oil mixture all over and using a pastry brush, spread the garlic and shallots all over and make sure all the dough is coated in the oil. Then sprinkle the herbs all over.
Next roll the dough up jelly-roll style – or just like you would if you were making cinnamon rolls, so you have one long round loaf. Place the loaf on a baking stone or any lightly greased baking sheet that it will fit on (or you can use parchment) seam side down and shape into a circle.
Then with a very sharp knife (I ended up trying about 3 different ones and was most pleased with my small serrated CutCo knife), Cut 1 1/2 inch wide cuts 2/3 into the dough all the way around. Gently turn each section so when it rises you can see the herbs between the slices.
Let the dough rise again until almost doubled, this was much faster this time only about 20 minutes, and then brush with an egg wash or melted butter and bake at 350º until golden and sounds hollow when tapped.
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