Abstract Utopia - I am a Desert.

Bread Bowls

February 22, 2006
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Bread bowls are an underappreciated item on the dinner table. Back in the day, lots of people used bread for bowls rather than actual bowl because they were cheaper and safer to eat out of. Bread was hard and nasty, but by serving soup or stew inside of it, it both softened the bread and made it so you didn't need extra serving utensils.

I like bread bowls. I especially like bread bowls made from a cheesy sort of bread with some chili or thick goulash in it. Yum. However, there are times when it is just nice to have both the fresh baked bread and soup. Talk about comfort food at its finest.

For bread bowls, it's best to make sure you make a bread that will have a good solid crust. You can force breads to have thicker crusts in two ways:

Rub the bread with a layer of olive oil and sprinkle with a bit of cornmeal. This will sort of bake/fry the outside of the bread producing a thicker, crunchier crust that is perfect for bread bowls in general.
Bake the bread in small, greased custard dishes. This will make the bread both more uniform in shape and produce a taller shape for the bread. Baking the bread in a dish generally makes the bread form a thicker crust, the drawback of this is that the crust can be a bit more tender. This can be solved if you cook the loaf a day ahead of time and let it cool on a baking rack overnight.

There are more recipes for bread bowls than you can shake a fist at. I like the bread bowls that are a bit thicker and heavier, but you can also go with a lighter, more porous bread like a light french bread or a sourdough. You can also make a cornmeal bread bowl that is perfect for chili and thick stews. A whole wheat bread is very nice for potato base soups and adds a certain flair of rustic charm to any meal.

I thought I would share my recipe for both a cornmeal bread bowl and a whole wheat bread bowl. I prefer my cornbread a bit sweeter rather than salty, so I suggest using a sweet, golden cornmeal and honey rather than a plain, white cornmeal.

Without further ado, the recipes.

Cornmeal Bread Bowls

1 package dry active yeast
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 cup warm water
2 ½ -3 cups flour
1 cup golden cornmeal
1 teaspoon salt
¼ cup olive oil
2 Tablespoons honey

Add yeast, sugar and warm water to a small bowl and let set 5 minutes. Yeast mixture should turn frothy and bubbly.
Add flour, cornmeal, salt, oil and honey into the yeast mixture and mix well.
Knead dough on a floured surface until smooth and elastic.
Place in a greased bowl and let rise until doubled in size.
Divide into 4-6 pieces (depending on how large you want the bread bowls). Shape into round balls and place on greased cookie sheet sprinkled with cornmeal.
Let rise until doubled.

For a crunchier crust, rub the outside of the balls with a little bit of olive oil.
Alternatively, you can place the balls into larger custard cups rubbed with oil to produce a taller loaf with a thicker crust.

Bake at 400°F for about 20 minutes or until golden brown and when you tap on them they sound hollow inside.

This is a great recipe to go with Chicken Paprikash or any sort of chili. The slight sweetness of the cornmeal will definately round out any spice you put into your dishes.

Whole Wheat Bread Bowl

2 packages active yeast
1 Tablespoon sugar
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups luke warm water
1 Egg
2 cups Whole Wheat Flour
3-5 cups white flour

Add yeast, sugar and warm water to a small bowl and let set 5 minutes. Yeast mixture should turn frothy and bubbly.
Add half the wheat and white flour, salt, oil and egg into the yeast mixture and mix well. Slowly add remaining flour a half cup at a time.
Knead dough on a floured surface until smooth and elastic.
Place in a greased bowl and let rise until doubled in size.
Divide into 4-6 pieces (depending on how large you want the bread bowls). Shape into round balls and place on greased cookie sheet sprinkled with cornmeal.
Let rise until doubled.
Bake at 350°F for about 15-20 minutes or until a rich brown and when you tap on them they sound hollow inside.

In case you can't tell from my recipe list thus far on my site, I bake a lot of bread. I could probably post a different recipe every day for a month or so of simply yeast recipes. That wouldn't even get me into the soda bread recipes I know. I am trying to teach myself how to make sweetmeats and fruit stuffed breads that won't explode and leak when I bake them. When I master that, I'll start posting those as well.

Posted by Utopia at February 22, 2006 10:09 AM

Comments

Hmmmmm....

I've got a great, easy recipe for beer bread. I wonder if I could make some into bowls and use it for chili?

I'll have to look into it.

Posted by: monogodo at February 22, 2006 12:43 PM

So long as it is a good solid bread with a thick crust, it should be alright. It really depends on the consistency of the bread. You want something that is stiff and slightly porous, but not too moist. A moist bread will absorb the soup too fast and become mush.

If you send me the recipe for the beer bread I can give my take on it. If it is a dense yeast bread, it would probably be fine. Generally soda breads and the like make very poor bread bowls. Sourdoughs work fairly well because they generally have a good texture.

Posted by: Utopia at February 22, 2006 02:16 PM

It's a really easy recipe, I know every detail off the top of my head, except the baking temp.

Easy 1-2-3 Beer Bread
1 12-oz. beer
2 T sugar
3 C self-rising flour

Bake for 1 hour at 400°F (I think).

The recipe I have recommends light beer, but I've found darker beers make for a better bread.

When I get home tonight I'll dig out the recipe and pass it on to you.

Posted by: monogodo at February 22, 2006 06:08 PM

I'm so lazy when I want a bread bowl I got to Quiznos or Panera. Still they are very yummy.

Posted by: Andrea at February 23, 2006 07:35 PM

The first time I was served soup with bread-bowl I was intrigued. Then I realized I could not take the left over home. The bowl would become a soggy mess.

The next time I went there, I make sure I ate the soup quickly so that the 'bowl' still stayed quite dry. I took the 'bowl' apart, put the pieces of bread on a napkin, took them to the park and gave them to the ducks.

I never went back the 3rd time for another soup serve with soup bowl. I find it difficult to accept I am part of something that I am most against: wasting food.

This is just one of my personal prejudices. Has nothing to do with your blog, or anyone else's that love bread-bowl. BUT perhaps we should care more about what we throw away especially food? Especially when there are so many people die of hunger everyday? I know we cannot save the world ... Perhaps we could teach the world to look at food with more caring thoughts?

Posted by: Cindy at February 25, 2006 03:13 PM

I eat the soup and the bowl so for me there is no waste. That is in fact the point of a bread bowl. It is to be the whole meal, soup and bread ... similar to soup and sandwich. A good bread bowl should be smaller, not a huge monsterous thing that holds so much soup that you don't have room for anything else.

I don't waste the bread for the bread bowl, I eat the whole thing as a meal, that is the purpose of it. It's not a waste of food any more so than people who go to any restaurant and throw away their left over fries because too much came in the portion.

Posted by: Utopia at February 25, 2006 06:04 PM

While I've never eaten anything out of a bread bowl, I always thought the whole point was to eat the bowl as part of the meal. It makes a lot of sense to me: there's less to clean up, thereby wasting fewer resources.

Posted by: monogodo at February 25, 2006 07:38 PM

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