March: King Arthur's BakeALong

I haven't participated in awhile for the BakeALong that King Arthur's flour company has been putting on through their blog. This has mostly been because I haven't wanted to try the recipes or didn't want to go to the hassle of some of them. This month was the Butterflake Herb Loaf, and it is really buttery so be prepared. There were some pros and cons to this, and not all of them was the recipe.

It was time consuming, took about five hours from start to finish, however most of this was because our house was a little chilly. Plus this dough rises not just once, but twice that adds of course quite a bit of extra time. I cut the recipe in half for the dough and ended up with two small loaves.   In regards to the filling though I made the whole amount, and actually doubled the herbs and garlic. First the pros of this loaf, it was moist and crispy on the outside but soft in the middle. The biggest draw back was that it didn't have too much flavor even though I doubled on the herbs and garlic. Now, I will say this that I think perhaps I shouldn't have minced my own garlic as the pieces were probably too big, and in hindsight I will just use the store bought minced garlic. As you can see we did eat one whole loaf at dinner on Sunday, and even tonight ate part of the second loaf, the herbs only still had a hint of flavor. So perhaps next time, I will pay attention to how warm it is in the house to ensure it doesn't take five hours, and either use even more herbs or perhaps different ones altogether. Have you tried one of the BakeALong or been tempted to try a recipe?

Joy of Bake Alongs...

I am sadly missing the Great British Baking Show (otherwise known as the Great British Bake Off) and wish we could get all of the previous seasons. Since I am across the pond it doesn't start at the same time, they just showed season three here (which is technically season 6). Anyways, I highly recommend this show if you love baking and enjoy watching competitions were the people are nice to each other. To my relief last weekend I found out about the monthly Bakealong that King Arthur's Flour company started this month. I saw the picture and thought of two things, it looked good and I had never heard of the bread which is called Pane Bianco.

Here is the picture of me allowing the dough to rise longer. This recipe had sun dried tomatoes, garlic, cheese, and basil for the filling. 

The end result of my bread. The bread was good, it had a little bit of a soft chewy crust. We ate this with some olive oil as a dipping sauce. If I make it again, it will need more basil, cheese and garlic. I wasn't a fan the sun dried tomatoes, which I figured I wouldn't be anyways, so I might leave those out in the future.