Greek Celebration Bread Part 2

I made it just in time for Easter.  I didn't think it would happen because Mike was away last week and solo-parenting and bread making were not a match last week for me.  Thankfully my wonderful mother in law took my girls for a sleep over.  So I made the Christmas (the round one) and the Easter version of the Greek Celebration bread.  Delicious!  The bits of fruit and nuts made the bread so much better.

Greek Celebration Bread

Here is the next recipe from the Bread Baker's Apprentice.  This is the basic Greek Celebration Bread and there are two variations one for Christmas and one for Easter.  I am going to try and make both breads between now and Easter.

This bread smells and tastes heavenly.  We gobbled it up!  It is a good thing I am only baking bread once a week.

It looks amazing but once I cut into it, I found that there was a huge space between the bread and crust.  I have no idea why, it may be because of the way I shaped it.

Fresh Bread Thursday - Anadama Bread

This is how I am able to get any cooking done.

Sometime ago one of my favorite bloggers Amanda was in a blogging group called the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge. It was a group that baked and blogged out of Peter Reinhart's book The Bread Baker's Apprentice. I was fascinated by the beautiful bread that she made. I have been lusting after the book for about a year now and I recieved it for Christmas. This book is fascinating and is like a text book. It explains about the different flours, yeasts and the process that bread goes through. I have been wanting to start baking since January but...well....I haven't found the time. I am going to start the challenge myself since I am not sure I can commit to baking bread every week.

Here is the first first recipe Anadama.

 

Mixing the corn meal with water.



Adding the flour.


Letting it rise.

Voila!