Catch Up with BBA Posts: Artos Greek Celebration Bread

Actually I made this bread on November 16 and just never posted about it.  It was easy and fun and a delicious bread.

I used a poolish started since I already had it available, but he starts with a barm.  He does say you can use a poolish.

As a beekeeper, I loved it that this bread has honey as an ingredient because, of course, I used honey from my own bee hives.  The honey and all the spices give the dough an inviting warm color.

I follow all of his directions as precisely as I can (for a person for whom precision is a challenge, at best) so I use Pam Olive Oil spray since he calls for it in almost every recipe.  Here I used it to oil the bowl in which the dough would rise.

This bread baked up beautifully into pretty round loaves.

While the bread was baking, I made the glaze of sugar, water, honey and orange extract so I would be ready to paint it onto the loaves when they were done.

Every year when our office has a holiday party, we draw names.  I give some version of the same gift every year - a jar of my honey (or homemade apple butter, if there is no honey - like this year), some homemade breads - this year it was this Artos holiday bread - and a few other homemade goodies - like seasoned nuts, candied orange peel.  I think the receiver was glad to get this loaf.  

I certainly enjoyed the one I kept which I ate right away - hers I saved in the freezer until the party.

Gourmet's Rye Walnut Rolls

Today I made Gourmet's Rye Walnut Rolls in this month's magazine on page 87. I didn't follow the recipe exactly because at my house we were all out of eggs by the time I got finished and I couldn't do the egg wash at the end. We also didn't have any onions (tomorrow is grocery day) so I used the lone shallot - a rather large one - that I had.

Regardless, my family loved them.

Here's the recipe:

1 medium onion, chopped (1 cup) (I used a large shallot)
1 T salt, divided
1/2 cup olive oil
2 cups whole milk
2 tsp active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
1 T honey
5 1/2 cups all purpost flour
1 cup rye flour
1/2 tsp black pepper
3/4 cup walnuts, toasted and coarsely chopped
1 large egg beaten with 1 T water for egg wash (didn't have this)
1/4 cup nigella or poppy seeds (didn't have this either so tried black sesame seeds - which I did have!)

• Line baking sheets with parchment paper ( I didn't have any so I sprayed Pam on the baking sheets! - I was out of everything.)
• Cook onion with 1/4 tsp salt in oil in a 10 inch skillet over medium heat until softened - 4 to 5 minutes
• Drain onions in a sieve over a bowl, reserving the oinons.
• Stir milk into the onion oil in the bowl
• Stir yeast, warm water and honey in large bowl and allow to start to ferment
• Mix flours, pepper, milk mxture and the remaining 2 3/4 tsp salt into yeast mixture until soft dough forms
• Knead the dough until elastic and smooth (about 6 minutes).
• Pat dough into a 9 inch square and sprinkle with onions and walnuts (see picture below)
  

(note: the little hands belong to my grandson and chief kneader who helped me)

• Fold dough over to enclose filling and pinch edges to seal
• Knead to distribute the walnuts and onions for about two minutes.
  
• If anything peeks out (see below) just push it back in.
  

• Allow dough to rise until doubled
• Halve the dough and cover one half with plastic. Roll the other half into a 12 inch log and cut it into 12 pieces.
  

• Roll each piece into a ball and place it on the baking sheet about 2 inches apart
• Allow to rise, covered with a non-terry kitchen towel for about another hour
  

• Preheat oven to 375 and brush each roll with egg wash. Sprinkle seeds on the rolls (I used olive oil but the seeds didn't really stick. You can see how they looked at the end in the first picture).
• Bake 20 - 25 minutes and cool 20 minutes before eating

These smelled scrumptious while baking and turned out great - thanks, Gourmet, for focusing on rolls this month. Here's the third good recipe so far.