…:: Alex Smirnov ::…

Before my new copy of Peter Rheinhart’s book on Whole Grain Breads arrives in the mail, I decided to revisit his timeless classic “The Breadbaker’s Apprentice” and give a few more recipes a try.  After battling a cold all last week, skipping my workouts and following less than a desirable diet, I decided to go out with a bang and picked a very aromatic and sweet recipe straight from the Mediterranean – The Greek Celebration Bread (Christopsomo). The recipe pretty much guarantees a complete sensory overload – sweetness from honey, rich satisfying taste taste from milk, eggs and olive oil and complex aroma of nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, almonds and lemon.

The recipe is pretty straightforward but it does require some planning. Although a wild yeast barm could be used in this recipe, I opted for poolish which I made 3 days ahead of time. After adding all ingredients together in the bowl, I assumed the mixing process would be a breeze. After all, that’s what the KitchenAid mixer is for. But the dough appeared to very wet and gluey and the mixer got a pretty good workout. I kept adding flour hoping I would see some improvement in the dough quality but after almost 1 extra cup I starting fearing this experiment would come to an untimely (and unsuccessful) end.  The recipe recommends 10 minutes of kneading or mixing and fortunately that was enough to incorporate all the extra flour and end up with a supple and tacky dough which easy passed the windowpane test. I was planning to make two loaves with raisins and cranberries but forgot to put them in the first batch of dough.

Both loaves rose nicely, roughly doubling in volume in about 90 minutes. After light degassing, each dough was split into two pieces – one roughly two-three times bigger than the other one. The bigger part was shaped into a boule, the smaller one went into refrigerator to be added to the boule just before baking – for – shall we say decorative purposes.  The proofing took only about 60 minutes and provided a solid base for a massive oven spring.

Final shaping, moments before going in the oven.

Final shaping, moments before going in the oven (featuring raisins and cranberries).

The loaves were baked (and proofed) on parchment paper for 2×20 minutes at 350F with a 180 degree rotation of pans at the half-way point for even baking. The aroma started rising out of the oven pretty much immediately and forced me salivating out of the kitchen after mere 10 minutes. In another 10, the entire apartment was completely infused with the fragrant aroma of the baking bread.  But the worst was yet to come.  Even though I sometimes like tearing into a freshly baked loaf of bread as soon as the temperature permits, there are several valid reasons why one should control his or her primal urges (read the books to learn why). So we waited patiently and eventually, about an hour later, we cut off a few slices and were pretty much instantly blown away by the taste.

The finished loaves of christopsomo.

Christopsomo with raisins and cranberries.

Christopsomo with raisins and cranberries.

Christopsomo with raisins and cranberries.

Christopsomo, the "plain" version.

Christopsomo, the "plain" version.

Christopsomo, the "plain" version.

Christopsomo, the "plain" version.

One thing that disappointed me is that the curled up ends  did not stay in position while the crust was setting and were kind of sticking “out”. But even though this might make the bread less esthetically perfect, it certainly did not hurt the flavor. And ultimately, that’s what we care about. So to conclude, yes, I will definitely be making christopsomo again. Not too often though because the recipe is pretty rich (two eggs, 3/4 cups of milk, 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/4 cup honey). But then again, this was never meant to be an everyday kind of bread.