Greek Celebration Bread: BBA Challenge

Today in the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge, we're making Greek Celebration Bread. This is an enriched bread made from a master formula that utilizes a barm or poolish.




You can make several different breads from the master formula: Greek Celebration Bread, Christopsomos, and Lambropsomo. I chose to make the basic bread. The formula uses a wild yeast starter, along with a little commercial yeast, to create an authentic-tasting, yet manageable, bread. If you don't have any barm, you can replace it with an equal amount of poolish. The fermentation and proofing times will remain the same. I've been out of town the past few days so I didn't have time to make the barm so I'll be using a poolish.

If you're interested in learning how to make a different type of Greek Celebration Bread, check out this Greek Easter Bread.


Let's get baking!

If you're following along with us, turn to page 111 in the Bread Baker's Apprentice to locate the recipe and list of ingredients.


Morning Day 1: Prepare the Poolish

You can make the poolish the night before and put it in the refrigerator until you're ready to use it. Or, if you want to make the bread the same day, do what I did and start the poolish in the morning before work (7:30 am) and make the bread after work. To make the poolish (p. 106), stir together the flour, water, and yeast in a mixing bowl until all of the flour is hydrated. The dough should be soft and sticky and look like thick pancake batter.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and ferment at room temperature for 3 to 4 hours, or until the sponge becomes bubbly and foamy.

Here is what the poolish looks like after fermenting at room temperature for several hours. You can see it's bubbly and foamy. I think it's really cool the way that works!

Immediately refrigerate it. It will keep for up to 3 days in the refrigerator. I let my poolish sit on the counter until about Noon and then I put it in the refrigerator.



Evening Day 1: Prepare the Dough and Bake the Bread

Remove the measured amount of poolish 1 hour before making the dough. I removed my poolish at 5:00pm so it would be ready at 6:00pm.

This is what the poolish looks like after being dechilled for an hour.

Stir together the flour, salt, yeast, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves in a large mixing bowl (or in the bowl of an electric mixer). I decided to make this bread by hand rather than using the mixer. You really don't need a mixer for this one - it's easy!


Add the barm or poolish, the extracts, eggs, honey, oil, and milk. Stir together with a sturdy spoon until the dough forms a ball. I started out using a wooden spoon but switched to my danish dough whisk because the dough was a little too thick for the spoon.




Sprinkle flour on the counter, transfer the dough to the counter, and knead (or mix on medium speed with the dough hook). Add more milk or flour as needed to form the dough into a soft, but not sticky, ball. It should be tacky and very supple. Knead for approximately 10 minutes.

It was very humid today so I had to add more flour to get my dough to be tacky but not sticky.









Lightly oil a bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, and roll it around to coat it with oil.





Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and ferment the dough at room temperature for 90 minutes or until it doubles in size. It took about an hour and 15 minutes for the dough to double in size.





Remove the dough from the bowl and shape it into a boule (refer to p. 72 for detailed instructions on how to do this). First you shape the dough into an oblong shape.




Then fold the ends under to form a ball.





Then you pinch the bottom seams to make a tight ball. Then, transfer it to a sheet pan that has been lined with parchment. Mist the dough with spray oil. Loosely cover with plastic wrap. Proof the boule at room temperature for 60 to 90 minutes, or until the dough nearly doubles in size. It only took my dough an hour which was fine by me. I didn't want to stay up all night.





Preheat the oven to 350 degrees with the oven rack on the middle shelf.

Bake the loaf for 20 minutes. Rotate the pan 180 degrees for even baking and continue baking for 20 to 30 minutes, or until the loaf is golden brown. It should make a hollow sound when thumped on the bottom.






I left it another couple of minutes and then thumped. It sounded hollow to me. Here is the finished loaf cooling on a wire rack. It's huge! And, beautiful! I probably should've made two loaves, but from the way this looks, I don't think it will last long anyway.



You can glaze the loaf as soon as it comes out of the oven, if desired.  To make the glaze, combine the water and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Add the honey and extract and turn off the heat. Brush the loaf with the glaze




Immediately sprinkle the loaf with sesame seeds. Transfer the bread to a rack and cool for at least 1 hour before slicing or serving.




Here is the sliced loaf. I was right! It is delicious! My son likes it too! Definitely won't last long.



Thanks for joining us this week in the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge.

Stay tuned for Day 3 of the Bread Baking Challenge. Next time, we'll be making bagels.

Happy Baking!
Cathy