Bread and garlic and butta. All the comfort in one tasty little loaf.
Did you guys want more bread? ‘Cause it really seems like everyone wants more bread. Flour is still flying off the shelves, friends are sending me photos of their bread, and my most popular posts right now are almost all bread recipes.
So here’s some more bread.
With garlic.
And butta.
Braided loaves are a lot easier to make than they look. The photos above show you how simple it is - simply roll it out, spread your filling on it, roll it up, cut it, and fold one side over the other a couple times.
And honestly, you can put whatever you want inside them - I made a stunning pesto braided loaf with a glut of summertime basil and I’ve also made one with bright pink freeze-dried raspberry powder. I’ve also done individual buns with cocoa powder that were super cute!
Feel free to up the garlic in this or add any fresh herbs that you want or even cheese! It would all be fantastic and you can use whatever you’ve got on hand.
Braided Garlic Bread
Garlic Butter
75 g butter, at room temp
2-3 heads of garlic, depends on your love of garlic
Salt and pepper, to taste
Pain-au-Lait
Recipe adapted from Bouchon Bakery Cookbook
364 g all-purpose flour
4 g instant dried yeast
21 g granulated sugar
7 g salt
190 g water
23 g eggs
16 g unsalted butter
52 g whole milk
For the pain-au-lait, spray a large loaf pan and a large bowl with nonstick spray.
Place the flour and yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook and give it a quick mix on the lowest setting to distribute the yeast evenly. Add all of the remaining ingredients and mix on low speed for 30 minutes.
Stop the mixer and set a timer for 15 minutes. Using a bowl scraper, release the dough and turn it out onto a lightly floured board. Pat the dough down, then stretch the top portion of the dough up and over to the bottom portion. Stretch the right portion to the left portion, then the bottom to the top, and the left to the right to create a neat "package" of dough. Place it seam-side down in the prepared bowl. Cover and set aside until the timer is done.
Use the bowl scraper to release the dough ands turn it out onto a lightly floured board. Gently pat the dough into a rectangular shape, removing any large air bubbles and adding flour only as needed to keep the dough from sticking to the board.
Roll out the dough to roughly 10 by 15 inches. Smear the garlic butter on the dough, making sure to leave a strip at the bottom long edge of the dough bare. Brush this bare strip with a small amount of water. Starting from the long side away from you, roll up the dough tightly. Using a large sharp knife, cut the log of dough in half lengthwise, leaving about an inch of dough uncut at the top. "Braid" the two halves of dough together by simply putting one half over the other, then again and again. Pinch the ends together and gently transfer the loaf to the loaf pan.
Loosely cover the loaf with plastic wrap and leave in a warm, humid place to proof (but not over 24 C). Let it proof for 2 1/2 to 3 hours, until the loaf has almost doubled in size.
Preheat the oven to 375 F.
Gently brush the loaf with egg wash. Place the loaf pan on a baking tray and bake for 30 minutes, then rotate and bake for another 10 minutes, until the loaf is a dark golden brown on the top. Remove from the oven and let cool completely.