Bread Bowls

I would rather eat bread than cake. It’s true. I have always had a deep love for breads of all kinds. French, cinnamon, pumpkin, rosemary–you name it, I love it. (Except maybe pumpernickel. That’s not my favorite). But I’ll tell you what IS my favorite. These bread bowls. (Is that proper grammar?) I am so excited to tell you about these bread bowls that I am not even stopping to fix my grammar errors. That is major.

The first time I made these, I was shocked by how good they were. So light and fluffy and beautiful and DELICIOUS! It was hard not to just eat the whole thing before I used it as a lovely holder for my Creamy Roasted Red Pepper and Basil Soup. I mean, really, these are just gargantuan rolls, right? There’s nothing wrong with eating a huge cookie, so by the same token, there’s nothing wrong with eating an enormous roll. But really, try to save some for the soup 🙂

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Bread Bowls

Author: Melissa Howell

Ingredients

• 4 1/2 tsp. active dry yeast two packets
• 1 cup warm water
• 1 cup warm milk
• 1/2 cup oil
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp. salt
• 6 cups flour
• Cornmeal for dusting baking sheet

Instructions

1. In mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in the cup of warm water.
2. Add warm milk, oil, sugar, eggs, salt, and two cups of flour. Beat until smooth.
3. Stir in the remaining 4 cups of flour to make a soft dough. You can either use the dough hook on your mixer, or stir in the rest.
4. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes.
5. Place back in the mixing bowl and cover loosely with plastic wrap (just put it across the top of the bowl, not directly onto the dough). Let rise in a warm place until double in size.
6. Punch dough down, then turn onto a lightly floured surface. Divide into 8 equal pieces. (I use a knife and cut the ball of dough in half, then in half again and again until I have 8 pieces). Form each piece into a ball.
7. Grease two baking sheets and sprinkle with cornmeal. Place four balls of dough on each baking sheet, three inches apart. Cover and let rise until doubled (about 30 minutes).
8. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Cool on wire racks.