If you simply love pairing your chowders, stews, or curries with bread instead of rice, then this bread bowl recipe is tailor-made for you. These homemade bread bowls with warm soup or curry are a great recipe for cold nights or for a hearty warm, comforting dinner with family.
Contents
What is a bread bowl?
A Bread Bowl is a round loaf of bread with a thick and crispy crust, very much like those of a French Loaf (a French Baguette), and the middle is cut out to create an edible large bread bowl. It is a very flexible dish because you can add your favorite soup or curry, like thischicken curry with potatoes(as shown in the photo) inside of the bread bowl and serve it as a main meal or as a snack.
As a general rule of thumb, soups or liquids with thinner consistencies are not usually served in bread bowls as they would easily seep into the bread walls and make the entire bowl soggy way too quickly so thicker soups are usually used in bread bowls recipe.
Other variations to the bread bowl recipe are naan bowls, they are usually filled with chicken tikka masala. Other variations from China and Taiwan are called coffin lid or coffin bread.
Dip the cut-out bread with the curry and eat it, after that, you can eat the bread bowl to finish off the whole dish. Much less washing to do and much more eating to do! What are you waiting for? Give this homemade bread bowl recipe a go right now!
Ingredients required in this Bread Bowl Recipe
How to make a bread bowl? Here is a summary of all the basic ingredients you will need to make your crusty golden brown on the outside and soft texture on the inside bread bowl. All ingredients stated in this bread bowl recipe are prepared at room temperature that will be used to make your dough balls.
Guess what? Only six simple ingredients are needed! Yup, you read it right, only a handful of ingredients are required to make your flour mixture for this bread bowl recipe.
If it is your first time using a yeast mixture or handling active dry yeast, fear not! As it is actually a very simple step shown in the full bread bowl recipe down below.
- Bread flour
- This contains the protein that makes our bread bowl strong with a crust that can withstand the creamy soup
- Water
- Make sure the water is not above room temperature (warm water is acceptable), but hot water will kill the yeast instead of activating, and it will be hard to let your dough rise
- Sugar
- Sugar (glucose) is used to feed your yeast to make sure it can undergo respiration and release carbon dioxide that will help your dough rise
- Salt
- Salt is an important ingredient as it helps tighten the gluten strands in your bread dough, so your bread dough holds carbon dioxide better
- Instant Dry Yeast
- Yeast works as a leavening agent to produce soft rolls filled with holes that make your bread bowl soft and edible
- Salted Butter
- This adds more richness and great flavor to your crusty bread loaves
Baking Tools Required
Here is a quick summary of all the baking tools you will require to get started on this bread bowl recipe.
- Baking Sheet
- Stand Mixer with Paddle and Dough Beater
- Kitchen Scale
- Measuring spoon
- Silicone Spatula
- Cling Film Wrap, Or Tea Towel, Or Saran Wrap
- if you do not have saran wrap, you can replace this with a damp kitchen towel or dish towel
- Oven
Tips on How to Make a Bread Bowl
In the full detailed recipe down below, you will notice that I mention that the dough needs to be continuously beaten until it forms an elastic dough that passes the windowpane test.
What is a windowpane test?
You may wonder what a windowpane test is. Well, simply speaking, it is a test done at the end of kneading or, in this case, after the dough has been beaten. This test is done with the objective of testing if there is enough gluten in the dough. If the test is successful, it would mean that your dough has enough gluten and will be able to rise properly.
How do you perform the windowpane test?
To perform the windowpane test, you need to pinch off a little bit of the dough. Using your thumb, forefinger, and middle finger from each hand, proceed to stretch the dough as much as you can and angle it toward a window. If the dough stretches smoothly out into a thin membrane where sunlight can filter through with no holes in the dough, then the dough is ready for its first rise.
However, if your dough is not smooth and elastic and breaks easily hence being unable to form the thin membrane, then your dough has failed this windowpane test. This means your dough needs to be kneaded even more.
I have attached a simple video that depicts how to perform the windowpane test.
How to Store and Freeze Bread Bowls
To freeze your piece of dough before it’s been baked, punch it down after the first proofing and then store it in an airtight container or ziplock bag that can be kept in the freezer. You can store it for up to two months there. If you want to bake it the next day, thaw it overnight in the refrigerator (not the freezer) add some yeast and then punch it down again and divide it into equal pieces on a lightly floured surface, so you get the perfect size in your ball of dough.
If you want to keep your baked bread bowls, you can store them in an airtight container or bag that can be kept in the freezer. You can store them for up to three months there. Allow them to thaw on the To freeze the baked bread bowls, store them in an airtight, freezer-safe container or ziplock bag for up to 3 months. Allow them to thaw in a warm place, such as your kitchen counter. After it’s been thawed, right before you want to serve it, warm it in an oven until it becomes a nice golden brown and slightly hard crust.
What to serve in your Bread Bowls?
Any comforting soup recipes work, such as the typical mushroom soup, tomato soup, or even oxtail soup. If you prefer something more traditional, you can opt for a clam chowder bread bowl, french onion soup, broccoli cheese soup, and corn. For the adventure-seekers, you can opt for more taste-bud-challenging flavors like chicken curry with potatoes (or any other curries with different variations of meat). Here are some other fillings and dips you can fill this bread bowl recipe with.
Some of you may even opt to use sourdough to create a sourdough bread bowl as well! Keep an eye out as a sourdough series will be coming to you real soon!
If you have tried this Bread Bowl recipe and loved it, I have more recipes in myrecipe sectionfor you to master. But if you are looking for other of my famous recipes, then you can always try myJapanese Cheesecake,Matcha Cheesecake,Blueberry Cheesecake, andPumpkin Pie Cheesecake. For those who want to indulge without guilt —Low Carb CheesecakeandBurnt Cheesecake,both are keto desserts perfect for those who are in a keto or low carb diet.
BREAD BOWL RECIPE
Yield: 5 BREAD BOWLS
Prep Time: 1 hour
Cook Time: 12 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 12 minutes
Bread Bowl is a round loaf of bread with a thick and crispy crust like French Loaf (Baguette), which has had the middle cut out to create an edible bowl. Add in your favorite, chicken curry with potatoes as shown in the photo, for instance, serve as a main meal or as a snack. Dip the cut-out bread with the curry and eat, after that, you can eat the bread bowl to finish off the whole dish. Less bowl to clean up and wash, ghee….. less work, less wastewater, less dish wash to use and more environmental friendly. 🙂
Enjoy baking them!
Ingredients
- Bread flour – 400 gram
- Water – 200 milliliter
- Sugar – 3 tablespoon
- Salt – 1 teaspoon
- Instant Dry Yeast – 2 teaspoon
- Salted Butter – 5 ounce
Utensils
- Baking Sheet
- Stand Mixer with Paddle and Dough Beater
- Kitchen Scale
- Measuring spoon
- Silicone Spatula
- Cling Film Wrap Or Tea Towel
- Oven
Instructions
- Add bread flour, sugar, salt, and dry yeast, and blend well.
Add water, and mix well with a paddle beater. Change to dough beater.
Add butter, a small piece at a time, and continue to beat at a slow speed until all the butter blends into the dough.
- Continue to knead in a stand mixer with a dough beater at slow to medium speed until it forms an elastic dough that passes the windowpane test, about 8 to 12 minutes.
- Cover the bowl and proof at room temperature for 45 minutes until it reaches double the size.
- Punch down the dough to deflate the air pockets and divide the bread dough into 5 equal parts (approximate 150 gram each).
Roll the dough into balls and place them on the baking sheet, let it continue to ferment and rise (second proofing) to double size. - Bake in the preheated oven at 190-200ºC for 10-12 minutes or until the bread bowls reach a light brown color.
Remove the bread from the oven. - Set aside to let it cool while you cook the filling to be served.
Slice the top of the bread horizontally, then cut and scope out the crumbs to make a bowl shape.
Add in your favorite chowder, stews, or curry just before serving.
Notes
Get the full article at https://www.craftpassion.com/bread-bowl-recipe/
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 5Serving Size: 1
Amount Per Serving:Calories: 526Total Fat: 23gSaturated Fat: 14gCholesterol: 61mgSodium: 632mgCarbohydrates: 68gFiber: 2.4gSugar: 7.4gProtein: 9.1g
