Aromi Golosi

Mmmmmmm. Sweet bread. When I got to do this bread, I was so excited to be making what I've always known it as Hawaiian bread. I grew up eating King's Hawaiian bread in the orange labeled bag and never dreamed that I would one day make it myself. To be perfectly clear, this was NOT your grocery bagged Hawaiian bread. No, this was SO much more delicious than what I had been eating all those years. Thank goodness for those Portuguese immigrants who graced us with this delicious treat. The funny thing is that Susan from Wild Yeast blog also made this bread this week, but her version is a little different. I think I will try her recipe the next time I make sweet bread, since she always has such mouth-watering photos. Reinhart's bread is actually a one day event, but since I used wild yeast, it took me two days to make. This particular recipe is on page 215 in the Breadbaker's Apprentice Book, and bread #27 in the Challenge. If you are a fan of Hawaiian bread, then you MUST try this recipe, and if you are still without the book you can find the recipe here.

For this recipe, I took out a frozen piece of Adam(my starter), and brought it to room temp before mixing my sponge.

Sponge bubbling away nicely

The really interesting aspect of this recipe is the addition of powdered milk in which Reinhart swears is the key in this recipe. I then mixed all the ingredients for the dough together until I had a soft, silky, ball.

The dough was then allowed to rest and rise until doubled in bulk.

Then the dough was separated and formed into this loaf. I merely made 8 small balls and dropped them into the loaf pan. The second rise was a little faster.

The resulting loaf was not only beautiful to look at, but really delicious as well. Don't be put off by the dark color of the bread. Reinhart explains that it's the high amount of sugar in the dough that makes the bread turn a "rich mahogany brown". This is a definite keeper in the book for me. Yeastpotted

Seems to me that I have been here before...Hmmm, and, I somehow think this is deja-vu.. Anyway, here is bread #26 in The Breadbaker's Apprentice challenge, and another winning artisan bread recipe from Peter Reinhart's book.  In this recipe, Reinhart uses an ingredient called "clear flour", which is something between whole wheat flour and white flour. He has instructions on sifting out the bran in whole wheat flour to get the closest to the real ingredient. There are several types of preferments; sponge, biga, and sourdough are some that may be familiar from past breads, but of the most common and easiest preferments is the poolish, and the star of the show here. Pronounced “poo-LEESH,” the name is thought to derive from the Polish bakers who invented and introduced it to Viennese bakers, who in turn brought it to France. Since similar baguettes had been made previously, I won't bore you with the step by step images since they really are a lot like the past ones. Reinhart says this was the 2nd best baguette he's had, and I have to agree that the taste was not as good as some of the previous baguettes, but it was still better than average bread. In case you still haven't bought the book, you can find the recipe here, and try making these for yourself. yeastspotted.