BBA: Portuguese Sweet Bread

      The twenty-seventh Bread Baker's Apprentice challenge (from the book by the same name authored by Peter Reinhart) is Portuguese Sweet Bread, and is found on pages 215-218.   

      This is a one-day dough: a small amount of time to make the sponge and let it rise for an hour and then it gets mixed with sugar, salt, powdered milk, butter, shortening, eggs, lemon extract, orange extract, vanilla extract, bread flour, and water. 

      From there it gets kneaded for about ten minutes, rises for about two hours, formed into a boule and placed into a pie tin to rise for another two to three hours, and then baked for nearly an hour.   Mine baked slightly less, about 50 minutes until it tested done.  All fairly easy actually, although it took a good bit of a day, it was mostly just letting it rise for the three rises.        The recipe makes two one pound loaves, but I just made one as I wanted to use it for French Toast on Sunday morning.  The bread itself is crusty on the outside and very light on the inside, good for soaking up the egg mixture.  The fruity taste in the bread makes excellent tasting French Toast. 

      This was a great recipe and one that I will make again for French Toast...not too sure we would like it as sandwich bread due to the fruity taste, except for ham sandwiches as I think it would be lovely with ham and cheese, but most other things, I think not so much.  Yes, it's one worthy of a repeat.

  

      You can visit the main group and marvel the breads.  I'm getting there...Slow and Steady.  Our next challenge:  Potato Rosemary Bread, found on pages 219-221.