One Brother and Two Sisters: Bread Bowls for Soup

I made some fantastic bread bowls today for soup. This recipe makes 6-8 bowls, or, if you have a family of five and three of them are hungry teenage boys, then I made my batch into 5 over-sized bowls. While Scott and I could only eat about half of ours, they were still delicious. In the future, I can make smaller ones when I am not trying to fill up a teenager's hallow leg. Enjoy!

Bread Bowls for Soup

Ingredients:

1 ½ tablespoons active dry yeast, use 1 tablespoon instant yeast
2 ½ cups warm water
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
6-7 cups all-purpose flour (see note)
1 tablespoon cornmeal (optional)

Directions:

In a large bowl (or bowl of an electric mixer), dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes. (You can omit this step if using instant yeast.)

If you are able and have a powerful enough mixer, using a stand mixer with a dough hook is super nice during the kneading phase of this recipe, so I would highly recommend putting your yeast and water into the bowl of your mixer.

Add salt, oil and 4 cups flour to the yeast mixture; beat well. Stir in the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, beating well with an electric mixer at medium speed after each addition until a soft but not sticky dough is formed (you may not need to use all 7 cups... I only used 6 1/2 cups). This bread bowl dough needs to be a bit firmer than a roll/bread dough so that the bread bowls rise up instead of out.

I used the paddle attachment on my mixer to begin combining the flour into my yeast mixture. Once the mixer had things mostly combined and started to struggle with the dough, then I changed out the paddle for the dough hook.

When the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 6 minutes (or let knead in an electric mixer).

If possible, I highly recommend letting the mixer do the kneading. I put my KitchenAid mixer on the #2 setting and let it knead for about 3-4 minutes, which was perfect. I think you only need to do the full 6 minutes if you are kneading by hand.

Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 40 minutes.
Punch dough down, and divide into 6-8 equal portions.

I used a scale to weigh out my portions to make sure they were equal in size at around 330 grams each, making 5 portions with the dough I had.

Shape each portion into a round ball. Place loaves on lightly greased baking sheets sprinkled with cornmeal (or use silicone liners or parchment paper). If desired, slash the top surface of the bread bowl several times with a sharp knife or razor.
Cover and let rise in a warm place, free from drafts, until doubled in bulk, about 35 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees convection. Bake in preheated oven for 15-18 minutes until golden brown and baked through.

Mine were done when the dough had started to brown, between 18-22 minutes, but I made bigger portion bowls.

Allow to cool on the pan for a few minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to complete cooling so the bowls don't sweat on the pan.

For a yummy and glossy finish, you can brush the tops with melted butter.

Marsha's Notes:

I wanted to remind myself that I did in fact use my stand mixer to knead this dough and it worked beautifully. I kneaded it for about 4 minutes.

I set my speed to 2 for the kneading process.

Here are the dough balls portioned out and scored, ready for their second rise. They did end up puffing up enough during their second rise and baking to touch, but it was fine. When forming the balls, the dough didn't need any extra flour.