Hey all. It’s been a hot minute. Life gets busy. BUT! Look at this awesome new cookbook my man-friend agreed to buy me as a shameless way to work around my vow to remain purchase-free.
It is almost the end of the school year here in my world. I’m not going to lie to you. This school year sort of took it out of me. I had a blast and learned a ton. I pushed myself very hard. I had lots of successes and lots of failures and shared a lot of music with a lot of fabulous young people. But I am exhausted. I feel like I limped over the finish line, so baking hasn’t been on my mind too much lately. I’m excited for summer so that I can reset, focus on something OTHER than show choir for a while, and get refreshed and reenergized for next school year, which I already know is going to be off-the-charts amazing.
A few weeks ago, Matt and I went to see “Waitress” at the Murat, which was, of course, terrific. Baking+musical theater+Sarah Bareilles= happy Kelly L. Cassady. They were selling a cookbook at the event that was a compilation of recipes from the show. I had to have it. It was beautiful. I needed it. However, I had promised not to buy cookbooks for a year so… Matt bought it. And then, as he was about to check out of his amazon account, I blurted that I also wanted the Paul Hollywood cookbook shown above. Did I really need it? No. Could I wait until my birthday, just a few weeks away? Also no. I know, I know. I already have two Hollywood books. But, come on! It’s all about bread! It completes my set! It satisfies my addiction! He caved. I’ll pay him back.
I celebrated this new cookbook by baking the item on the cover, a savory brioche couronne. 
Look at that high-calorie cheesy goodness.
Brioche is an enriched dough, which basically means that you take a basic bread dough and add lots of stuff to it that is bad for you, including lots of eggs and loooots of butter. The recipe incorporates fillings and then is twisted into the shape of a crown. I love making this shape with sweet bread, but had never tried it with a savory dough, and I was super pleased with the results. I actually had to make two batches of this particular dough. (Cue eye roll). The first time I tried, I left it to rise for an hour, came back to look at it, and it was squashed and strongly resembled a pasty hockey puck. I then figured out that I had killed the yeast by using three sticks of salted butter instead of unsalted butter and got to start over. Oh well, it was good practice I suppose.
Please note the little curly attachments on my mixer in the above picture. I had never used these before and have always taken tons of time to mix dough by hand because I don’t own a stand mixer with a dough hook. However, today I decided to give those squiggly things (they must have a name?) a try, and they worked like a charm! I also didn’t have to spend tons of time cleaning bits of dough off my hands.
The dough produced by this recipe was sloppy and soft. I floured my counter liberally, and rolled it out into a big square.
(Shoutout to my boyfriend/photographer for the next several shots.)
I then layered the dough with prosciutto, torn mozzarella, and basil. I felt very classy for using basil from a live basil plant. I’ll go ahead and admit that the reason I bought the plant was that it was cheaper than buying a bunch of fresh basil.
After admiring my prosciutto artwork for a few minutes, I got to do the fun part: shaping. When you make a courronne, you rolling up the dough into a long rope, and then cut it lengthwise so that it looks like a pair of pants. You then wind these pant legs together and join the ends together, making a pretty braided circle. This shape is very easy to achieve and will immediately convince all your friends that you are a genius baker. I was making this for Matt’s parents, so it was nice to be able to pretend to be impressive.
I stuck a hot box cup in the middle of the crown to help the bread keep its shape, chucked the baking sheet in a big plastic bag, and left it to rise for another hour. Before baking, I did an eggwash and artistically sprinkled some parmesan cheese all over the top. Warning: this loaf had A LOT of expansion in the oven. It almost outgrew the baking sheet I had it sitting on.
I was so happy with this bread. It was buttery and flaky, and tasted very good with the lasagna I made for dinner. Paul Hollywood, you never disappoint. I am already predicting a lot of soup in my future this week… that bread is just asking to be smothered in tomato soup and devoured with cheese at the end of a long school day. I particularly liked the prosciutto worked into the layers of the break… it was like little salty ribbons of deliciousness in every other bite. I’m glad I didn’t just do one even layer of the prosciutto though; I think that would have inhibited the rise.
To my fellow teachers: we can do it. Just eat some carbs. It’ll give you strength the fight the good fight for a few more days.
I can taste it from your description!!!
Dough hooks 🙂