Artisan Bread Bowls

Now that the weather is cooling down I am excited to have more soup!  I love soup in a bread bowl, so a few months back I looked around for a good bread bowl recipe.  I narrowed things down to two recipes and tried this one first.  It is not all that hard, and they taste great!  I pretty much made the dough in my bread machine and followed the directions from there.  So simple!

I can't find the source of this recipe, but if I can track down the website I'll be sure to give them the credit they deserve!

Here's the recipe:

3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (I have made these with AP flour and bread flour.  Both were great.)
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup nonfat dry milk
2 teaspoons yeast
2 teaspoons salt
2 Tablespoons oil (I used olive oil)
1 1/2 cups lukewarm water, enough to make a smooth, soft dough

Let yeast dissolve in warm water until creamy, about 5 minutes.  Add the rest of the ingredients- by hand, mixer or bread machine- and knead until you've created a smooth dough.

Allow the dough to rise, covered for 45 minutes; it should become puffy.  Divide the dough into 5-6 pieces, depending on how large you want your bread bowl to be.  Roll each piece into a ball.  Place on a lightly greased or parchment (or silpat) covered baking sheet.

Cover the bread bowls with greased plastic wrap.  Refrigerate 4 hours (or up to 24 hours); this step will give the bread bowls extra flavor, and a delightfully crisp-chewy texture.  Two or more hours before serving, remove the bread bowls from the refrigerator.  Uncover, and let them sit for about one hour while you preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Just before baking, slash the top surface of the bowls several times with a sharp knife to allow them to expand.  Bake for 22 to 28 minutes (mine take 22 minutes), until the bowls are deep brown, and sound hollow when thumped on the bottom.  Remove from the oven, and cool on a rack.

The first time I made these I cooked them just in time to be ready for dinner, so they were too hot to touch to cut/scoop out for bowls.  I'd advise to make these with enough time to cool down before serving.

Also, I want to experiment with the timing of slashing the tops of the bowls.  It seems to deflate the bread, so I wonder if I slashed them right when they came out of the fridge if they would be able to rise better before baking.

I had some French onion soup in this one!  I put Provolone cheese on top and put it under the broiler.  It was wonderful.