The Great British Bake Off is one my favorite shows, inspiring new bakes, new flavors, and new techniques! Join me on my journey to bake through all the Season 8 Challenges.
Total Cooking Time: 2 hours and 30 minutes
The Great British Bake Off is a classic show for bakers and those looking for a friendly competition. All the bakes on the show look delicious and I often want to try baking them myself! So, I finally got off the couch and into the kitchen to recreate some of the recipes from Bake Off! I chose to start with season eight of Bake Off as it is my favorite season and the one with some of my favorite challenges!
I finally made it to the finale! This has been a long and tiring journey and I feel so close to the ending. But to drag it out a little further, I’m going to do something a little different for this signature challenge. The original signature challenge was to make four loaves of three different types of bread. One loaf needed to be shaped and one loaf needed to use an alternative flour
I didn’t want to stray away from the challenge, but I am going to split the three recipes into three different posts. Especially since these recipes are not a variation from each other, these are three completely different recipes. This post will be for the simply shaped, roasted garlic and herb bread (the center one in the picture). Stay tuned for more 😊
Check out the Season 8 Great British Bake Off Page to see other bakes from the series or the Make section for more recipes!
Ingredients
There aren’t many ingredients needed for this recipe. I used bread flour, instant yeast, sugar, milk, salt, and butter for the core dough. This needed to be a dough that has a quick rise because the challenge was not overnight. The contestant only had a few hours and I wanted to give myself some sort of similar restriction.
I also used two whole bulbs of garlic which might seem like a lot but actually spread itself well over the four loaves of bread. For the herbs, I decided to use mainly oregano. I could have used more but I didn’t want to go overboard. If I did this recipe again, I would a majority of rosemary as the herb.
Process
01
Prepping the Garlic
The first thing I did for the bread was roast the garlic. I did this step first because I wanted the garlic to be cooked and cooled before the dough had finished proving. Before the garlic could go in the oven, I chopped off the heads of the garlic to allow the cloves to be open to the air.
I drizzled a bit of olive oil, seasoned each bulb with salt and pepper, and then wrapped each bulb in a piece of aluminum foil. Then it’s time to cook! When the garlic came out of the oven, they were roasted nicely with a darkened hue. I might have over done it, but it tastes so good.
The last step in prepping the garlic is making sure it is in the right form to properly flavor the bread. I decided to mince the roast garlic which ended up turning into more of paste.
02
Making the Dough
To make the dough, I first warmed up the milk to around 110 degrees Fahrenheit. The perfect temperature to activate the instant-dry yeast! I like to let the yeast bloom in some sort of liquid before mixing in other ingredients. I find that it helped to get the dough moving even faster. Spend some time now to save a lot of time later.
Once the yeast is ready, I added the flour and sugar into the yeast mixture. I then added in the salt and melted butter after the first round of ingredients had been fully combined. And then it’s time to knead!
Kneading really is one of my favorite activities. I can get out all of my emotions and give my arms a quick workout! Once the dough had reached a good consistency, I left it in a warm place to proof. I wanted the dough to double in size before manipulating it anymore.
03
Adding the Fillings
The first step for adding the fillings is to spread out the bread into a large circle. Almost like making a pizza. I then spread a layer of the roasted garlic across the bread. Lastly, I sprinkled the herbs across the top off the garlic. It did look like a rather strange pizza.
Then it was time to make the dough into a ball again. I did several folds and then kneading it a bit to get the fillings more evenly spread throughout the bread. Then it was time to divide the bread into four loaves.
I let the dough proof again as I wanted to have the bread be light a fluffy. I think I might have let this bread proof too long as the bread almost tripled in size. These things became monsters.
04
Baking
Before putting the bread into the oven, I did slashes on each loaf. This was done to give the bread shape and direct the air out of the bread as it cooked in the oven. But mainly it’s because I though it would look nice. Then it was time to bake, and I had some delicious bread!!
Reflections
I feel like this recipe went really well considering how quickly I bread came together. Only a couple of hours for four delicious loaves of bread? Yes please! Surprisingly, I feel bread is one of the challenges that I’m more confident.
Am I ready for bake-off? This has been one of my best bakes and, personally, I think I knocked it out of the park. The fact one of my friends took as much bread as possible when given the chance was a really big confidence boost. Definitely come back next week to check out the other bread recipes!!
Lessons
Blooming Yeast
Blooming the yeast allows for more flavors to permeate throughout the bake and ensures that live yeast cells are in the yeast when making bread. It effectively readies active dry yeast for whatever is being baked.
recipe
Roasted Garlic and Herb Bread
Ingredients
- 2 Bulbs Garlic
- 2 Tbsp Olive Oil
- A Dash Salt and Pepper
- 5 ½ Cups Bread Flour
- 3 Teaspoon Active-Dry Yeast
- 4 Tablespoon Granulated Sugar
- 2 Cups Milk warmed to 110 degrees Fahrenheit
- 1 ½ Teaspoon Salt
- ¼ Unsalted Butter melted
- 3 Tablespoon Oregano or other herbs (see notes)
- 1 Egg beaten, for egg wash
Instructions
Roasting Garlic
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit
- Peel away excess layers of papery white skin from each garlic bulb. Leave just enough layers to keep the garlic bulbs together. Cut away ¼ inch from the top of the bulb so each individual clove is exposed.
- Drizzle each bulb with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
- Wrap each bulb, cut side up, in aluminum foil. Place bulbs on baking sheet.
- Bake for 40 to 70 minutes or until cloves have turned light brown and soft.
- Remove garlic cloves from the bulb and mince into a paste.
Making the Bread
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Mix the active dry yeast into the warmed milk. Let sit for 5 to 10 minutes or until the yeast has bloomed.
- Combine flour and sugar into the milk and yeast mixture. Mix for approximately one minute.
- Add salt and melted butter and knead until combined (about 5-10 minutes by hand)
- Cover and let rise until doubled in size (about 30-60 minutes)
- Knock back dough and flatten into a circle. Spread a layer of the minced roasted garlic on top of the bread. Sprinkle herbs on top. Knead until garlic and herbs are incorporated throughout the dough.
- Divide dough into four loaves. Shape into oval. Let rest for about 15-30 minutes or until doubled in size.
- Slash the tops of the loaves as desired. Use a beaten egg to put an egg wash on the top of the loaves.
- Bake for approximately 25-30 minutes or until the loaves are a golden brown (the internal temperature should be between 190-200 degrees Fahrenheit)
- Enjoy!!
Notes
- Rosemary
- Sage
- Sesame Seeds