The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Bread Fashion Show - BBD #56

breadsong's picture
breadsong

Bread Fashion Show - BBD #56

Hello everyone,

January’s Bread Baking Day theme is “A Bread Fashion Show”, with a call for decorated crusts.
What a lovely idea!

                                                                                

A Fashion Show seemed to call for fabric – how to use fabric to decorate bread?
I was reminded me of a photo I saw once, of one of Roger Gural’s beautiful breads, stencilled with a lacy pattern.
Off to the fabric store I went.

This is Mr. Hamelman’s Unkneaded Six-Fold French Bread, using a big piece of lace to stencil, for this month’s baking challenge. I wish I could say I used fancy French lace – this was more likely drapery material :^)    

                                  

 

Many thanks: to Mr. Gural for the inspiration, to Mr. Hamelman for his delicious recipe, to Jenni at The Gingered Whisk for a wonderful idea for this month’s challenge, and to Zorra for her Bread Baking Day event.
I’m so looking forward to seeing what other bakers will create for this month’s ‘decorated bread’ baking theme!

 

*Update to this post - one more entry for the Fashion Show :^)

I was going through some photos and remembered this bread I baked a long time ago (2011).
This bread was inspired by a fashionable, floral, felted hat, made by a very talented lady I met at a bread-baking class -
I wanted to add this bread to this post!
This sourdough bread's crust was covered with decorative dough 'flowers', that had been colored with white flour, cocoa and cornmeal; the 'leaves' were colored with green pea flour. Had fun with cookie cutters, for this one :^)
                               

 

Happy baking everyone,
:^) breadsong

 

Comments

lumos's picture
lumos

What a beautiful loaf, breadsong!  Very artistic, as always. :)

breadsong's picture
breadsong

Hi lumos,
Thank you so much!
Your baguettes are so beautiful, they need no further adornment!
:^) breadsong

linder's picture
linder

a beautiful loaf of bread!  What a great idea.  That is something to remember.  Great bread shaping, scoring and inspired decoration.

Linda

breadsong's picture
breadsong

Hi Linda,
I'm grateful to Mr. Gural for his lovely idea - it really did look like he'd stencilled his bread with a lace material, in the picture of the bread I saw. The lace I found had a nice open pattern to let flour through, and was a soft enough fabric to drape nicely over the bread - made it really easy to use.
Thanks so much for your kind words!
:^) breadsong

ananda's picture
ananda

Love this concept Breadsong,

A simple bread formula, finished in such a tasteful and attractive way

All good wishes

Andy

breadsong's picture
breadsong

Hi Andy,
Thank you so much :^)
This was a very simple bread to make, and even simpler to decorate - grateful to have been able to fit in this bake before January closed.
We love good, crusty French bread and this one had a lovely flavor.
:^) breadsong

varda's picture
varda

drapery material will do.    Very pretty.  -Varda

breadsong's picture
breadsong

Thank you, Varda - that's so kind of you to say.
:^) breadsong

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Breadsong!  This is what baking is all about!  I am sure that beautiful loaves taste better too.  This has to be one of the bread baking rules that can't be broken...or something like that.  Now you got me looking around for doilies - which is not an easy thing to admit:-)

Happy Baking Breadsong!

breadsong's picture
breadsong

dabrownman, you made me laugh :^)
Thanks so much!
:^) breadsong

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Love your artistic bread!  What a great idea to use fabric to make a stencil.  Just keep DA away from teh doilies please :)

breadsong's picture
breadsong

Hi Ian, and thank you -
dabrownman's baskets leave such pretty patterns - he'd make good use of doilies, too, I'm sure!
Might have to call on his apprentice to hide the doilies away?
:^) breadsong

Yippee's picture
Yippee

Breadsong:

Like I said,  you've definitely got the magic fingers!

Yippee

breadsong's picture
breadsong

Hi Yippee,
How are you? It's so nice to hear from you and thank you for your kind comment!
:^) breadsong

Donna322's picture
Donna322

Breadsong...is that how you made the flowers and at what point did you put them on the bread?  Thanks for any tips..

 

breadsong's picture
breadsong

Hi abbygirl,
I made this bread a long time ago, and hope my recollection is accurate. Thank goodness for photos - I was able to go back and see some of what I had done :^)
To make the flowers, I used an uncolored decorative 'dead' (non-yeasted) dough, like the one in this link.
(I'd scale back the quantities listed in that recipe - you don't need very much dough. If you make too much dough, like I did, I discovered the dough freezes nicely for future use, if well-wrapped).
I rolled the dough very thin, before cutting out the flowers and leaves:

Before baking, I tried to brush all the flour from the banneton off of the dough, before scoring and baking for about 20 minutes.
While the bread was baking, I applied the flour, cornmeal and cocoa to the flowers and leaves. When the bread was nicely browned, I took it out of the oven; before placing the decorated flowers and leaves on the bread, I'm pretty certain I brushed a very light amount of water to help them stick.
I returned the bread to the oven to finish baking, another 10 minutes or so, keeping an eye on things to make sure the flowers and leaves didn't overbrown.
I hope you find this helpful, and that you enjoy working with decorative dough!
:^) breadsong

Mebake's picture
Mebake

How extraordinarily aatractive breads these are, Bread song!! Pitty they should be sliced open.

If i had a bakery running i'd feature your breads in my display window.

very Beautiful, and very creative.

breadsong's picture
breadsong

Hi Khalid,
What a sweet thing to say - that would be such an honor - thank you so much!
:^) breadsong

Donna322's picture
Donna322

That link you included is awesome! So this dough is edible...correct? Thanks again:) I look forward to experimenting!

 

 

breadsong's picture
breadsong

Hi,
I'm glad you liked the link. The dough should be edible, but I'm not sure how good it would taste (lots of sugar, no salt?).
I hope you have fun working with it!
:^) breadsong