Brainstorming Bread Shapes
Hello TFLers,
I've been mulling over some ideas regarding optimal bread shapes for serving to groups and thought it might be a fun topic for discussion. Here's the situation I have in mind and the accompanying parameters:
I'm going to a weekend retreat of about 60 people where we will be cooking our own food. The central cooking and eating space is basically a spacious but not tremendously equipped house kitchen. I want to make bread for people. Last year, I made rolls, but it was kind of annoying, mostly because scaling 100 rolls takes a long time.
The advantages of rolls are:
- Portion control/discrete serving unit
- Requires no knife
- Cools off quickly - ready to eat shortly after baking
The knife bit is important because we both lacked a good bread knife and if people are waiting to cut bread, it will cause a backup in the serving area. Now, I realize one option is plan to have multiple good bread knives so that slicing is easier and can happen in a few places, facilitating a good flow of people and food. That's less interesting to think about, though.
But I'm considering a different option while I have time to think about it (about two weeks). What loaf shapes are possible that allow for easy, knife-free serving and portioning, and basically have the same advantages of rolls, but involve just scaling and shaping some loaves?
My first thought is epis [1]; pieces can be torn off easily by hand in roughly portioned amounts, but it starts with just scaling a loaf sized chunk of dough.
I found this link [2] on the forums [3] and am also considering the star shape [4]. After poking around a little, I was reminded that pull-apart loaves [5] exist.
That's about what I got so far. These ideas are probably workable, but I thought that the creative minds visiting this site might have fun thinking about it as well, and might point me towards other and better ideas.
Hope to hear from you all soon.