The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

3 gmas Roses for Valentine's Day!

gmagmabaking2's picture
gmagmabaking2

3 gmas Roses for Valentine's Day!

We 3 grammas attempted to weave our loaves into roses, with Barb winning the "looks most like a rose" award... here are our pictures... remember the fun is the baking together and the reward is the taste! LOL...

  This is Barb's Savory loaf, with Italian sausage, ground beef and onions and grated parmesan and homemade Panko crumbs...  These small ones are cinnamon, sugar and butter.... 

The stem is in place in the one above... cute, cute, cute!!!

  Great looking crumb here!

Helen made one big loaf... all that twisting and braiding around looks so good. Look at all that flavor rolling around in there!

It baked up nice and golden... Helen's comments about the crumb shot below: Yummmm this is soft, sweet bread with a spicy pesto flavor... it tastes really good!

  Here are my loaves. I put the cookbook in the picture, because I used the Vienna Bread recipe from this book.  I love this dough. It is always so soft and springy.

  I love the taste of the sun-dried tomatoes and the garlic in here... this bread would make outstanding grilled cheese sandwiches.... a point I may have to prove later this evening. ;-)

  Again, we baked together, had our great "sister-time" with each other and made those around us happy with the eating... (us too!)... next week we are doing a no-knead.... maybe banana bread... who knows... whatever we decide, we will tell you all about it.

Happy Baking, 

Diane, Helen and Barb

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Wow..those all look so good!  Thanks for sharing your beautiful looking and I bet tasting breads.

 

gmabaking's picture
gmabaking

well, really the last rose of winter would be more accurate. In deference to and in solidarity with Diane's shoulder surgery, our sisterly bakes will be no-kneads, all-machine kneads or things like banana breads (that one posted this week with pumpkin sounds great) while she recuperates.

Thank you island66, the breads that you and dabrownman make have inspired us to try new paths in our baking.

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Thank you for the compliment.  I'm glad I could inspire you to try new things.  From what I can see you and your sisters are doing a great job and having plenty of fun.

Look forward to seeing more from all of you.

Regards,
Ian

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Mine.  Beet juice to make it pink, the filling is sauteed beet greens, garlic, almond meal, sugar, cocoa and chocolate chips.  The picture was right after forming it has since cleared the counter ferment and is in the fridge for it's overnight sleep.   Will bake it off tomorrow.  I've had a lot of fun so far and since my wife went into work today - no complaining about making bread on the weekends :-)   A Win Win!

You GMA's really outdid yourselves this time.  I will post more here later.  Making soup for dinner and the beeper is going

 off telling me not to forget something .....

Happy Baking .

 

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Well I guess the beet juice worked!  Can't wait to read about the rest of it soon.

Enjoy your bonus baking day :).

gmagmabaking2's picture
gmagmabaking2

and chocolate chips... can't wait to see how that bakes up.... wonderful... glad you got to join us TODAY! ;-)

Diane

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

is one I will have to get back to sans pink :-)  Here is a pix of the crust.  I really like how it turned out and can't wait to see what it looks like on the inside and if the pink remained.  Also want to see what the savory chocolate tastes like too!  It was fun baking with you GMA's this week.  All of your roses turned out just great.  Aren't they fun to make?

Happy baking.

 

gmabaking's picture
gmabaking

Wow, the sign of a gorgeous loaf singing its way from oven to counter top. You win the crust prize and after seeing the crumb I would venture to say you have won that one too! Nice bread, it was fun baking with you-

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Your rose was the best crafted and Diane's crumb was very open. Mine had the pox ouside and in :-)

Bake On!

frenchcreek baker's picture
frenchcreek baker

Hi there Grandmas and  Dabrowman,

 

I am very impressed by Barb's and DA's shaping. Can either of you explain how youachieved this rose shape?

 

And DA, Idumpy love the rose colorachieved by the beet juice. I am wondering what the bakedlook will be. Is there a recipe for this chocolate chip beet wonder you could share? 

 

Thanks for the inspiring post.

Sorry for typos. Doing this on iPhone and can't go back and fix typos for sometechnical reason only computer geeks comprehend

Happy baking,

anne

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

I just posted the Ventine Rose bake that should help explain the process.  What a fun bread to make!  Any questions = just ask!

 

gmabaking's picture
gmabaking

this is one of those easy but impressive breads to make. DA has great instructions with pictures on his blog. What a great idea to use beet juice. I couldn't come up with a way to color the savory one. I planned on sprinkling the smaller sweet roses with colored sugar and to try to make it look like a bouquet. Two things happened to hijack that idea- they looked more like giant lollipops and a few minutes later a grandson arrived and packed them off.

Here is the posting that started it all, for me anyway:  http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/31325/rose-christmas   The links within are fun to follow. On the one from Chef Ciril Hitz, there is a recipe for an almond filling. Simply combine 1/4 cup granulated sugar, 4 Tablespoonsful butter, 1 whole egg, 1/3 cup almond flour, 1 teaspoonful bread flour, 1 teaspoonful ground cinnamon. I used it for the first (and only other) rose that I made as a King's Cake for January 6.

At first I tried to make the swirl by picking up the twisted braid a little off the counter and coiling it around one end, that didn't work nearly as well as starting with one end and turning it round and round as you move it down the braid. The trick I think is to keep making sure that the filling slits are on top and haven't rolled over as you braid or coil.

frenchcreek baker's picture
frenchcreek baker

Hello there,

I appreciate the extra info. I will give this a try for Valentine's Day this year.

Wish I lived near the 3G's! It seems  that  you have a great team of baking friends. 

I look forward to reading about your bread adventures.

 

Cheers,

Anne

gmabaking's picture
gmabaking

Hi Anne

I wish the 3G's lived closer each other too! My sisters are in separate areas of Texas and I am in Washington State. We started the weekly baking, picture and text exchanging last year when we were baking our way through the Inside The Jewish Bakery challenge. We kept adding to it whenever one of us would get interested in a new book or a new way to make bread. We've happily and flourly baked our way through parts of several books, beginning with Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, to Ken Forkish's Flour, Water, Salt and Yeast.  So we have wandered through no-knead, Kitchen Aid kneading, stretch and folding...who knows what will come next?

We'd love to have you join us for our Monday baking sessions, on any day of the week or whenever you find time (plus energy and ingredients :-)

Good Luck with your Valentine rose,

Barbra