Portugese sweet bread is one of my favorite breads. It has a signature combination of flavor, crust and texture that all work just right together. I’ve made it a number of times so I know the basics. Normally, the key ingredients are 1 cup of sugar, 5 (or so) eggs, and scalded milk. I wanted to try and create my own version of sweet bread using honey. What follows is my first attempt and a critique of the results.
The ingredients:
- 6 cups of flour, divided
- 1 cup of honey, divided (1/4 and 3/4)
- 3/4 cup water
- 2 teaspoons yeast
- 1/2 stick of butter
- 4 eggs
- 1 tbsp salt
I took 1/4 cup of honey, disolved it in the 3/4 cup of water, then added it to 1 cup of flour and 1 teaspoon of yeast to make a sponge. The idea is to give the yeast a headstart and get them “used” to all the sugar. This didn’t work out so well, as I’ll discuss in a moment.
I set that aside, then mixed the eggs and honey together. Then I mixed the butter into the remaining flour along with the salt and the remaining teaspoon of yeast. Finally, I combined everything and then let is sit. All told, I gave the sponge about 45 minutes to work.
My first sign of potential trouble was that the sponge was not very active. I went ahead and mixed everything together anyway. Getting it all to come together into a dough took some doing. I had to run the mixer at a high speed to get the gluten to form. At the end, I had to sprinkle about another 1/4 cup of flour into the bowl while mixing before it cleared the sides of the bowl.
With the dough finally formed, I oiled up a container and set it aside to rise.
Nothing happened… for 4 hours. By this time, I had given up on the dough. I left it alone only out of curiosity as to whether it would ever get going. I had a dinner to go to. The Wife asked what to do with it. I told her not to worry about it. If it did anything, I figured I’d be home in plenty of time to deal with it.
Well, naturally Murphy decided to pay a visit. While I was gone, the dough apparently finally took off and better than doubled. The Wife couldn’t get ahold of me so she called Mom to find out what to do. Between the two of them, they weren’t far off. She put it onto a parchment paper lined cooking sheet and set the oven to 375 and preheated the oven with a cast iron skillet. When the oven was ready, she tossed some ice cubes onto the skillet and put the dough in for 1/2 hour. Not bad. The only thing she missed was the shaping step. Since she’s not the baker, I could hardly falter her- especially considering her heroic efforts in my absence.
The final product was a little over cooked, but edible. It had texture much closer to normal white bread. The crust was a deep brown and there was some decent oven spring on display as well. Shaping and proofing would have given it more in all liklihood. The flavor is definitely sweet, so at least I got that part right.
Next time, no butter in the bread. I’ll stick with the water, as opposed to milk, for the next time as well. The best way to figure it out is to make 1 change at a time. I expect I’ll end up with milk in there yet to get the right texture but I want to try to understand the recipe a little better so I’ll work my way to that point. Also, I’ll mix both teaspoons of yeast into the sponge to get a better start on the yeast. As for the difficulty getting the dough to form, I’ll see what the removal of the butter does there before I get to drastic.
The final product was OK- the loaf won’t go to waste. It’s half gone already. But the recipe itself was too difficult in getting the dough to form and WAY too long with the rise time. Those are the main points to work on initially. As for the texture of the final product, I suspect that will ultimately be related to using milk instead of water.
Back to the drawing board.