Friday, October 9, 2009

Garlic Pinwheel Bread

This is not your supermarket white bread, loaded with yellow fake butter even more fake garlic. This is the real deal...
For the bread:
  • 2 cups white flour
  • 2 cups wheat flour
  • 4 glugs of olive oil (I don't know--I don't measure. Probably 4 tablespoons?)
  • small handful of salt (a tablespoon?)
  • 1 cup water

Okay, I totally made up those measurements. I make bread in my kitchen aid mixer, and I just sort of know how much stuff goes in. You could look up a recipe for French bread if this isn't working for you.

For the filling:

  • 1 head garlic, more or less, peeled and coarsely chopped
  • 1 handful parsley and rosemary (or any other herbs you like), chopped
  • 1 stick of butter (or a couple of tablespoons of olive oil
  • salt to taste

Make the bread and let it rise until doubled in size. Saute the garlic and herbs in the butter until the garlic is fairly soft. Let it cool. Punch down the dough and roll it out into a squarish shape--it should be fairly thin, about like a thin pizza dough. Spread the garlic over the bread--be sure to get it close to the edges. Roll the bread up like a jelly roll, tucking the ends under. Place the bread on a cookie sheet, seam side down. With a very sharp knife, make three diagonal slashes in the bread--you have to do this quickly and sort of deep, or you'll just pull the dough. What you want is deep cuts that allow the garlic and herbs to peek out. The dough will pull apart as it rises. Let the loaf rise for about a half hour or so, then bake at 425 degrees until the loaf is nicely browned and sounds hollow when it's tapped. Let cool for about 5 minutes or so, then slice. As a variation, you can slice the unbaked loaf into rounds and place them in a greased pie plate, sort of like cinnamon rolls--this makes very pretty rolls.

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