Cheese and Celery Crown Loaf

Bake #2: Cheese and Celery Crown Loaf

Hi! Wow, the 2 weeks since my last bake have just flown by! I am, once again, a few days late with my scheduled baking challenge. But, it's early days, and I'm sure I will improve as I journey along... probably... hopefully.

I hope you all had a lovely and spooky Halloween! A good friend of mine gave me the cutest pumpkin and I simply had to share a picture with you! At the moment it is sitting next to one of my Christmas house ornaments. That is the feeling at home right now... the transition from Halloween to Christmas. I also roasted some pumpkin seeds as well... however I unfortunately ended up burning most of them! Perhaps I will have another go this week and scoop out the seeds from my tiny pumpkin. They are great tossed in some melted butter, seasoning salt and some pepper too 

for roasting.

So, for this week's challenge, I thought I would try making some bread buns to accompany my homemade vegetable soup. The weather has been beautiful, but the days are turning colder now that November has come to her senses and we are entering into the winter season. So I decided soup and bread buns were just what was needed for today. I was also tempted to try these, since Mary says "This recipe is quick to make..." She had me there! But she finishes with "because it has no yeast in it, so the bread does not have to rise before baking." There you have it, a great quick bake for lunch! :)

Shall we begin? This recipe is featured in Mary Berry's Baking Bible, page 288. So, first thing was first, I made sure I read the ingredient list to begin with. Last week, I forgot that rule and learned I needed to think on the spot for a substitution. So, I have to admit I felt I was off to a good start! :) Oh, and then I put the oven on next. Mary's conversion chart for this recipe called for a 375 degree Fahrenheit Canadian oven. I started mixing all ingredients in a bowl, dry first, then wet. I made sure I chopped the celery very fine for this recipe. She does say to finely chop the celery, but I wasn't sure just how fine as I wasn't sure how fine it needed to be to bake quickly in the loaf. So I sliced it quite thinly and in tiny pieces just to be sure. 

The recipe calls for some garlic, which added a wonderful, savoury smell to the dough mixture. The celery and cheese in the dough reminded me of cheese and onion scones that we used to have in the bakery I used to work at. It smelled so good and was making me hungry already...good thing they whip up fast! I kneaded the dough mix gently in the bowl, then separated and loosely rolled into 12 equal pieces to make a circle on my baking sheet. (You can also bake the loaf as it is, once kneaded into a round, and then cut into servings after it has baked.) I popped them into the oven for around 40 mins. The recipe calls for 45 mins, however they were starting to brown quite quickly on top. I also had the fan going in the oven, so perhaps next time I make these I would bake without the fan to lower the heat. I figured the fan would help in rising, however I am learning it becomes much too hot 

too quickly. 

While they were baking in the oven, I made some homemade ham and vegetable soup. I was enjoying being in the kitchen today with smelling all these vegetable and spice aromas! Ahhh... heavenly! :) So, as you can see, they do look very brown on top. They aren't burned, but they definitely didn't need any longer in the oven! 40 mins was enough time. I tapped the bottom, like Mary told me to, and they sounded hollow. I cut into one right away... there is nothing like fresh bread hot from the oven with real butter! I could hardly wait and almost forgot to take a photo!

They certainly had a nice crunch, Mary Berry! The top was indeed crumbly and crunchy, but the middle was very light and fluffy. I enjoyed them very much! I did dunk them in my soup occasionally. I can tell this recipe is best the day of for eating. I have some leftovers, so I will see what they are like tomorrow...but they are very good straight from the oven. If any of you have been to Red Lobster before and had their cheddar biscuits, these seemed to remind me of them. They are similar, but the celery is very unique, and also...refreshing? Yes, I think so...among the cheese it is so different and I think this is what makes it very much like a lunch loaf. Very tasty. I think my only critique is that in the future I would need to closely watch how high the heat is in the oven. They could have been a slight bit softer maybe, but it did have a pleasant, lumpy and crunchy texture on top. They were very savoury and slightly salty tasting with the garlic, so if you are pairing it with homemade soup like I did, you really don't need many herbs or seasonings in your soup.

It was a good day for these biscuits...bread buns...crown loaf! :) I will see you again in 2 weeks or so. I will end with "Ready, Set, BAKE!"

~*Next Bake Coming Soon*~