Baking Snapshot - Bread Plait

I came about this recipe by wanting hot bread. I pulled out a cookbook, looked at the basic ingredients to bread and then decided to wing it. I made two batches. While one was baking, I dropped the finished one off at my parent's house. These are so good, I've decided to make several to serve at Thanksgiving.

I use my Cuisinart food processor to make dough. If you do not have something similar, be sure to check out the alternative "by hand" directions underneath the main recipe.

Bread Plait

Dough:

4 tbs butter, melted

1 package active dry yeast

1/2 tbs honey

1 cup milk

3 cups flour

1 tsp salt

Glaze:

1 egg yolk

1 tbs milk

1 tsp honey

1. Preheat oven to 375.

2. Melt butter at a low heat so that it doesn't get too hot.

3. Pour butter in small bowl. Add milk, 1/2 tsp honey, and yeast packet. Whisk briefly.

3. Let yeast mixture stand 15 minutes.

4. Combine flour and salt in bowl of food processor.

5. With machine running, add yeast mixture through feed tube. Only pour as quickly as the machine can incorporate the liquid into the flour.

6. Process until a ball of dough forms and pulls away from the sides of the bowl.

7. Process an additional 60 seconds to knead the dough.

8. Form dough into a ball and set aside to rise until doubled in size, about 1-2 hours.

9. On a greased baking sheet, punch down dough.

10. Divide the dough into three equal parts.

11. Form long ropes with each dough part. Push the tops together and secure by sticking to the underside of the cookie sheet.

12. Braid the bread ropes.

13. Press the ends together gently and tuck each end under the loaf.

14. Cover loaf lightly with plastic wrap and let rise for another 30 minutes.

15. Whisk glaze ingredients together. Brush glaze over dough.

16. Bake 30-40 minutes or until deep golden brown.

By Hand:

1. Prepare dough as directed through steps 4 but put flour/salt into a bowl instead.

2. Form a well in the center of the flour.

3. Pour yeast mixture into flour well.

4. With a wooden spoon, stir from the inside out, gently incorporating more flour into the yeast mixture until all flour is mixed in.

5. Turn bread out onto floured surface and knead for 2 minutes or until smooth.

6. Place dough aside to rise and complete bread as directed in steps 8-16.

Dinner Snapshot - Mahi Mahi Salad with Garlic Bread

David's sister, Nyron, requested that we start posting the recipes with the photos of our dinners. Great idea!

Mahi Mahi Salad

8 oz Mahi Mahi
Sea salt
Fresh ground pepper
4 slices uncured, thick-sliced bacon chopped
Baby spinach (enough to feed two people)
4 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 large shallot, minced

Remove skin from mahi mahi. Cut flesh into small chunks and season with sea salt and pepper. Set aside.

Heat a large skillet over a medium flame. Add bacon and cook until most of the fat has cooked out and bacon is crisp. During cooking, maintain flame so that bacon grease remains in pan.

Meanwhile, combine the vinegar and shallot in a small bowl. Pepper to taste. Pour vinegar mixture over bowl of spinach.

When bacon is cooked, remove with a slotted spoon and put on top of spinach. Pour two tablespoons of the bacon grease over the spinach and toss.

Bring remaining bacon grease back to medium-high. Add mahi mahi and cook until opaque. Toss mahi mahi into salad and serve.

Garlic Bread

½ a baguette, sliced into ½ pieces
Olive oil for brushing
Three peeled garlic cloves, slightly crushed

Preheat oven to 400. Brush bread slices with olive oil and place on baking sheet. Bake for 5 minutes at 400. Increase heat to 500 and bake for another 5 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from oven and rub each side of the bread with a garlic clove.