Picnic Loaf

Adorned with eggs, pearl onions, anchovies and filled with sheeps milk cheese, this large bread is enough to feed and fill you and several of your friends. It's hearty enough, as well, to keep you sustained through a jovial picnic on the odd sunny winters day - that or through a long, all-night Burt Reynolds marathon. We have fun together, my friends and me.

See the mustache in the middle of the loaf? Under that mustache is a dome filled with shredded Lamb Chopper, another one of Cypress Grove's creations - the only non-goat one of the bunch. The cheese is shredded and piled tightly in the middle of a rolled out circle of dough, then topped with another smaller sheet of dough. During baking the cheese melts down into the bread, but the dome stays nice and high.

The eggs lay on the dough raw with a pin prick at one end. They bake along with the bread - and they're better than boiled. Onions may be replaced with garlic, sausage, small potatoes or anything else that sounds good to you. Be sure that whatever it is is dry enough to not release too much liquid during roasting. Anchovies, of course, may be left out if you don't like them. But they're damn-dang good let me tell you. The bread can be any that you like. I used a simple pre-fermented lean dough. When using another bread recipe here, make it up as normal and assemble after the bulk fermentation.

I got the idea for this set-up from Time Life's Good Cook Series Bread Book, from the favorite series of mine of way back when. I'm thinking this for next time: shallots and pears circling a center dome filled with a wheel of brie - all in a base of sourdough. I need to have a cocktail party for that one...


Picnic Loaf

*Bread dough (makes about 2 pounds):
Pre-Ferment
316 grams bread flour
316 grams water
a small pinch of instant yeast

Final Dough
316 grams bread flour
100 grams water
10 grams salt
1 scant teaspoon instant yeast

*To assemble:
4 eggs
8 pearl onions
4 anchovies
10 oz firm sheeps milk cheese

1. Mix ingredients for the pre-ferment, cover and let it sit overnight, about 12 hours.

2. Add to the pre-ferment the final dough flour and water. Knead for about 5 minutes, cover and autolyse for 30 minutes. Add salt and yeast and knead until incorporated, another 3 or 4 minutes.

3. Place dough in an oiled container, cover and let it ferment for about an hour and a half. Stretch and fold at 45 minutes.

4. While the dough is fermenting take the eggs out of the refrigerator and let them sit at room temperature until assembly. Trim the ends off the onions and peel them, set aside. Shred the cheese. Leave the anchovies in the refrigerator until assembly.

5. Turn dough out onto a floured surface and divide in half. Set one half aside. Roll the other half out to about 1/2 inch in thickness and in a circular shape. Lay the rolled dough on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper and dusted with semolina. Pile the cheese right in the middle and pack it fairly tight.

6. Take out the remaining dough and divide it in half. Take one half and roll it out into a smaller circle than the first. Lay this circle over the cheese and press around the edges. If you're working with a pretty dry dough then seal it with a thin layer of water where the doughs meet. This dough recipe, though, is wet enough to seal itself.

7. Prick each egg at one end with a pin. A sewing pin actually worked great for me. It'll go in easy if you tap the back the the pin with a tack hammer or meat tenderizer. The holes are there to prevent the shell from cracking during baking.

8. Arrange the eggs, peeled onions and anchovies around the center dome.

9. Take out the last piece of dough and roll it out into thin ropes. Use these ropes to lay over the arranged food and to decorate the center dome.

10. Brush the loaf with an egg yolk and load into a 400 degree oven*. Bake for 25 minutes then turn the oven down to 350 and bake for another 25 minutes.

11. Cool completely, slice and enjoy.

*This dough doesn't require much of a proofing time anyway, but if you're working with a dough that does, like a sourdough - then do proof the assembled loaf. And keep in mind this is just a basic design - the component possibilities are enormous.

Yeastspotting at Wild Yeast