Thirty-nine breads down, FOUR to go! Seems like a dream, but we are getting to the end of the BBA Challenge…
After last week’s bread, which fail to please the baker, I was eager to make this one, and the ice storm that hit us was the perfect excuse to indulge in bread baking. Peter Reinhart’s recipe requires a pate fermentee, made the day before. The dough is reasonably rich with butter, egg, and sugar. Wonderful to work with! I mixed everything together, allowed it to sit undisturbed for 20 minutes, then folded the dough a few times. One more cycle of folds after 60 minutes, another hour of rise, and the final shaping. Nice and easy. The shaped loaf was sprinkled with flour and slashed right before baking (click on the image to enlarge it).
The bread had amazing oven spring, as you can see by the
enlargement of the slashed region…
It feels very light for its size, the crumb is delicate, and so is the crust…
This was one of our favorites, and quite simple to make, no need for sourdough starters to enjoy a nice loaf of Vienna bread.
Only one small problem – bread should be allowed to sit for at least one hour before cutting. I could not obey this rule. After cooling for 15 minutes, my husband asked how long until he could have a slice. “About two hours” was my answer. His?
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Pass me the knife, will you”? 😉
Bewitching Kitchen 
Oh yum, that looks so delicious! I love how much the slash opened up, so pretty!
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Yes, this one turned out just the way I like!
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Very nice looking bread! I loved this one, too. I’ve already baked it three times!
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Oh, did you blog about it? I did not see your link… let me know so I can add it to my post, ok?
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OK I need to know how you do that trick of clicking on the picture and it enlarges. This bread is just gorgeous. You have the slashing down pat. I think you will graduate with honors! My husband refuses to wait the requisite hour or two as well. Must be a guy thing.
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That’s awesome!
We love this bread too and so easy to work with.
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Why aren’t you and Phil fat as pigs? LOL
Gorgeous as usual.
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Wow! That’s a beautiful loaf! I can’t wait to get to this one! You’ll be finished before you know it. Happy Baking!
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@Salt & Serenity…. I don’t know if there is any special trick for the enlargement as you click. I just upload them normally as full size photos in WordPress….
@Jean… I guess somehow we manage to exercise it all off, or “almost” all off 😉
@Oggi & Cathy: thanks!
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I wish I could skip the T bread and move to V
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Pingback: Vienna Bread with Dutch Crunch Topping | The Yumarama Bread Blog
We finished off our Tuscan loaf last night, I linked your post, I have the pate fermentee warming up, I am going to make the pistolets for the super bowl spread. Glad to hear that it is delicious.
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That is one beautiful loaf of bread!! So far, I’ve heard nothing but great things about this one, can’t wait until I get there! 🙂
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Pingback: Vienna Bread – Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge #39 « eating is the hard part
Looks so good ! Need to make this! Do you have the recipe? 🙂
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Shanna, I am sorry but because we (as a group) were baking every single recipe of Peter Reinhart’s book, we were not allowed to publish any of the recipes. Otherwise, the full book would be available to anyone. So, all the posts in my blog that were from Peter Reinhart’s Bread Bakers’ Apprentice, are published without the recipe…
but, guess what? I found it online, and here is a link for it
http://foodsoftheworld.activeboards.net/vienna-bread_topic793.html
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Shanna, I am sorry but because we (as a group) were baking every single recipe of Peter Reinhart’s book, we were not allowed to publish any of the recipes. Otherwise, the full book would be available to anyone. So, all the posts in my blog that were from Peter Reinhart’s Bread Bakers’ Apprentice, are published without the recipe…
but, guess what? I found it online, and here is a link for it
http://foodsoftheworld.activeboards.net/vienna-bread_topic793.html
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