Bread Bowls with Cauliflower Cheese Soup

Wow is it early in the morning! Hubby has an early start at work so I thought I would take the opportunity to get my blog reading up to date and post this months Fresh From The Oven challenge. I logged into my laptop to find that my reader has wiped all the posts I had saved for reading ;0( Not happy! I'm sorry if you haven't heard from me in a while, but promise that normal service will resume shortly (I hope!)

Anyhoo, back to the Fresh from the Oven challenge which was Bread Bowls. I'll be honest, this month I felt like I was back in grade 8 and avoiding my science homework all over again ... who am I kidding? I avoided all my homework! The thought of making bread bowls just seemed way harder than I had the time for so I left it right to the death knock to get these made. And, just like my homework, I discovered that making them is actually no hassle at all. I need to work a little bit on the presentation (again, flashbacks to homework!) but I was chuffed to bits with them. Would I make them again? Maybe. For a special dinner or something like that but I won't be making them every week.

This dough is different again from the kind of bread dough I am used to working with and I found that I needed quite a bit more flour when I was at kneading stage. I think I've said before that I can't quite decide if using my kitchenaid for the kneading stage is cheating or not and I always have limited success when I have tried it this way so I plumped for kneading by hand for 12 mins - very therapeutic ;0)

Edible Bread Bowls

500g strong bread flour

20g coarse semolina (I used polenta)

15g fresh yeast or 1 sachet dried

10g salt

50g good quality fruity olive oil

320g water

Chilli or spice, optional for added flavour

Preheat the oven to 250C. Mix together the flour and semolina and rub in the yeast as if you were making a crumble. If using a mixer, switch it on to the slowest speed, add salt, olive oil and water and mix for 2 mins, then turn the speed up to the next lowest speed and mix for 6 to 7 mins until the dough becomes smooth and elastic.

If you are kneading by hand, knead for approx 10 to 12 mins or until you have a nice smooth elastic ball of dough.

Place the dough into a bowl that has been floured, cover with a tea towel and leave in a draught free place for approx 1 hour or until doubled in size.

Lightly oil or spray with non stick spray the outside of 6 ovenproof bowls. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and divide into 6-8 pieces depending on the size of your baking bowls. Taking one piece of dough at a time and using a rolling pin, roll each piece into a circle (similar to making pizza). Shake off the excess flour and shape each piece over an upturned bowl, patting into shape and pressing gently to remove air bubbles from between the dough and the bowl. Rest the dough for 10 mins.

Place upturned bowls, 2 at a time, on a baking tray lined with parchment paper, then into the preheated oven. Turn the oven down to 200C and bake for 20-25 mins. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for a few mins. Using a fine bladed knife, gently loosen the bread from the bowls and ease off. Cool on a wire rack.

Serve the bowls on a plate as they do become soggy after a while and the soup may leak through.

Makes 6-8

I was a bit worried about the glass bowls bowls in the oven so I went out and bought some Pyrex bowls (any excuse lol) and they worked fine, they are on the large size for soup bowls though but that works out fine for us because we love our soup! We filled our bowls with our favourite soup for this time of year, Cauliflower Cheese Soup.

Cauliflower Cheese Soup

Knob of butter

1 large onion, finely chopped

1 large cauliflower (about 900g), leaves trimmed and cut into florets

1 potato, peeled and cut into chunks

700ml veg stock (from a cube is fine)

400ml milk

100g mature cheddar, diced

Heat the butter in a large saucepan. Tip in the onion and cook until softened, about 5 mins, stirring often.

Add the cauliflower, potato, stock milk and seasoning. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and leave to simmer for about 30 mins until the cauliflower is soft and the potato almost collapsing.

Whiz in a food processor or crush with a potato masher until you get a creamy, thick soup. Top up with more milk to thin a little if serving in mugs. When ready to serve, warm through, ladle into mugs or bowls, top with the cheese pieces, then stir through before eating.

Serves 6

Good Food Magazine - Nov ????

I found this recipe in my vegetarian phase and I know that it was a James Martin recipe taken from one of my November issues of Good Food but I can't remember what year it was. He made it as part of a bonfire night supper - hence the reference to the mugs in the recipe. We usually put the cheese in the bottom of the bowl, then its like hitting little nuggets of melting, oozy gold while your eating the soup .... oh its making my stomach grumble just writing about it! It doesn't look very pretty but it honestly is one of the best soups ever!

Check out everyone elses creations over at Fresh From The Oven.