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Bread week

This is the third week of Season 14 of The Great British Baking Show ™ and focuses on the baking of bread.

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This page is all about the food that the show brings to our screens. The goal is to have a lasting memory of some of the flavors and taste combinations, to bring some creativity and ideas to your own cooking. I hope you find it fun and useful.

Signature Dish

Cottage Loaf

This is a very traditional British bread, available from most bakers. A cottage loaf is literally two round loaves, known as 'cobs' , one on top of the other. The contestants were encouraged to use any flour and any fillings of their choice.

Facts of note from the show:

  • The contestants had 2 hours 45 minutes to complete this bake

  • Paul Hollywood said "It'll be important to spend time developing the gluten, which is done by kneading properly. The dough shouldn't be too dense - it needs a little spring to it."

  • The two loaves (one on top of the other) are stabilized together by taking two fingers and thrusting them down from the top , creating a binding.

  • Two of the contestants (Dana and Matty) chose to use a KitchenAid stand mixer with a dough hook to knead their dough. The judges didn't know this, and didn't judge the end results any worse for this short-cut. Lesson learned, I think.

  • Many of the contestants mentioned that the flavors (garlic, cheese, cranberries etc) should not be added to the dough during the first round of kneading and proving because it would inhibit the rising. Only one contestant (Tasha) defied this and added her rosemary, malt, garlic and seeds as part of that first round. Paul Hollywood told her that he expected the result to be dense but in the judging, this was clearly the best bread. Worth noticing.

  • The judges mentioned that several of the resulting cottage loaves needed salt. This is interesting. The bread world says that a good bread loaf needs 1.8% to 2.2% of salt to flour. Too much salt is known to slow down the levening process and could 'kill' yeast. This means that bread should not be flavored with items that need salt to counterbalance them.

  • In Great British Bake Off  ™ Season 14, Bread week, we saw several of the contestants testing the degree to which they had kneaded their bread by standing by a window and stretching a corner of the dough. The goal is that if the dough stretches but doesn't tear, and will stretch thinly enough to be transparent, then the gluten is sufficiently developed.

  • One of the keys to a great Cottage Loaf is to make fairly deep cuts in the bread before baking it. These slashes should be parallel to each other and at least an inch apart - they allow the bread to expand while cooking.

  • One contestant (Josh) used honey in place of sugar perfectly successfully

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Flavors of cottage loaf

Olive and Tomato - Rowan 

Nduja, basil, olive and gruyere - Josh 

Cranberry, walnut and rosemary - Cristy

Roast garlic, rosemary and Scottish sea salt - Nicky

Rosemary and smoked garlic - Abbi

Chipotle, smoked cheddar, bacon and paprika - Dana

Sri Lankan Cinnamon and Orange - Saku

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Olive, sun-dried tomatoes, parmesan and chili pepper - Matty

Wild garlic, rosemary and bacon - Dan

Roast Garlic and Rosemary with Sunflower, Pumpkin and Poppy seeds  - Tasha

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Technical Challenge

The technical challenge for Season 14 Episode 3 (Bread week) was to make 8 delicious Devonshire Splits.

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Devonshire Splits are soft, light, enriched dough buns, baked then split and filled with Chantilly cream and home-made strawberry jam.

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"Enriched" means that milk and butter is added to the yeast, sugar, salt and flour. These buns need proving twice for 45 minutes each time, and baked for 15 minutes until golden.

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Strawberry Jam sets when it reaches 220 Fahrenheit.

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Chantilly Cream is whipped cream with powdered sugar and vanilla.

 

Criticisms of the contestants custard creams were as follows:

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  • Underproved

  • Uneven in size

  • Uneven in color

  • Too little sugar in dough

  • Too flat

  • Strawberries sliced unevenly

  • Too much sugar in Chantilly Cream

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Saki was judged as the winner of this technical round. Tasha was star baker in Bread Week,

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