A quick and easy yeast dough recipe for making high altitude homemade bread bowls. These small bread loaves can be toasted and filled with soup, or simply sliced to serve along side soup or stew.
You might also love these high altitude bread recipes for no knead rye sandwich bread, simple Irish brown bread, and homemade bagels.
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Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Simple Ingredients. Today’s dough recipe is made from simple, standard pantry ingredients. All you’ll need is flour, salt, yeast, olive oil and a touch of honey. This is a “lean dough”, meaning there’s very little fat in it (just a little olive oil) and no dairy, unlike a brioche dough which is “enriched” with butter, milk and eggs.
High Altitude Tested. I develop all the recipes on my site for Denver’s altitude of 5,280 feet. If you’re at a lower or higher elevation, please see my FAQs for guidance on adjusting recipes for your altitude. With yeast bread and yeast rolls recipes, altitude will mainly affect the rising or proofing time for the dough. You’ll find that the higher the elevation, the faster the dough rises, so you’ll need to watch the dough to make sure it doesn’t over-proof. If you live at a lower elevation, you’ll likely need to use more yeast.
See the recipe card at the end of the post for the full ingredients list and instructions.
Ingredients
- Flour. Bread flour is best for this recipe, as it gives the bread a chewier texture.
- Yeast. I prefer instant yeast, since it can be added into the dough without needing to be activated first. Note that you’ll be using a tablespoon of yeast, which is more than one packet, so you can save the rest of the second packet for another recipe.
- Salt. The salt gives the bread flavor so that it’s not bland and tasteless.
- Honey. Adds a touch of sweetness and helps feed the yeast.
- Olive Oil. Adds a little richness and more flavor.
- Water. It’s important that your water is between 110-115F. Too cold, and the yeast won’t be activated. Too hot, and it will kill the yeast.
- Egg. This is for brushing over the bread, to give it a golden brown shine as it bakes.
Instructions
Make the Dough
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment, combine the flour, yeast and salt.
- Add the honey, olive oil and 2 cups of the warm water.
- Knead the dough on medium low speed for 7 minutes, until smooth and sticky, only adding the remaining 1/4 cup water if the dough seems too stiff.
- Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap, and set in a warm place to rise until doubled in volume. Inside your oven with the “bread proof” setting is ideal for this. At my altitude of 5,280 feet, my dough had doubled in only 35 minutes. The higher your elevation, the faster your dough will rise.
Shape the Dough
- Line two baking sheets with parchment paper, and dust your counter generously with flour.
- Use a spatula to scrape the dough out of the bowl onto the floured counter, and flour the top of the dough, too. Use a bench scraper or sharp knife to cut the dough into equal portions. Cutting the dough into 6 portions will give you large bread bowls, or you can cut it into 8-10 portions for smaller bowls.
- Shape each portion of dough into a ball, pinching the dough together underneath, so the top of the ball is smooth. Set the balls of dough on the baking sheets, and set them in a warm place to rest and puff up for about 20-30 minutes.
Bake the Bread
- Preheat the oven to 400 F, and position the racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven.
- In a small bowl, lightly beat the egg, then gently brush it over the dough. Use a sharp knife to gently slash an “x” on top of each bun.
- Bake the bread for about 20 minutes, or until a digital instant read thermometer inserted into the bread reads 195F.
- If the bread hasn’t browned enough, turn your broiler on low and let the bread brown for a few minutes under the broiler, watching it to ensure it doesn’t burn.
- For best results, let the bread cool completely before using for bread bowls.
Recipe Variations and Tips for Using Homemade Bread Bowls
- Cool the bread completely before using.
- After cutting out the tops of the bread, use a spoon or your fingers to scrape out some of the bread from inside. Set the bread bowls and the tops on a baking sheet and toast them for several minutes at 300F to dry them out, before filling with soup.
- Do not fill with soup until ready to serve. The best types of soup to use with bread bowls are thicker soups like chowders. Think potato, corn or clam chowder, broccoli cheese soup, or even creamy black bean soup. Brothy soups like chicken noodle soup will soak into the bread much faster and quickly make it soggy.
- Rather than throwing away the excess bread removed from inside the bowls, toast it on a baking sheet to dry it out for plain or seasoned bread crumbs.
- Instead of using the bread for soup bowls, this bread is also fantastic sliced, buttered and toasted with garlic powder for garlic bread.
- Try adding some fresh or dried herbs to the bread dough to flavor it, such as garlic powder, onion powder, rosemary, thyme, Italian seasoning or caraway seeds. You may need to add about 1-2 tbsp, depending on how strong you want the flavor to be.
Be sure to read all of my BAKING FAQs where I discuss ingredients, substitutions and common baking questions, so that you can be successful in your own baking!
Frequently Asked Questions
Wrap the cooled bread bowls individually in plastic wrap and store at room temperature for up to 2 days, or in the freezer for up to 3-6 months.
Yes, you can, although bread flour has a higher percentage of protein than all purpose flour, so your bread will have a chewier texture with bread flour.
I generally recommend replacing no more than half the white flour with wheat flour in bread recipes. The wheat flour will make the dough more dense, and it also absorbs more liquid, so you’ll need less flour or more water.
I filled my bowls with homemade sausage lentil soup with fresh thyme and crunchy dry roasted edamame beans on top. I don’t have a recipe, it’s just something I came up with as my bread was rising and baking.
You can use either one. With instant yeast, you don’t need to activate the yeast first, and can simply add it right in with the rest of the ingredients. With active dry yeast, you’ll need to activate or proof it first. Do this by stirring together the warm water with the yeast and honey. Let it sit for 5-10 minutes until bubbly, then add it to the flour mixture and proceed with kneading the dough.
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High Altitude Homemade Bread Bowls for Soup
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Equipment
- Stand Mixer with Dough Hook
Ingredients
- 6 cups (28 oz) bread flour, fluffed, spooned and leveled
- 1 tbsp instant or rapid rise yeast
- 2 tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- 1 tbsp honey
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 – 2 ¼ cups warm water, between 110-115F
- 1 large egg, for egg wash
Instructions
Make the Dough
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment, combine the flour, yeast and salt.
- Add the honey, olive oil and 2 cups of the warm water.
- Knead the dough on medium low speed for 7 minutes, until smooth and sticky, only adding the remaining 1/4 cup water if the dough seems too stiff.
- Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap, and set in a warm place to rise until doubled in volume. Inside your oven with the "bread proof" setting is ideal for this. At my altitude of 5,280 feet, my dough had doubled in only 35 minutes. The higher your elevation, the faster your dough will rise.
Shape the Dough
- Line two baking sheets with parchment paper, and dust your counter generously with flour.
- Use a spatula to scrape the dough out of the bowl onto the floured counter, and flour the top of the dough, too. Use a bench scraper or sharp knife to cut the dough into equal portions. Cutting the dough into 6 portions will give you large bread bowls, or you can cut it into 8-10 portions for smaller bowls.
- Shape each portion of dough into a ball, pinching the dough together underneath, so the top of the ball is smooth. Set the balls of dough on the baking sheets, and set them in a warm place to rest and puff up for about 20-30 minutes.
Bake the Bread
- Preheat the oven to 400 F, and position the racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven.
- In a small bowl, lightly beat the egg, then gently brush it over the dough. Use a sharp knife to gently slash an "x" on top of each bun.
- Bake the bread for about 20 minutes, or until a digital instant read thermometer inserted into the bread reads 195F.
- If the bread hasn't browned enough, turn your broiler on low and let the bread brown for a few minutes under the broiler, watching it to ensure it doesn't burn.
- For best results, let the bread cool completely before using for bread bowls.
Using the Bread Bowls
- After cutting out the tops of the bread, use a spoon or your fingers to scrape out some of the bread from inside. Set the bread bowls and the tops on a baking sheet and toast them for several minutes at 300F to dry them out, before filling with soup.
- Do not fill with soup until ready to serve. The best types of soup to use with bread bowls are thicker soups like chowders. Brothy soups will soak into the bread much faster.
- Toast any excess bread removed from inside the bowls to dry it out for bread crumbs.
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