High Altitude Homemade Bread Bowls for Soup
A quick and easy yeast dough recipe for making homemade bread bowls. These small bread loaves can be toasted and filled with soup, or simply sliced to serve along side soup or stew.
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 ΒΌ 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.
Notes
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.
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