Soup in a bread bowl and breads

Problem
How do you make soup in a bread bowl, like the ones in Prague? In the old town of Prague many restaurants offer potato soup or vegetable soup in a bread bowl.

Answer
No need to find a chef in the Czech Republic willing to divulge a secret recipe. Just google it on the internet.

Story
On Dec 26th (called Boxing Day in England) I had soup in a bread bowl for the second time.

I looked at the 'magic' ingredients for the bread bowl. Bread is basically flour, (ground up wheat or another grain) and water (or milk), plus some oil (or butter), cooked with yeast to make it rise (otherwise you have a flat bread, either crackers or softer pitta).

When I lived in America I bought The Last Whole Earth Catalogue which had a recipe for making bread which I left overnight to rise in a hot cupboard or airing cupboard above the boiler in old style UK houses. I used to get a rather solid loaf. Then the mystery was not how to make a solid loaf, but how to make one which was light and fluffy, more like the long French baguette.

Most people usually cook bread in an oven. In theory a bread maker saves you time and energy. Set it and forget it.

I did not get on with the bread maker. I found it a nuisance to clean. However, other members of my family found it a great success. You could time it to have hot bread ready for breakfast.

Our bread maker came with a whole book of recipes. Sometimes I have made bread in a bread maker which mixes in the yeast, possibly flavoured with salt. The trick is the heating and timing and kneading again. For sweet breads you could add sultanas or peel. I like brown breads with seeds on the outside.

The best commercial seed bread I have found is cooked on the supermarket premises, albeit probably from a pre-mix, in supermarkets in the UK such as Tesco, Morrisons and Waitrose. Fresh bread is usually available every morning. They may sell out of the kind of bread you want later in the day. When I see breads going cheap in the reduced price section I buy a couple of loaves and put them in the freezer.

The Italian recipe adds egg white.

Tip
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/25210/italian-bread-bowls/

PS
Sour dough bread, so I'm told, makes a heavier loaf, suitable for a bread bowl.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.