Paulchens FoodBlog?!

It’s Bread Baking Babes’ time again.

This month Tanna of My Kitchen In Half Cups was serving as Kitchen of the Month and decided to let us bake a sweet bread she was replicating for her neighbour.

This is what she told us:

Portugal, a small country with a very large heritage. You most likely know this bread as Hawaiian Bread. That’s because the Portugese were early explorers to Hawaii.

Why do I bake bread? I bake bread for people because people love real bread. I have a wonderful Portuguese neighbor who grew up in the Azores in the 50s. As she told us about her mother one evening, she told us about this wonderful just sweet bread her mother used to make and how much she loved this bread. She still can get the bread but only once a year when she’s with her sister. So … I set out to replicate the bread for her.

Sweet Portuguese Bread

Also known as Pão Doce, Massa Sovada, & just Massa
Mostly From A Baker’s Odyssey by Gregg Patent p 221

Over night SPONGE

72 grams bread flour
2 1/4 teaspoons osmotolerant yeast (instant worked just as well too, I used fresh yeast)
114 milliliters potato water, or whey or water (potato water or whey really make it extra tender & soft)

Mix together the sponge the night before baking the bread. Leave sitting at room temp 8 to 12 hours.

DOUGH

6 tablespoons butter, room temp.
30 to100 grams brown sugar
lemon zest
1 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs, room temp.
120 milliliters milk, room temp.
460 grams bread flour (I used 250 grams white spelt flour and 160 grams whole spelt flour plus 50 grams rice flour)

• Beat sugar and butter until creamy. Add zest and salt and beat.
• Beat in each egg separately and completely; mix will appear curdled. Stir in milk and sponge.
• Stir in 2 1/2 cups flour and beat vigorously (in a stand mixer it would clear the sides of the bowl, by hand lifting the spoon up should stretch the dough about a foot.)



• Add remaining flour to make stiff dough. Knead 5 minutes or more to incorporate all the flour: Dough should be smooth, soft and very supple with a slight stickiness. Looks a little like very thick cake batter or a brioche dough.
• Shape into ball, oil bowl and dough ball. Cover and allow to rise about 2 hours, should almost or triple in size.



• Divide into loaves, shaped into balls. Allow to rest 20 to 30 minutes before final shaping with rolling pin.
  See photos for shaping. For best demarcation of indents be careful to dust dough ball well with flour.
• Shape and place into well oiled cake pans seam side down.
• Allow to rise an hour to 2 hours; more than double in size.



• Brush with egg wash if you want that beautiful glossy finish.
• Bake 350° 50 minutes as two loaves, 35 minutes as four loaves.
• Brush with melted butter when hot from the oven. If you’re really a sweetie, I suppose you might then dust this with sugar.

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I loved this bread!! WOW this one really was amazing in taste and the smell!!
It was best still a little warm with butter and honey or jam. Or just butter. A few days later it was still amazingly yummy. Slightly toasted it was like fresh out of the oven with an added crunch :o)

I’ve made a similar one after Peter Reinhards recipe but I like this one from Tanna way more. I loved the shape Tanna made us to use. Lovely, tho it is most likely not the traditional shape this bread is baked.
Although I used spelt flour this bread had did an amazing job in rising and still had an amazing oven spring. I think I could have even baked it free form without the pan.

I will certainly make this bread again cause I love this kind of breads for breakfast and it is way easier than a challa or a striezel.

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Be  a Buddy and bake with us!

Send your blog post to Tanna @ My Kitchen In Half Cups ’till 29th of August to be included in the Buddy round up and claim your Bread Baking Babes’ Buddy Badge!

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Please visit my fellow Babes and see how their Sweet Portuguese Bread worked out:

Bake My Day – Karen | blog from OUR kitchen – Elizabeth | Canela and Comino – Gretchen (Babe on Hiatus) | Cookie Baker Lynn – Lynn | Feeding my enthusiasms – Pat | Grain Doe – Gorel | I Like To Cook – Sara | Living in the Kitchen with Puppies – Natashya | Living on bread and water – Monique (Babe on Hiatus) | Lucullian Delights – Ilva | My Kitchen In Half Cups – Tanna | Notitie Van Lien – Lien | The Sour Dough – Breadchick Mary | Thyme For Cooking – Katie (Babe on Hiatus) | Wild Yeast – Susan

Thinking of you with Love:
Glenna (Alumni Babe) | Sher (Angel Babe)

Bread Baking Babes Bread Baking Buddy