Bread Bowls Recipe
Learn how to make homemade bread bowls that are crusty on the outside, soft on the inside, and perfect for serving soup or chili. This easy recipe uses just five ingredients and minimal hands-on time!
Servings: 3 servings
Ingredients
- 3 ½ cups bread flour
- 1 Tablespoon granulated sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt
- 2 ¼ teaspoons active instant yeast, one packet
- 1 ½ cups warm water, 115 Degrees F
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients with a wooden spoon. Slowly pour in the warm water and still until combined. The dough will be sticky, you can use your hands if needed to get all the dry flour incorporated.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place in a warm, dry area to rise for 2 1/2 hours.
- The bread dough should have nearly doubled in size at this point. Use your hands to scrape the dough out of the bowl. Stretch and fold the dough several times, see my notes below on how to do this step if you're new here).
- Cut the dough into 3 even sized pieces (I do this by forming a ball and cutting Y into the dough). Place the dough balls on a piece of parchment paper and cover with plastic wrap. Allow to rise for an additional 30 minutes.
- While the dough is doing the final rise, preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Place a large cookie sheet in the oven while it preheats.
- Using hot pads, remove the cookie sheet from the oven. Lift the piece of parchment paper with the 3 dough balls onto the cookie sheet. Make an X on top of each dough ball using a sharp knife.
- Bake bread for 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow the bread to cool.
- Once the bread has cooled, use a sharp knife to carve out the bread bowl, by cutting a circle on top of the bread (like you would a pumpkin). Lift the lid and remove some of the bread out of the inside to make room for your soup (save the carved out bread for eating and dunking!
Notes
- Stretch and Fold- the process is exactly as it sounds. Grab the dough ball and steth. Fold the ends together, then repeat by turning the dough 90 degrees and do a total of 4 stretches. This allows you to shape the dough without kneading it.
- Use a digital thermometer to test the inside of the baked bread. You know it is done baking when it reaches 200 degrees F.
- For best results, wait until the bread has fully cooled before serving. This allows the texture to be tender and not gummy.
- Storage: Wrap cooled bread in plastic wrap for up to 5 days. Or wrap in plastic then slide into a freezer safe ziploc bag for up to 3 months. Thaw at room temperature.
Nutrition
Serving: 1bowl