Roasted Garlic Parmesan Bread

We need smell-0-blogging for this bread. Roasted Garlic Parmesan Bread. Another bread from Kneadlessly Simple by Nancy Baggett. This isn't the pungent smell of garlic sauteeing in olive oil but the earthy smell of roasted garlic. It is the soft, mellow, buttery smell of garlic. Close your eyes, deep breath.....Mmmmm. Isn't that fabulous?

This time I managed to stick to the schedule in making the bread. I knew I was going to make it so the day before I started it while I had the oven on for something else, I roasted the head of garlic and squeezed out all the soft garlic so I was ready. Baggett cautions against adding extra garlic no matter how much you like garlic but at the same time when the recipe just calls "1 large head garlic" how large is large or how small is small. Sometimes here the garlic heads are not very large. I found some maybe 3" diameter full firm heads of garlic and roasted one. It seemed to be not too much or too little.

The next day it took about 5 minutes to mix the bread. Although Baggett didn't suggest it in her recipe I stirred the garlic and parmesan into the cold water before adding it to the flour because I was worried about getting them mixed through the dough. That seemed to work just fine. About 10 AM on Friday I put the dough in the refrigerator to rise or ferment or whatever it does in this additional step that she suggests to add flavor to the bread. At 6 PM, I took it out of the refrigerator and put it in my microwave. I don't turn it on or put a hot cup of water in there. I just set the bowl in the microwave and closed the door. It seems like a place where the temperature will be even and the bowl will be undisturbed.

The dough sat in the microwave from 6 PM on Friday until 10:45 AM on Saturday. Yes, almost 17 hours. The rise time for this particular bread is from 12 to 18 hours. I can already see that as we move more into the hot season in San Miguel, I will need to adjust the rise time. I'm glad I started making the bread when the kitchen was more in the 72 degree range so that I have a handle on what the risen bread looks like. Of course, you can find several videos on youtube that will also show you how the bread should look at each stage.

Next step was to lift and fold the dough in the bowl and then let it rise again. Have you noticed how easy this is.....ONE BOWL, no flour tossed on the cabinet, no big clean up. Within 5 minutes the bread is once again in the microwave for the second rise of 1-1/2 to 2-1/2 hours.

At the end of this second rise, I had heated the oven and the pot, I plopped the dough into the pot and sprinkle it with a bit of grated parmesan and it goes into the oven. I grated the parmesan with a micro-grater into a small bowl and then tried to sprinkle it over the bread. The cheese didn't sprinkle. It clumped. So the next time I would grate the cheese with a larger grater or I would grate with the micro-grater directly over the bread.

This is really a beautiful loaf of bread. The crust is golden brown and crisp but not crackly, the crumb is a little more fine than a rustic loaf of pot bread. The garlic taste is definitely there but it isn't overpowering and between the roasted garlic and the parmesan cheese the buttery taste is fabulous. It is going to take discipline on my part to keep cooking through the book and not double back to make this bread another time or two.

Next up is the English Muffin Loaf if I can find an instant nonfat powdered milk in San Miguel. It is probably here but I have never looked for it before.