Ok, settle in for a trip through the tortured trail that is my brain. You might want to use the bathroom before we set off, it’s going to take a while…
I have a load of basil to do something with. Obvious first thing is pesto.
But then…what to do with the pesto? It’s not like I’m going to sit down and eat four cups of pesto, and there’s only so much pasta I can stir it into, and eggs, and on top of bread…
…bread? Oh, I know, I’ve seen pesto bread before, little garlic knots with pesto rolled through the dough, pull-apart loaves, like savory monkey bread…I think I’ll make a loaf of pesto bread.
Off to look for recipes and ideas…
Ok, this one looks good, and she’s got the bread and the pesto recipes all together in one spot, and I like how she’s eliminated the nuts (says it makes the bread taste dry despite all the oil), let’s go with this.
But…I also have a half-jar of sundried tomatoes I need to use up, and I know I’ve seen sundried tomato-and-basil pesto before, so let me find an recipe for that, just so I get the ratio of tomato to basil somewhat correct…got it!
Except…it uses nuts, so I’ve got to take those out and adjust accordingly, but this’ll work. Off I go to make my nutless sundried tomato-and-basil pesto. Done!
Back to the bread…
Looking at the original recipe, it’s a by-hand dough, and since I’ve already dirtied the food processor making the pesto, I decide I want to use it for the bread as well, but it’s been ages since I’ve made bread in the food processor…so let me go find a recipe for a food processor loaf.
This one calls for wheat flour, and I’m out of that. This other one calls for something else I’m out of, so I finally toddle off and grab my good, old-fashioned printed food processor manual, the one from my dearly-departed 1990’s food processor, not my current one, and there we go…there’s a recipe for supermarket-style Italian loaves…but I have a note next to it that I didn’t like it much when I made in last time (probably 1997 or so).
But wait…there’s another recipe just next to it, and I’ve never made it before, and I have everything, so off I go, and I decide to make the full two-loaf recipe instead of just halving it, don’t ask me why, because I still don’t know why.
Ok, bread sorted. Pesto sorted. All that will be left is to return to the original recipe for the interesting technique she uses to get this stunning stripey streaky loaf turned out.
It’s not unlike making cinnamon rolls, where the dough is rolled out in a large rectangle, then covered in pesto, rolled back up, and pinched shut, except where you’d then cut the bread into slices, revealing round swirls to be baked up in a cake pan or whatever, the recipe author calls for slicing the loaf lengthwise, resulting in two halves with a very wood grain-like look, and then braiding the two halves together, cramming them into a loaf pan, and that’s that.
Except…I’d decided to make the first loaf just a standard sandwich bread, so I’d greased up a loaf pan, shaped the first loaf, tossed it in and set it aside for its final rise before going to the oven.
This second loaf…two issues: first, I have only two other loaf pans - one is a fairly small one, and the other is a behemoth of a pan. One is far to small, one is far to big…so I make the decision to bake it outside a pan, freestyle. This would prove problematic down the road.
Second, and this is where my sometimes-way-too-literal brain gets me into trouble: she says to “braid” the two strands, but I distinctly remember being told as a child that to braid something requires a minimum of three strands, and that two strands can never be braided…they’re twisted. If that’s the case, why is she saying to braid two strands? Is there something different about bread, some kind of mystery technique, where two strands can be braided?
Apparently, my brain enjoys quite a bit of company, because there were several comments in the recipe asking the author to specify or include photographs as to what she meant by braiding two strands, but her response was even more confusing and the one pic she included just showed the two halves side-by-side. No help there, so…
…off down a rabbit hole, trying to work out what she meant, all the while, the loaf just sitting there, until MrsT came in, asked what I was so panicky about, and I explained it, and she said, “She obviously means just twist them together. Twist, braid, what’s the difference? Just twist them.”
I don’t like that answer, but she offers to do it for me, so I relent and sit down to let the loaves rise a little bit while the oven heats up.
I’ll admit, the freestyle loaf looked quite impressive, but I immediately saw two issues, which having followed the directions to put the loaf in a pan would have prevented.
First, all the layers, twisted around each other, began to open up revealing (and sometimes spilling) the veins of pesto running through them. In a pan, those would have been forced closed.
Second, whatever pesto was exposed was going to burn in the oven. Oh well, nothing much to do except press on.
Into the oven with them both, and sure enough, the pesto loaf blossoms like a flower, spilling pesto all over, which did indeed burn in the process.
Sandwich loaf was fine.
Pulled the loaves out, and while it did seem rather hopeless, the pesto loaf had a certain ugly duckling lovability about it, so I dusted off the burnt bits and tore into it…the interior was lovely and soft and warm and tomatoey and basily and delicious - we just had to get through that rough exterior.
No pics in the moment, because I was in not state to calmly document the world falling apart around me, but here’s what the remaining half looks like:
It’s been in the fridge overnight, so it looks a little dry, but it’ll soften right up.
I have a load of basil to do something with. Obvious first thing is pesto.
But then…what to do with the pesto? It’s not like I’m going to sit down and eat four cups of pesto, and there’s only so much pasta I can stir it into, and eggs, and on top of bread…
…bread? Oh, I know, I’ve seen pesto bread before, little garlic knots with pesto rolled through the dough, pull-apart loaves, like savory monkey bread…I think I’ll make a loaf of pesto bread.
Off to look for recipes and ideas…
Ok, this one looks good, and she’s got the bread and the pesto recipes all together in one spot, and I like how she’s eliminated the nuts (says it makes the bread taste dry despite all the oil), let’s go with this.
But…I also have a half-jar of sundried tomatoes I need to use up, and I know I’ve seen sundried tomato-and-basil pesto before, so let me find an recipe for that, just so I get the ratio of tomato to basil somewhat correct…got it!
Except…it uses nuts, so I’ve got to take those out and adjust accordingly, but this’ll work. Off I go to make my nutless sundried tomato-and-basil pesto. Done!
Back to the bread…
Looking at the original recipe, it’s a by-hand dough, and since I’ve already dirtied the food processor making the pesto, I decide I want to use it for the bread as well, but it’s been ages since I’ve made bread in the food processor…so let me go find a recipe for a food processor loaf.
This one calls for wheat flour, and I’m out of that. This other one calls for something else I’m out of, so I finally toddle off and grab my good, old-fashioned printed food processor manual, the one from my dearly-departed 1990’s food processor, not my current one, and there we go…there’s a recipe for supermarket-style Italian loaves…but I have a note next to it that I didn’t like it much when I made in last time (probably 1997 or so).
But wait…there’s another recipe just next to it, and I’ve never made it before, and I have everything, so off I go, and I decide to make the full two-loaf recipe instead of just halving it, don’t ask me why, because I still don’t know why.
Ok, bread sorted. Pesto sorted. All that will be left is to return to the original recipe for the interesting technique she uses to get this stunning stripey streaky loaf turned out.
It’s not unlike making cinnamon rolls, where the dough is rolled out in a large rectangle, then covered in pesto, rolled back up, and pinched shut, except where you’d then cut the bread into slices, revealing round swirls to be baked up in a cake pan or whatever, the recipe author calls for slicing the loaf lengthwise, resulting in two halves with a very wood grain-like look, and then braiding the two halves together, cramming them into a loaf pan, and that’s that.
Except…I’d decided to make the first loaf just a standard sandwich bread, so I’d greased up a loaf pan, shaped the first loaf, tossed it in and set it aside for its final rise before going to the oven.
This second loaf…two issues: first, I have only two other loaf pans - one is a fairly small one, and the other is a behemoth of a pan. One is far to small, one is far to big…so I make the decision to bake it outside a pan, freestyle. This would prove problematic down the road.
Second, and this is where my sometimes-way-too-literal brain gets me into trouble: she says to “braid” the two strands, but I distinctly remember being told as a child that to braid something requires a minimum of three strands, and that two strands can never be braided…they’re twisted. If that’s the case, why is she saying to braid two strands? Is there something different about bread, some kind of mystery technique, where two strands can be braided?
Apparently, my brain enjoys quite a bit of company, because there were several comments in the recipe asking the author to specify or include photographs as to what she meant by braiding two strands, but her response was even more confusing and the one pic she included just showed the two halves side-by-side. No help there, so…
…off down a rabbit hole, trying to work out what she meant, all the while, the loaf just sitting there, until MrsT came in, asked what I was so panicky about, and I explained it, and she said, “She obviously means just twist them together. Twist, braid, what’s the difference? Just twist them.”
I don’t like that answer, but she offers to do it for me, so I relent and sit down to let the loaves rise a little bit while the oven heats up.
I’ll admit, the freestyle loaf looked quite impressive, but I immediately saw two issues, which having followed the directions to put the loaf in a pan would have prevented.
First, all the layers, twisted around each other, began to open up revealing (and sometimes spilling) the veins of pesto running through them. In a pan, those would have been forced closed.
Second, whatever pesto was exposed was going to burn in the oven. Oh well, nothing much to do except press on.
Into the oven with them both, and sure enough, the pesto loaf blossoms like a flower, spilling pesto all over, which did indeed burn in the process.
Sandwich loaf was fine.
Pulled the loaves out, and while it did seem rather hopeless, the pesto loaf had a certain ugly duckling lovability about it, so I dusted off the burnt bits and tore into it…the interior was lovely and soft and warm and tomatoey and basily and delicious - we just had to get through that rough exterior.
No pics in the moment, because I was in not state to calmly document the world falling apart around me, but here’s what the remaining half looks like:
It’s been in the fridge overnight, so it looks a little dry, but it’ll soften right up.
brilliant!
is from this recipe : 
