Roasted Garlic Bread (25th Bread Braid)

I love garlic almost as much as I love pizza.  I couldn't wait to make the roasted garlic bread found on page 100 of the HB in 5 book.  I picked out my head of garlic very carefully at the grocery store.  People probably think I'm weird, because I take so long to pick out my produce, almost 15 minutes just to find that perfect head of garlic.  Most people in Kroger don't even hardly look at the produce they pick up.  I wanted this bread to have good garlic flavor so I picked the largest, most plump head of garlic I could find.  If it were summer I'd buy a beautifully big head of garlic from Blue Moon Farm  at the farmer's market, but alas it's not summer.

I cut off the top third of my garlic head to roast, placed it on foil, drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with kosher salt and fresh ground pepper, closed up the foil and roasted at 400 degrees for 50 minutes.  This summer when I roasted one, the cloves just kind of dried up, but this time they didn't.  The roasted cloves were shiny, gooey, chestnut colored nuggets that I squeezed out into a bowl.  I kind of mushed up the roasted cloves with the back of a spoon to smooth them out and kind of make a paste that I thought would distribute itself better throughout the dough.

Here is my first baked loaf:

I did cut the loaf in half horizontally like it suggested in the book, but I followed the guidelines for garlic bread included with the Bobby Flay spaghetti and meatball recipe I was making for dinner.  I minced a couple cloves of garlic, spread a butter/canola oil blend onto the slice of garlic bread and then sprinkled on the minced garlic and dried parsley.  I placed the bread under the broiler for 2-3 minutes just till I could smell the garlic (some bits were starting to brown) and then took it out.  I immediately applied fresh grated parmesan and it went to the table with our spaghetti.   I thought it was yummmmy and so did my hubby.  I will probably make this again in the future.  Here's our prepared slice:



I did not make the whole wheat and flax seed bread that was also part of this assignment.  It just didn't sound that interesting and looked like it would be bland so I skipped.  I make a whole wheat flax bread occasionally for my sandwhich bread and am happy with it, so I didn't really need another flax seed bread recipe.   

Also, I wanted to thank everyone again who helped me decide what kind of rum to buy for my Christmas Stollen.  It turned out beautifully!!  I chose Bacardi Select dark rum.  It was wonderful in the bread, but I  have to say that the stuff is vile by itself.  My husband had to make me try some just to see what I thought. 

I soaked my fruit overnight in the rum and I used the almond paste down the middle of the loaf.   My parents really liked it and were intrigued by the almond paste in the center.  My mom took a knife and spread her almond paste over the surface of her slices of bread.  The only problem I had was that like others, my loaf browned too much on the bottom before the internal temperature was high enough for it to be done.

Here's my stollen: