I have been loving the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes series of books so today when we thought that making bread bowls and chili sounded good I went to my bible of bread.
To start with, make your own favorite chili and let it simmer all day in the crock pot (because it tastes better that way).
I then turned to the original Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a day book. I choose the master recipe, the boule since it was easy to work with and I knew it had a nice crust to prevent it from loosing shape when the chili was added. I tried several sizes of loaves to see what size worked the best. We discovered that while the 1/2 lb loaf was too small to hold more than 1 scoop of chili, it was just the right size for a complete meal.
The 1/4 lb loaves were way too small. The 3/8 (or so) lb loaves were just right for the kids.
All I did was take a sharp knife and cut a circle in the top pushing the blade most of the way in. Then pull out the bread until it was a good bowl. I did nothing special on the inside beyond that. Now you can see the finished product.
The only problem? It takes so long to bake enough bread if we were to have more guests!
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