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What could be better than sitting down with a warm bread bowl filled with soup? Deciding what soup to use is the easiest part, though; the hard part is trying to make your own homemade bread bowl.
These bread bowls are great for Manhattan Clam Chowder, Corn Chowder, potato leek soup, black bean soup and even my creamy spinach soup!
Homemade Bread Bowls
Bread bowls are one of those things that remind me of Disneyland food because I love the clam chowder in the bread bowl – it’s my favorite. However, they are not only really convenient and easy to eat, but they also ensure you get to enjoy a ridiculous amount of bread with your soup, something that always makes any soup better.
This recipe makes a very delectable, tearable bread that can then be cut apart to make a tasty bread bowl. The only real trick is in making sure you end up with a bread ball that doesn’t break apart when you try and remove its insides!
Homemade Bread Bowls Ingredients
Make sure you look at the recipe card at the very bottom for the exact amounts, as there are a few fiddly ingredients here.
• Yeast
• Warm water
• Granulated sugar
• Vegetable oil
• Salt
• All-purpose flour
• Egg wash
How To Make Homemade Bread Bowls
• Grease a large mixing bowl with butter and set aside
• In a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook attachment, mix the yeast with warm water and then add the sugar
• Mix on medium speed until combined, and then let sit for around 10 minutes, or until the yeast mixture starts to bubble
• On low speed, mix with the dough hook and add in the oil and salt
• Add in the flour slowly, bit by bit, until the dough starts to gather together into a ball
• Turn out onto a lightly floured work surface, form into a ball and place in the prepared, greased bowl, and cover with more butter
• Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in size, around an hour
• After doubling, punch down the dough and turn it out onto a work surface
• Divide the dough in half, and then each half into 3 portions, forming each into balls
• Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and place 3 balls on each in a staggered pattern
• Let rise for 30 minutes under some plastic wrap until doubled again
• Brush with egg wash, score and bake in a preheated oven for 25 minutes at 400 Fahrenheit
• Cool completely on wire racks before using
• Store at room temperature for 2 days, but don’t refrigerate them, as this can make them stale
How To Turn Your Bread Into Proper Bread Bowls
The above recipe makes a tasty, crusty, and overall useful and delicious bread, but to make it into a bread bowl, you need to do a bit of careful surgery.
To start, cut a large, round circle out of the top of each of your bread bowls. The best tool for this is a sharp paring knife, as this lets you get fine control as you cut into the top of the bread.
Once the top is removed, start scooping out the soft bread inside. You can use a spoon, but tearing with your fingers is a lot easier.
Make sure that you don’t go too far into the bread, though – you want to leave at least a little bit of bread all inside and along the inside edges of the bread bowl.
If you go too far, you might end up accidentally tearing the bottom of the bread, resulting in all of your soup spilling out of the bottom.
Plus, any extra bread filling you leave at the bottom will get all gooey and delicious as the soup soaks into it!
What To Do With the Leftover Bread
Tearing out and discarding all of that extra bread from the middle of the bread bowl would be hugely wasteful, so what can you do to put it to good use?
For starters, you could just add it directly to your soup. Break up the little clumps of bread and add it to your soup as it finishes cooking. It will create these little globs of sticky, slightly melted bread that taste incredible.
Or, you could soak them in a massively unhealthy amount of olive oil and salt and fry them in a wide pan over medium-high heat for about 10 minutes. This will create oily, greasy, and delicious croutons to put over the top of your soup! (This is my favorite option!) You can also just bake some garlicky homemade croutons too!
Whatever you do, don’t just throw it out – the inside of the bread is basically half of the bread, so you’d be throwing away half of the work you put into baking such beautiful loaves!
How to Freeze the Dough
To freeze, prepare the dough as written to step 13. After you place the 6 balls of dough onto the baking sheet, freeze until solid. Wrap each ball tightly in plastic wrap and return to the freezer.
To bake, defrost in the refrigerator overnight. Place on the baking sheets and let double. Proceed to follow the remaining baking instructions from #15 onwards.
Looking for more delicious Bread recipes? Try these out:
I hope you love them and don’t forget to share your pics of your delicious soups with me on Instagram! Just tag @thekitchenmagpie!
Love,
Karlynn
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Homemade Bread Bowls
Ingredients
- 4 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast (two packets)
- 2 ½ cups warm water 110-115°F
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 6-7 cups all-purpose flour
- egg wash
Instructions
- Grease a very large mixing bowl with butter and set aside. This is for the dough to rise, so make sure it’s large enough.
- Place the yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook attachment.
- Pour the warm water on top, then add the sugar. Mix together and let stand until the yeast starts to bubble and froth.
- With the stand mixer running on low speed, add the oil and salt.
- Slowly add in the first 5 cups of flour, until the dough starts to gather in a ball in the middle. Continue to add more flour slowly, until the dough forms a slightly tacky ball. The dough should just barely stick to your hand and pull away from the sides of the bowl as it mixes.
- Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and form into a ball.
- Place the dough ball into the prepared greased bowl and turn to cover the dough with the butter.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place it in a warm, non-drafty place to rise.
- Let the dough rise until doubled in size, anywhere from 60-90 minutes.
- Once doubled in size, punch down the dough. Take the dough and turn it out onto a lightly floured work surface.
- Divide the dough in half. Divide each of those pieces into three equal-sized portions, resulting in 6 equal-sized pieces of dough.
- Form each piece of dough into balls.
- Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper. Place 3 dough balls onto each in staggered positions (two at the top sides and one in the middle bottom). Spray some plastic wrap with baking spray and set on top of the dough lightly.
- Let rise for 30 minutes, until almost doubled in size.
- Preheat your oven to 400°F.
- Prepare the egg wash and use a pastry brush to brush each dough ball with egg wash. Using a sharp knife, score an X into the top of each dough ball.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden brown and internal temperature reaches 190°-200°F.
- Remove to wire racks to cool completely.
- To use and serve, cut a large round circle out of the top of each bread bowl. Scoop out the center bread as much as desired making sure not to pierce the sides. Leaving some bread in the interior is nice when serving chilis and soups. Save the scooped-out bread to eat with soup or use in dipping.
- Fill with soup or dip of choice.
- Store at room temperature for 2-3 days, in a bread box or closed container. Do not refrigerate ( the bread will harden and dry out faster)
- Cover with plastic wrap and place in a bag to freeze the baked bread bowls for up to 3 months.
Notes
- You can make these larger or smaller if desired!
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