King Arthur is hosting a contest to win $300 worth of merch plus a private virtual Baking School class! What do you have to do to enter? Just bake bread! They’ve posted 12 bread recipes on their website, and for each bread you try making and post about on social media, you get an entry (maximum 12 entries per person, each post must tag King Arthur and use hashtag #ExtraordinaryBread). We’ve given 8 of the 12 breads a shot (see below for more info), and found all of them to be very simple and totally delicious. Entries are being accepted only until the end of the day Sunday, March 21, so get baking! Official rules can be found here: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/contests
Dios Beigli (Hungarian Walnut Roll)
This bread was more of a tea cake. It has a crunchy pastry exterior with a very lemony walnut paste interior. We were a little disappointed that our outer crust didn’t crackle as beautifully as King Arthur’s. This bread is on the drier side and would be great with tea or coffee to wash it down.
Braided Lemon Bread
We made these cream cheese breakfast danishes in two flavors – one lemon curd and one raspberry jam. We actually preferred the raspberry jam variety as the lemon was a bit too tart for our taste. Don’t let the “braid” intimidate you – it is very simple to do!
Stuffed Bagel Buns
We made 3 varieties of bagel buns: peanut butter stuffed (with flaky salt on top), herbed cheddar (with sesame seeds on top), and raspberry jam filled (plain tops). We didn’t have non-diastatic malt powder, so we used brown sugar, and they came out perfectly with outer crust and fluffy interior. The filling did seep out during baking and left our middles a little hollow, but they were delicious all the same. Our favorite was the peanut butter, followed by jelly, and then cheese.
Cinnamon Star Bread
This delicious pastry we will definitely make again. Though pretty, the decorative edges were a little on the dry/bready side whereas the middle was moist and had lots of filling. We would recommend skipping the fancy twists because of this – not because they were difficult, because they were super simple to make!
Butterflake Herb Loaf
Pure butter heaven. This loaf is like garlic bread but made with Pillsbury crescent rolls. The layered texture, moistness, and richness of this loaf is unbeatable. Personally, we like the end pieces the most because they developed a bit of a crunchy crust that perfectly balances the pillowy interior. We also did not follow King Arthur’s suggestion to put the scraps into a muffin tin – instead, we just re-rolled the dough and cut more circles so a not to waste any of it!
Potica
Pronounced “poh-TEET-sah”, this walnut-filled bread reminded us of cinnamon raisin bread. It was a little on the plain side, but still a decent breakfast bread. We preferred it over the Dios Beigli, which has similar ingredients, due to it being less lemony and more bread-like. Despite what the gorgeous interior swirl might suggest, this bread was super simple to make and the direction were very clear on how to make the swirl look just right!
Cinnamon Conchas
The cinnamon conchas were our favorite out of the 8 breads we made. They are sweet rolls with a streusel topping. The bread itself is almost a bit salty, which balances the sweet and cinnamony topping. The texture is rich, moist, but somehow airy and not dense. We will say, this dough was not the easiest to work with as it was on the stickier side, but the end product was so worth the struggle!
Hot Bread Kitchen’s Nan-e Barbari (Persian Flatbread)
This bread was a struggle for us. We found working with the dough to be a challenge as it kept sticking and didn’t seem to develop enough gluten. However, after baking it, it is clear there was gluten development happening, as it was very chewy and almost rubbery. It’s possible we did something wrong, but we won’t be giving this one another try.
The other 4 bread recipes that are part of the #ExtraordinaryBread contest are:
Garden Focaccia | Khachapuri (Georgian Cheese Bread) | Olive and Onion Fougasse | Scaccia
During the contest or after, be sure to give some of these recipes a try (you won’t be sorry), and when you do, make sure to tag King Arthur, #ExtraordinaryBread, and #economicaleats so we can all admire your creations!