GBBO Technical Challenge, Season 15 Episode 3: 7-Strand Plaited Wreath

7-Strand Plaited Wreath

GBBO Bread Week! Paul's challenging us with circles of braided bread.

I think I was very successful here. The bread is pretty boring flavor/texture wise so it might be better to make a different dough, but the result of the stranded weave is really pretty and easy to accomplish. It seems like a great idea for anyone's next loaf. 

Note,watch the video for the braiding, as Paul has another recipe with bad instructions. (The recipe seems to have not been proofread. Step 1 has a duplicated instruction. The braiding instructions omits the fact that it's expected to invert the whole mass mid-braiding to do the other end.)

It really did need a few more minutes in the oven. But due to poor time management on my part it had to come out when it did. My other nit pick is that the dough snakes were all a bit thicker in the center then the ends so there was a noticeable thickness variation around the wreath.

Probably needed a few more minutes in the oven.

That crumb is not crummy at all!

The dough making is fast, and we had everything in the pantry. I did the proofing in the Anova oven at 78F

A simple set of ingredients.
Hand mixed.	After kneading.

The fun with this one is the braiding. Paul does an example one the video that clearly shows all the needed steps. That said I did make one change that makes it I think easier.

My carefully measured bread snakes:

My seven armed bread sept-o-pus:

Mid braid. My change in how to braid is when I went back to the top to do that part, Paul says pick up the whole thing and flips it the long way upside down.

I think it's much easier to just braid it the inverted way in same position (take the innermost strand of the 4 stranded side and cross over to the outside of the 3 strand side.) The result looks the same and since my work area is narrow but long and the dough was a bit sticky, worked great.

 

I liked this state I should bake it like this.

Sssh, don't tell Paul I braided it differently.

Chopped the ends off and form a circle. The join is bottom right side.

Next week, back to Prue and a Pear Tarte tartin, I can't wait to see the utter mess I make of that one.