The Scene
Say what you will about the Greek people, but throughout history they have proven that they are a culture that knows how to party.
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| Celebrate good times! |
The Artos section in the BBA book includes three recipes. The first is the basic Artos which is an enriched bread with a handful of spice and flavorings. The second is Christopsomos, which is the same as the Artos but with dried fruits and nuts added. The third is the Lambropsomo which is the Artos with different dried fruits and nuts added, and is formed into a braided loaf with hard-boiled eggs that have been dyed red pressed into the top of it.
I chose to make the Christopsomos out of a desire for something a bit more elaborate, yet not bloody-looking egg elaborate. I have made this bread once before during my first attempt at this challenge. It was also the bread that led to me abandoning my first attempt at this challenge. I had prepared it as part of a Thanksgiving dinner that I was hosting at my house and in a last minute display of hubris, I decided that my skills were such that I could leaven the bread entirely with my wild-yeast starter instead of the half wild-yeast, half commercial yeast that the recipe called for. I was wrong, and was instead serving the prettiest hockey puck you have ever seen. This failure, along with the impending holiday season, and a healthy dose of procrastination led to my initial abandonment of this challenge.
Recipe Deviations and Issues
I learned from my mistake the first time around on making any drastic changes to the formula, but did make a couple small changes. First, I left out the orange zest and instead used orange-flavored dried cranberries that I picked up at Trader Joe's. I also left out the raisins and replaced them with even more of the orange cranberries. Finally, I decided not to use the optional glaze. When I made this the first time, I did use the glaze and it proved to make the bread really sticky and a bit unmanageable. Since I wasn't serving this for a special event, I went without it.
The only real issue I had was forgetting to add the almond extract. This was especially frustrating in that I had spent a significant amount of time searching for the little bottle of it that I had purchased for my previous attempt at this bread. Oh well.
Final Results
Success! It was very difficult waiting for this aromatic beauty to cool before tearing into it. This time I had a spicy, light bread with enough flavor of it's own to eat without doctoring in any way. The crumb was similar to a Challah, but with nuts and dried fruit. The crust was slightly firm and amazing looking. Overall, a good looking and tasty bread!
And, it also made some of the best french toast ever.
Make Your Own
This is the closest recipe I could find online. It calls for a couple spices I have never heard of (with recommended substitutions), and doesn't use the wild-yeast starter preferment. It also uses figs instead of dried cranberries.
Christopsomo at artisanbreadbaking.com
Up next, Bagels!
