Monday, March 5, 2012

Le gibassier

Le gibassier

I was just searching for a recipe to use some of the candied orange peel left in my fridge from making the almost mother-in-law cake, but what I found was the most beautiful bread I’d ever seen, a type of bread I’d never heard of before. I adore it when certain things lead to great discoveries, and I felt this way again a week ago, when after watching the fantastic "The Fall" I made my usual trip to IMDb: going through Lee Pace’s profile I found this movie, which I’d never heard of before and looks exactly like the type of drama I love.

Le gibassier
from the always glorious and delicious Australian Gourmet Traveller

1/3 cup (80ml) lukewarm whole milk
14g (2 sachets/4 ½ teaspoons) dried yeast
6 tablespoons (72g) granulated sugar, divided use
2 ½ cups (350g) all purpose flour
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 ½ teaspoons orange-blossom water
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ cup + 1 tablespoon (70g) softened unsalted butter
100g candied orange peel, drained and finely chopped – I used homemade, recipe here
icing sugar, sifted, for dusting

Stir milk, yeast and 3 ½ tablespoons of the sugar in a small bowl and stand until foamy (10 minutes).
Combine flour and remaining sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook, add eggs, oil, orange-blossom water, vanilla and yeast mixture and mix until smooth and elastic (5-10 minutes), then, mixing continuously, gradually add softened butter until incorporated. Add candied peel, knead to incorporate, then transfer to a lightly oiled bowl, cover and stand in a warm place until doubled in size (1½-2 hours).
Line a large baking sheet with foil. Knock back dough and divide in half. Roll out each half into a rough leaf shape, cut slits in bread, gently pull slits slightly open, and set onto the prepared sheet. Cover loosely with a clean kitchen tower and place in a draught-free place until doubled in size (1 hour) – after this period of time the slits I’d previously made on the breads were almost invisible, so I cut the breads again before baking them.
Preheat oven to 200°C/400°F. Bake gibassier until dark golden and cooked through (10-12 minutes). Dust with icing sugar and serve warm (I thought it tasted great at room temperature, too).

Serves 8

7 comments:

The Experimental Cook said...

I made something like this recently but yours look definitely way more delicious and tempting.

Laura (Tutti Dolci) said...

What a beautiful loaf!

Unknown said...

Yum!!! This looks great! I'm going to pin it right away!

MANISAH said...

Hi Pat, your bread is a star! Am thinking to try it. What would be the best alternative for orange blossom water?

teawithhazel said...

oh..wow..what a great find..i am definitely bookmarking it..

aussiebaker said...

Pearl Bakery in Portland, Oregon makes fantastic individual le gibassier. The one thing AGT's recipe is lacking is the anise seed that the authentic French recipe calls for.

Patricia Scarpin said...

Manisah, it's not the same, but if you cannot find it use vanilla extract instead.

Aussie Baker, the recipe on GT calls for anise, but I did not want to use it.

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