The recipe intrigued me when I saw it on Baroness Tapuzina’s blog. Garlic bread, onion bread, rosemary bread – OK – but I’d never had basil bread. It called for 1/2 cup of basil leaves, chopped or pureed. I had to make it.
The first time, I made it according to the recipe except that I used a full cup of basil leaves and pureed them with the oil. The bread tasted powerfully of basil and came out green. The Little One loved it. Husband tactfully said, “I’ll have to get used to it.” I thought it would be good as pizza dough.
The next time I made it, I went back to half a cup of pureed leaves. The bread was good, but tasted only faintly of basil. Also, I missed the deeper flavor that comes with an overnight fermentation.
Finally, I took the recipe and changed it to suit my taste. My readers know my preference for a prolonged first rise with little yeast.
So I made Basil Bread for the third time – with 3/4 cup of chopped, not pureed leaves – and it came out the way I like it. Well-risen, golden crust, moist crumb with small holes scattered throughout. The color light, attractively flecked with dark green. Most of all, there was a delicious, sweet/pungent aroma and taste of basil, in just the right proportion.
Mimi’s Basil Bread
Ingredients:
1/2 cube fresh yeast
1 cup plus 2 1/2 Tblsp. warm water
3 1/2 Tblsp. olive oil
2 1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
3/4 cup tightly packed basil leaves
5 cups all-purpose flour
Method:
1. Rinse and carefully dry the basil leaves. Chop them into fine ribbons.
2. In a medium bowl, dissolve the yeast in all the water.
3. Add the sugar; stir to dissolve. Add the oil, salt, and chopped basil leaves. Stir it all up.
4. Add half-cups of flour, stirring well each time, till you have a loose dough. This should take 4 to 4 1/2 cups. Mix well.
5. Cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge for 6-8 hours. It will rise and be spongy by morning.
6. Next day, deflate the dough by stirring it. Sprinkle more flour in, first stirring, then kneading lightly, till the dough is stiff. Let it sit by itself for 15 minutes to absorb the flour.
7. Add the rest of the flour – up to 5 cups total. Knead again, lightly, and form a ball of the dough. Dribble a little olive oil over it, then turn it around in the bowl a few times. Drape a kitchen towel over the bowl, and leave the dough to rise for 45 minutes at room temperature.
8. Preheat the oven to 350 F, 180 C, about 20 minutes before you plan to bake. At the same time, shape your loaf and put it to rise once again on a sheet of baking paper. It will be very light and bubbly when it’s ready to bake.
9. Handle the loaf gently, so as not to deflate it. Bake it for 30 minutes. When the crust is golden and sturdy, turn the loaf upside down to finish baking, 10-15 minutes more.
I’ve served this bread with feta cheese, as a salami sandwich, and plain, with fish soup. Very, very good!
I’ve added chopped basil to my pizza dough and wow, does it bring it up to a whole new level!
There’s a recipe in The Secret of Challah by Shira Wiener and Ayelet Yifrach for ‘tri-color’ challah. THe recipe recommends chopped parsley or zaatar for one color and sweet paprika for another. I did chopped basil for the green and used a tomato spread from Pereg. Served it warm with fresh, cramy feta cheese and it was fantastic!
Devo,
The tri-colored bread sounds totally delicious. I’d like to try it myself! In fact, I can almost smell it, right now. But I wouldn’t call it challah, unless I were serving it on Shabbat/Yom tov.
I’ve observed that most folks expect challah, whether white or whole wheat (or other grain) to be a fluffy, sweetish loaf. Hmm. I think I’m going to post about this…
[...] lady commenting on the Basil Bread post brought up a recipe for tri-color bread, deeply colored and flavored with basil and tomato [...]
That should have been CREAMY feta cheese
Oh, and I totally understand about the need for it to be stereotypical in order for it to be called challah. The 2 recipes I use are either the half and half (kilo whole wheat, kilo white flour) that was originally in the Spice and Spirit cookbook and has since been reprinted in The Secret of Challah and I use a sweet challah recipe from TSoC cookbook as well.
The tri-colored challah either ended up for a Seudat Shelisheet or after making haMotzei on one of our dairy Friday nights.
Do you know how many grams a cube of yeast is? I’ve only seen in sold in packets labeled by weight here (in the US).
Fern,
The Israeli cube of fresh yeast weights 50 grams.
Shabbat Shalom!
[...] lady commenting on the Basil Bread post brought up a recipe for tri-color bread, deeply colored and flavored with basil and tomato [...]
Can anyone post the recipe for tri color challah?
thanks!
I think you could improvise along the lines set out by Devo K, using basil or parsley for green and tomato paste for red. Re-reading these comments, I think I’m inspired to try bread in three colors myself, in the coming week or so. If you bake it, let us know!
Hi mimi54,
We are stationed in Okinawa, Japan, and one of the places we like to eat make their sandwiches on a basil roll. I am wondering if you think this would turn out ok as individual sandwich rolls or should the whole thing be made and sliced?
Also, we dont have fresh yeast here, only the packets of active dry yeast. Could you tell me how much a half a cube of fresh yeast would equal to packets of active dry?
Thank you very much. I must confess, I am not a baker
Erica
Hi, Erica,
I’m sure this bread would make lovely rolls.
The equivalent of half a fresh yeast cube would be 7 grams of active dry yeast, or 1 1/2 tsp.
Let me know if basil bread magically turned you into a baker…I hope it will.
Hi Mimi,
So I tried the recipe today. The loaf I made came out great, the rolls….not so much lol. They didnt hold their shape at all. THe dough started getting really stiff at 3C flour so I had to add a little water to it.
We are finally moving back stateside so I am going to make this recipe as many times it takes to perfect it. I want to impress the mother in law
Thank you so much!
Hi, Erica,
Thanks for letting me know. I love it when folks cook my recipes and then tell me how it went.
The quality of your flour is probably different from the flour I use – it does vary from country to country. I remember that my mother’s famous cakes would have to go through a new trial-and-error phase every time we’d move from the U.S. – Brazil – Venezuela – Israel.
I’d take notes about the flour and water quantities each time. That way when you get the result you’re happiest with, you’ll have it written down. Of course, that may be different in Okinawa than when you get to the States… But with practice you’ll understand how the dough should look and feel under your hands.
I tried the Basil bread, and it turned out wonderfully! Absolutely delicious. I did use 1 1/2 tsp dry yeast, and that seemed to be the correct amount, it rose quite well. The favor could not have been any better. Great job with the recipe.
Bee Dee,
Thanks so much for letting me know. It’s gratifying to hear back when readers try my recipes, especially when they’re happy with the results.
I have half a loaf of basil bread sitting in my kitchen myself – going to make grilled cheese sandwiches out it.
Miriam
We have an abundance of basil in our garden and I found your website for this lovely bread. I wasn’t sure how much yeast to use, I used 2.5 tsp. Maybe too much? Its rising on the counter right now. I’m excited to get it out of the oven.
Thank you for sharing! Mahalo and much Aloha! =)
Catherine,
Your bread is probably baked and cooled down by now…don’t know what the time difference is between Hawaii and Israel! I would have used less yeast – only 1.5 tsp. – and had a longer rising time. I prefer less yeast because the slow rise helps develop the flavor of the flour. But I’m sure the quantity you used didn’t harm the bread. Most folks do prefer to work faster. Please let me know how your basil bread turned out.
It turned out fabulously! So light and tasty with the basil. So good, I came back this weekend to do the recipe again. We used Red Ruffle Basil the first time. And this time around we used the Spicy Globe Basil. This is a fantastic recipe and have shared you lovely site with many family and friends back home. =)
It’s great to hear that the recipe worked out well. I wish we had as many varieties of basil here as you have. Thanks for sharing!