Have you heard of Bloomer bread? If not, I highly recommend you give this soft and flavorful loaf a try!
One of my favorite shows is Great British Bake Off (GBBO). As I mentioned in my bio on this page cooking shows provide me with such a sense of relaxation and enjoyment. I love GBBO, in particular, though because there is no prize money at the end, so the wholesomeness of the show really resonates. Home bakers compete for the pure love and passion of baking, and the contestants seem to genuinely support and care about each other. Not to mention, the bakes that they create are amazing! For anyone interested, the seasons are available on Netflix, so definitely check it out.
Paul Hollywood is one of the judges on GBBO – he fulfills the role of tough critic extremely well but is also quite loveable, in my opinion. Bakers strive to get one of his rare handshakes, which indicates you really impressed him with the bake. Anyway, he really knows his stuff, especially with bread, so as I watched the show, it motivated me to buy his book “Paul Hollywood’s Bread,” which you can get on Amazon. That brings me to how I learned about Bloomer Bread, as it is the first recipe in the book.
What is Bloomer Bread?
Bloomer bread is an English bread that is made in the shape of a cylinder and has slashes across the top. It is a very light loaf with a soft interior and crusty exterior. How did it get its name? Well, it is because of how the bread blooms in the oven, like a flower.
This bread has very simple ingredients
- White Bread Flour
- Salt
- Active Dry Yeast
- Olive Oil
- Cool Water
Paul Hollywood’s “Bread” book is so well done with clear instructions and even images to guide you through. For the Bloomer recipe, in particular, he describes this as a good starter bread if you are just getting into bread making.
Use of Tools
- Don’t be afraid to make bread by hand: A lot of times when I make bread, I am using my Kitchen Aid Mixer, linked HERE. However with this Bloomer recipe, Paul walks you through how to make it by hand. Making this bread by hand was the gift I did not know I needed. It was incredible to feel how the dough changed at each stage of the process and really gave me a better understanding of what to look for. It is one thing to let your mixer do the work, but a whole other experience to manipulate the dough and guide it through each stage of the baking process.
- Get a Bread Lame: Part of this bread recipe requires you to make diagonal slashes in the loaf before baking. While a sharp knife may work, investing in a bread lame is highly recommended. It is important to have the right tools to get the results you want.
- Click HERE to purchase the one I have from Etsy
- Importance of weighing your ingredients: This cookbook has all the ingredients listed in grams or liters, as that is the measurement used in the UK. I was not used to this of course because the US uses the metric system. It is not always exact when you convert to the metric system, so if you can measure your ingredients by weighing them, there is no need to convert!
- If you can invest in a Kitchen Scale, I would recommend it.
Shaping Your Loaf
- Practice how to shape your loaf: Forming your loaf into the shape you need to is not as easy as it looks on GBBO, and the Bloomer bread is a great way to start learning how to do it. I am not an expert in this, but I can say that it took me only one try to make this loaf successfully. If I can do it, so can you!
- Make sure the crease in your dough is at the bottom of the loaf: As you shape your loaf, you will need to fold it in on itself, which inevitably forms a crease. You want to make sure that crease is even and at the bottom of your loaf when it goes into its second prove and then into the oven. If it is not in the middle at the bottom of the loaf, you will end up with a lopsided bread.
I had so much fun trying this recipe. Bloomer bread is great to use for sandwiches or avocado toast, which is what I used it for. It was delicious! Give it a try and let me know how you did in the comments below.
Find this recipe in “Paul Hollywood’s Bread” book – Get this book and bake with me!
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