March Daring Bakers Challenge

This month, the Daring Bakers were challenged to make Dutch Crunch Bread. I had absolutely no clue what this was, so it was an added bonus to learn about a new source of carbs, which we all can agree is a really good thing! Dutch Crunch bread is (apparently) quite the commodity in San Francisco and often is one of the first bread to sell out during the lunch rush.

Not only were we challenged to make this beautiful bread, but we also had to make a sandwich out of it. The bread's crunch topping called for rice flour, which isn't one of the staples in my pantry; fortunately, it wasn't tricky to find at our local grocery store. The basic idea is to make the bread dough, make the crunch topping, smother the bread dough in the crunch topping batter, and then bake. Not only was it a tasty experiment, it was also quite easy... bonus!

Here's the bread dough after it rose and was ready to be shaped.

This is the "crunch" batter all whipped up and ready to go.

My dough shaped into rolls (I figured that would be a fun presentation, instead of sliced bread loaves)

My gooped up rolls. The recipe instructed us to not go skimpy; skimpy = not decent cracks in the topping. I think I took that a bit too literally; the topping was oozing down onto the baking sheet by the time I was done applying it. I wound up having to scrape a bit of it off, but I'm glad I did.

Ta da!! Don't they look pretty??

I made a quick veggie sandwich, just to make sure I got the required sandwich picture,
but then deconstructed it and just ate the salad. :D

I was inspired (the next day) to make a grilled cheese sandwich (using 3 kinds of cheese and the Dutch Crunch bread).  MY OH MY, was it ever good! I dipped the sandwich in the tomato soup and tasted a little bit of Heaven with each bite. So good!

Sara and Erica of Baking JDs were our March 2012 Daring Baker hostesses! Sara & Erica challenged us to make Dutch Crunch bread, a delicious sandwich bread with a unique, crunchy topping. Sara and Erica also challenged us to create a one of a kind sandwich with our bread!