Gibassier Pomelo

Host for this months Bread Baking Day is Palmira of Come Con Migo El Blog de Palmira  Palmira asked us to bake Bread for a Picnic.

We gave it some thought, and came up with this sweet bread. This bread is so delicious you can eat it all day and especially when you are having a picnic.

Normally we buy some Thai food and have our picnic in the National Park near our village. There is a nice river floating through the park and you can sit on the grass. The trees provide a nice shade during the hot weather. They even have a nice hot spring.

Next time we will bring our Gibassier too. It’s nice to have something sweet after a spicy meal.

Ciril Hitz wrote about these Gibassier in Baking Artisan Pastries & Breads; ‘in my wife's opinion, one of the best breakfast breads ever’. We agree!

As soon as I saw these, I knew I had to make them. Don’t they look absolutely delicious! Gibassier is a sweet bread from the Provence. In the original Gibassier there is orange flower water, candied orange peel and anise. I didn’t have all these ingredients. But we just bought candied pomelo. I agree the color is very green, but it tastes good. And, instead of orange flower water and anise, I used vanilla essence. Because of the different ingredients I call it Gibassier Pomelo. For us this is a perfect Picnic Bread.

These Gibassier are fun to shape. I used a credit card to make the cuts in the dough, a handy tool. The dough is sweet, light and with a little fresh bite from the Pomelo. I followed the recipe and made 12 Gibassier. The next day we met some friends and I knew they would love them too. You can keep them in the refrigerator or, like I did, in a covered plastic bowl. I kept them fresh for 3 days, until they were all gone.

This is what I used for 12 Gibassier

Biga:

180 grams all purpose flour

110 grams full fat milk

1/8 tea spoon dry yeast

Dough:

400 grams all purpose flour

100 grams sugar

7 grams salt

10 grams dry yeast for sweet dough

All of the biga

2 eggs

1 egg yolk (eggs and yolk together ± 120 grams)

65 grams olive oil

38 grams orange flower water

25 grams water

70 grams soft unsalted butter (I used salted)

6 grams anis seed

70 grams candied orange peel, cut in small pieces (I used Candied Pomelo peel)

You also need:

Cristal sugar for topping

113 grams ghee (clarified butter)

Credit card

The night before I made the Biga:

Knead the ingredients into firm dough. You can do this by hand or use the mixing machine. Cover with plastic in a slightly oiled bowl. Leave for 14 – 16 hours on roomtemperature.

On baking day for the dough:

Add flour, sugar, salt, yeast, biga, eggs and yolk, olive oil and water in the bowl of the mixer. Knead with dough hook for about 10 minutes. Add the soft butter in small pieces; add after the first one is completely dissolved. Knead until full gluten development, you can tear the dough into a thin layer without tearing it up and you can almost see trough it. If the dough breaks you need more kneading.

Add the small pieces of pomelo peel and knead trough the dough.

Transfer the dough to a slightly oiled bowl. Cover and leave to ferment for 1 ½ - 2 hours or until it doubles in size. 

Place the dough to a slightly oiled surface and divide into 12 equal pieces. Make nice round buns of each piece and leave, covered, for about 20 minutes. 

Place your hand on top of the bun and press into an oval shape.

Use your credit card to make 3 cuts into the dough, see picture. 

Cut the top of the dough, see picture.

Lift the pieces and stretch so the cuts open up.

When you have done this with all the 12 pieces, put them on the baking try, covered with parchment paper. Leave some centimeters between each piece. They will expand and need the space. Leave for about 60 – 90 minutes to double in size.

If you can’t bake all the Gibassier at once, like me, place the 3^rd batch in the refrigerator to prevent over proofing.

In the mean time pre heat the oven to 180 °C.

Make ghee. Add butter in a pan with a thick bottom and leave to melt slowly. Remove the foam until the butter is clear. Sieve the butter and leave it until you need it. 

Bake the Gibassier for 12 – 15 minutes until they are light brown. Directly out of the oven you coat the Gibassier with ghee and sprinkle with (a lot of) sugar.

I found these Gibassier on uit de keuken van Arden 

I send these picnic breads to Palmira host for Bread Baking Day #42 

I send these Gibassier to Yeastspotting and BYOB