ABC - Veggie Danish

This Veggie Danish recipe from WeekendBakery.com instantly captured my attention. It's like a savory cinnamon roll, and you can use whatever filling strikes your fancy. In my case, I used homemade (nut-free) basil pesto, green olives and an Italian cheese blend. I served it with a bowl of homemade vegetable soup. Everyone loved it! The only downside was that this dough almost killed my bread machine (more on that later).

As for the shape, I decided not to mess with cutting the dough into rolls and made a faux-braid instead. Who said braided breads can be sweet only?

Soft and fluffy bread hugging an aromatic pesto/olive/cheese filling. Yum!

If you'd like to join the ABC bakers in their monthly baking adventures, please go to the ABC blog for more information.


The recipe calls for a sponge, which I made in the morning. It sat in a microwave with a hot cup of water for about 4 hours, and got nice and bubbly.

This started at 1 cup. IT'S ALIVE!!!!!

For the dough, I used the Dough Cycle on my bread machine. Some of the other ABC bakers had mentioned that the dough was really wet and sticky, so I put all the ingredients in the bread machine and left the kitchen. About 8 minutes into the kneading cycle, I heard a strange noise coming from the kitchen. The bread machine blade wasn't consistently turning. When I opened the door, I was shocked. My dough looked like a block of dry clay. I quickly started adding more water, without measuring, until I got the consistency that felt right. Luckily, this saved the day. Especially since I didn't have a backup bread plan for my guests that evening :)

After the first rise in the bread machine

Step-by-step pictures:

Bon Appetit!

Final thoughts/tips:

• Hubby loved this bread. It was soft and fluffy. He enjoyed a couple slices with his soup.
• My guests also loved this bread. So much so that they asked if they could take some home with them (of course!!!).
• Needless to say, I loved this bread too. We ate it shortly after it came out of the oven, with a nice schmear of unsalted butter. Yum! It had a great smell, from the baked dough itself as well as the aromatic filling (I love basil!!). It was so light and airy. I made one loaf with the dough and should have realized that the recipe would make for a huge loaf. During its final rise and then again after baking, it grew a lot! Woah! Of course we still ate it :) Definitely on my to-bake-again list.
• Don't forget to check out the other ABC bakers here or on Facebook.

Veggie Danish

(adapted from WeekendBakery.com)

Ingredients (poolish):

• 200 gr unbleached bread flour
• 200 gr (tap) water
• 1 gr instant yeast

Start by making the poolish, mixing flour, water and yeast with a fork until well combined. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave to develop at room temperature for 4 hours.

Ingredients (dough):

• All of the poolish
• 300 gr unbleached bread flour
• 23 gr non-fat dry milk powder
• 70 gr lukewarm milk
• 40 gr extra-virgin olive oil
• 6 gr sea salt
• 5 gr instant yeast

Put all of the dough ingredients in the bowl of your bread machine and run the Dough Cycle. I ended up needing to add water to the dough because it was too stiff. Although I didn't measure it, my estimate is that I added a good 6 Tbsp of water until I got the right consistency.

Preheat your oven to 390ºF.

Turn out the dough on a lightly oiled work surface and with a rolling pin roll out into a large rectangle. Spread the filling on the middle third of the rectangle (see step-by-step pictures above). Braid the loaf following the step-by-step pictures. Cover with floured or oiled plastic wrap and leave to proof for about 60 minutes.

Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes. Eat while warm. You can also slice the bread and freeze it for later consumption.