Sourdough Bread Bowls

My favorite place to eat in the whole world is the St Louis Bread Co. In other places than St Louis, MO (where I lived during my teenage years) this eatery is called Panera Bread. Whatever you call it they make this AWESOME soup in sourdough bread bowls. I could it eat all the time. The closest one to me is 2 hours away. So sad! I often wish for some of this goodness!

A while ago a friend gave me some sourdough starter. Somehow I’ve managed to keep it alive and feed it and grow it and use it. Don’t ask me how. I don’t know too much. Apparently it’s quite easy and forgiving though and you really can’t mess it up easily. Anyhow, the first sourdough bread recipe I tried I LOVED. And my family loved it. Haven’t had the heart to try another yet. Of course my end goal has always been to make sourdough bread bowls so I went at it and was very very very pleased with the results!

I used my sourdough bread recipe (of course I kind of cheat because I always use the dough cycle on my bread machine then bake it in the oven.) So I split it into 6 pieces and formed them each into a ball. When they’d risen I brushed them with an egg and water mixture and slit them and baked them till they looked like this. Mouth watering? Yes! I made two of them smaller for the kids.

Then after they cooled I cut into them like this. Found out later by experience that you really want to hold the knife straight up and then turn the bowl around as you cut the circle out. you can dig out some more bread from the inside to hollow it out more but you won’t have to if you hold your knife at the right angle.

Then just make some incredible soup and maybe top it with a little cheese.

 

My kids were super impressed. They said we should use different foods in place of all of our dishes…

Like pancakes for plates, hollowed out coconuts for drinks, carved carrot sticks for spoons. Maybe someday we’ll have a dish-less day. Haha.

Now I want more soup in sourdough bread bowls… Ya gotta know it’s good when your own blog makes you hungry.