Portuguese Sweet Bread

In some areas of the country, not here of course, this bread is called Hawaiian bread, but even then most of the time Hawaiian's give credit to the Portuguese for this big, soft, sweet, round pillow of a loaf. I cannot imagine making a sandwhich from this bread, but according to the text it's a very popular bread to do so. The distintive aspect of this bread, besides the lemon and orange extracts is the flavor the powdered-milk imparts. I can't say I tasted the powdered-milk, but the extracts made this bread wonderful.

This was a fun bread to make because of all the stages the bread went through. It started in the morning with a sponge, which had to be equal parts flour, water, and then sugar and instant yeast. It's mixed, and you wait until it's bubbly and will fall when touched. After the sponge is ready the butter, shortening, eggs, sugar and extracts are creamed. After this first frosting type is created, it's mixed with the sponge and the remaining flour.

Because of the high amounts of fat and sugar, the gluten takes a while to form. I had to let the dough sit and rise for 2hours before I divided and formed into boules. The boules are put into pie plates and given another 2-3 hours to rise. I instead let the loaves retard overnight, and Sunday morning pulled out the loaves for a good 5 hours. The loaves did get larger, but didn't fill the plates like the book described. After the rising, and egg wash, the loaves baked up and turned out perfectly and almost exactly like the picture in the book. The bread tasted wonderful. I don't know that I would make a sandwhich out of it. It just seems too good to enjoy as a sandwhich.