Beehive Bread

There are quite a few beehive bread pins on Pinterest, I pinned this one from disneyfamily.com (warning: this site plays extremely annoying and difficult-to-silence audio ads).

It's a sweet, orange-flavored yeast-bread formed into twisted ropes and would around a greased bowl for baking.

Here's the key instruction:

Divide dough into 16 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a rope about 24 inches long. Twist two ropes together and wind around foil covered bowl from the bottom. Repeat with remaining pieces, pinching ends together until bowl is covered and resembles a beehive.

Twist any remaining ropes into smaller beehives and set on tray with larger bread. Let bread rise for 20 minutes. 

 I decided this would be a perfect Easter brunch bread, and picked out a variety of bowls to try.

I was thinking that the larger bowl would be the main bread, and the smaller ones for any extra dough. When I got it all done, though, the dough didn't even cover the larger bowl completely.

It looked great, though. From the front.

The back - not so much. I think in the future I'll try fewer, longer ropes to avoid the awkward joins. 

The problem joins became worse with baking. Again, from the front it looked fine, from the back it was sort of a mess.

  

It tasted fantastic, though. It was perfect for Easter, and my guests ate just about every bite. The kids were huge fans.  It's a sweet, not-particularly-healthful bread, so it's best for a special occasion.

The shaping could be fixed, I think, with thinner ropes. I'll also try smaller bowls to reduce sagging caused by the weight of the dough. Maybe 3 cereal-bowl sized molds instead of the large one.

Verdict: Delicious, and with a little tinkering it could be really pretty too.