Bread Bowl

Name: Bread Bowl
Prep time: 40 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 1 h 20 min
Yield: 5
Cuisine: Norwegian
Ingredients: 7.5 dl water; 700 g wheat flour; 150 g coarse wholemeal wheat flour; 150 g fine wholemeal wheat flour; 1 tbsp flaky salt; 0.5 package fresh yeast; 1 pcs lemon

1 hr 20 min

2 portions

bread baking norwegian

Plan this

Skip the soup bowl and eat the whole thing — bread and all. Great with creamy soups like cauliflower or tomato.

Instructions

1
Mix the water, flour, salt, yeast, and lemon zest and juice in a stand mixer bowl, but hold back about 1 dl of the water for now. Knead the dough well — start on low speed and gradually increase. Once the dough is almost done, add the reserved water little by little. You're done when the dough is smooth and pulls away from the sides of the bowl.
2
Cover the bowl and let the dough rise until doubled in size, about 1.5 hours.
3
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Divide it into five equal pieces and shape each into a round bun. Cover with plastic wrap or a cloth and let rise until almost doubled, about 1 hour.
4
Dust a little flour over the tops of the buns and score a cross into each one with a sharp knife. Bake in the middle of the oven at 220 °C for 30–40 minutes, until deep golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.
5
To serve: slice off the top crust. Use your hands to pull out the soft bread inside. Fill with a creamy soup — a broth-based soup will soak through too quickly. Pop the lid back on top and serve.

Per average serving

730

Calories

kcal

23.4

Protein

152.8

Carbs

3.2

Fat

11.4g

Fiber

Sugar

1172mg

Sodium

Family Portions

2portions

Adults

Children

No children added

Ingredients

lemon (juice and zest)
0 pcs
coarse wholemeal wheat flour (wholemeal spelt flour)
↳ wholemeal spelt flour
60 g
fine wholemeal wheat flour (wholemeal flour)
↳ wholemeal flour
60 g
wheat flour
280 g
fresh yeast
0.2 package
flaky salt
⅓ tbsp
water
3 dl

Per average serving

730

Calories

kcal

23.4

Protein

152.8

Carbs

3.2

Fat

11.4g

Fiber

Sugar

1172mg

Sodium

Tips from the kitchen

Hold back that last deciliter of water and add it slowly at the end of kneading. If you dump it all in at once, the dough gets sticky and hard to recover. Add it in small splashes and let the mixer catch up between each one.
The lemon is doing more than you'd think here. Zest it before you juice it, and make sure you're getting the zest into the dough, not just the juice. It won't taste lemony in the finished bread, but it brightens the whole thing.
These buns need to be genuinely dark. Pale golden is underbaked for a bread bowl. You want deep brown, almost like you went a minute too far. The thick crust is what holds the soup in without going soggy.
When you hollow out the inside, don't scoop with a spoon. Pull the bread out with your hands in chunks. You get better control and you're less likely to tear through the bottom.
Bake them the day you plan to serve them if you can. Day-old bread bowls still work, but the crust softens overnight and you lose some of that structural integrity when you fill them.

Ways to vary it

You can swap the coarse and fine wholemeal flours for a single type if that's what you have. Using all coarse wholemeal makes a slightly denser bowl, which actually holds up well to thick soups. All fine wholemeal keeps it a bit lighter.
Try adding a tablespoon of caraway seeds or fennel seeds to the dough along with the salt. It pairs well with a tomato or cauliflower soup and gives the bread a bit more personality without changing the method at all.
The hollowed-out bread from the inside doesn't have to go to waste. Tear it into rough chunks, toss with a little oil, and toast in the oven while the soup heats up. Instant croutons.

Storage & leftovers

The baked bread bowls keep at room temperature for a day, wrapped in a cloth. After that they go stale quickly. They freeze well before hollowing out, up to a month. Thaw at room temperature and warm in the oven at 180 °C for about 10 minutes to bring the crust back.

What to serve with it

A thick cauliflower or tomato soup is the classic match here. Serve with a small green salad on the side if you want something fresh to cut through the bread.

By Untrained ChefPublished 24 July 2026