Pani Rose:
I'm sure that it's simply a good homemade loaf that has just been made in a fancier form.
My grandmother used to bake a round loaf when she baked bread. She used to call it a "hospitality loaf" and she said that when she grew up in Sweden before WW1 that you greeted visitors to your home with this loaf. It meant that the guest was welcome because bread is the staff of life and you were wishing the guest the best in life.
You could probably duplicate that loaf by making three different sized loaves and then stacking them before baking. It probalby takes some practice to get it baked through and you might have a couple duds before you'd get it right--unless you're a better baker than I am.
Given the picture, I'd bet it's warm, too.
That reminds me of the story my mother tells about asking my grandmother (her mother-in-law) to teach her how to make her homemade bread recipe. Seems Grandma only knew the recipe they'd used on the farm in the old country. It called for twenty-five pounds of flour and the rest of the ingredients. Mother says she didn't know if Grandma was kneeding the bread dough or if it was sucking her into it--Grandma was about 5 feet tall and had to stand on a chair to reach this big ball on top of the table. It made 22 loaves and a hospitality loaf.
BOB
