Bread bowl crab dip

Last week I mentioned a love for hot seafood dip (usually clam) baked inside a round bread loaf that has been hollowed out. About 10 years ago, I was introduced to this method: Baked clam dip was a regular party dish prepared by a longtime friend of mine, Preston Gannaway, who now lives in Norfolk. She has access to blue crabs from her home in Ocean View, so I am offering this crab dip recipe in her honor.

Bread bowl crab dip

12 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 small onion, finely chopped
5 tablespoons mayonnaise
Two 6-ounces cans of crabmeat, drained and flaked (use a pound of fresh crabmeat, if you can buy it or if you catch your own)
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
Salt and pepper to taste
1 pound round, crusty bread loaf

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. In a medium bowl, combine the cream cheese, onion, mayonnaise, crabmeat, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Spread mixture in a 1-quart baking dish. Bake for 20 minutes. While the dip is baking, cut off the top of the bread round and scoop out the insides to create a bread bowl. Cut the extra bread into chunks for dipping. Remove the crab dip from the oven and stir well. Spoon the mixture into the hollowed out loaf. Place bread bowl and chunks of bread on a baking sheet and bake for an additional 10 minutes. Serve hot.

Preston made her clam dip by putting the mixture in the hollowed out loaf, covering it with the bread “top” and baking it for nearly an hour, with the loaf covered in foil. There was no separate step of heating the dip first, then putting it in the bread loaf. The best part of either method? Tearing the loaf apart and eating it once the dip is gone!

(Since Preston is a graduate of Virginia Intermont College in Bristol, Va., I am calling this an honorary Bristol recipe. Now she is in Norfolk, pulling crabs from the Bay, near my native home!)