Italian Bread

[wallie]

While in Canada on holiday I used to call at an Italian bakery to buy Italian bread, oh boy that was the best bread I have ever tasted.
I have been searching the internet for a recipe for it and have not seen any which seem authentic.
The bread I had was a wholemeal sort of colour with a crispy crust, the crust was quite hard in fact.
Any links to recipies for the real thing would be very welcome.
Also I would like to say many thanks to my good friend BriCan (Robert) for the help he gave me while over there.

Regards
wallie

[NCPaul]

You might try the Italian Supermarket Bread found here:

http://search.kingarthurflour.com/searc ... 6&N=0&x=25

Bakers share bread recipes on a knead to know basis.

[Mike D]

NCPaul...said:

Bakers share bread recipes on a knead to know basis.

Bakers do have to use their 'loaf' though!

Groan!!

[NCPaul]

Does my rye wit cause you pane? Does it cause a rise or can you roll with it?

[Minki]

Did you ever find out what bread it was?
Sounds like ciabatta !

[BriCan]

While in Canada on holiday I used to call at an Italian bakery to buy Italian bread, oh boy that was the best bread I have ever tasted.
I have been searching the internet for a recipe for it and have not seen any which seem authentic.
The bread I had was a wholemeal sort of colour with a crispy crust, the crust was quite hard in fact.
Any links to recipies for the real thing would be very welcome.
Also I would like to say many thanks to my good friend BriCan (Robert) for the help he gave me while over there.

Regards
wallie

Wallie just came across this while taking a quick look before heading off to la la land. I will try and check with a friend in Calgary who is into breads. If you can get onto a Newsgroup:uk.food+drink.misc look for Graham Dolby (he hails from Suffolk, the black ham part ) and have a talk with him

Keep well my friend.

[Snags]

Try this one it will probably be fairly similar
http://www.sourdoughbaker.com.au/recipe ... dough.html

[Massimo Maddaloni]

Hello,
I am not sure what "wholemeal" means. If it means "yellow-ish" you may be talking about what's known as "pane di Altamura" which is made with durum wheat semolina. This having said, I tried a dozen times to make it without much success. I believe they use some kind of sugar/malt, too which I never used, though. Light crystal malt for brewing is definitely reminiscent of pane di Altamura overtones. I am not an expert in bread making so ... someone else can use this as a start.
Regards
Massimo

[Massimo Maddaloni]

Hello all,
Inspired by this thread, I began baking again and experimenting. In another post I reported about my progresses but now I managed to get the real thing. I serendipitously stumbled across the book "The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread" by Peter Reinhart and then I bought "Crust and Crumbs" by the same author. It has been an EPIPHANY!
To make (among many others) Altamura/casareccio/Sicilian bread he advocates long fermentation times primed by minimal amount of yeast. By minimal I mean so little that one would never think it could work.
He begins with an odd starter, called "Poolish", which has a consistency of a liquid batter. No salt. Overnight in the fridge.
Then he makes the "pre-dough", again very fluid: Poolish plus flour. few hours at room temperature, then again overnite in the fridge.
The final day the pre-dough is worked in a very unusual way: it's stretched and folded (no kneading) and kinda "laminated" by layering flour in between the folds. Fermented few hours then into the oven.
He uses a pinch of malt to provide fermentable sugars for the yeast during overnight fermentations. He also explains clearly what to look for to decide when dough has been mixed enough.
The results are nothing short of AMAZING!! The bread comes out nutty, almost cakey, redolent of grains and other misterious fragrances. The crust has a wonderful copper/brown colour and it's crackly and glazed. The crumble is supple and soft with amazing bubbles. I recall eating such a good bread ontly twice in my entire life. You gotta check out these books.
Regards
Massimo
PS I made my breads with a mix of unbleached, unbromated, high-protein white flour + whole wheat flour + semolina (approximately 2,1,1)