Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Finalmente un po' di ricette 'panose'!

I bake a different type of bread once per week, and I never have time to post about it. So I decided I'll put together some of the breads that I made in the past month and dedicate a post to it! Here is a graphic summary:
From the top left, clockwise:
Fiore di farina di riso integrale e avena (Flower with whole rice and oat flour), Ciabatta/focaccia con olive nere (Ciabatta/focaccia with black olives), Pane di mais con semini di sesamo (Corn flour bread with sesame seeds), Pane di farina di ceci e farina integrale (Garbanzo bean and whole wheat flour bread)

For almost all these recipes, the doses are very much 'by eye', except for the Ciabatta/focaccia, which I took the recipe from this website. So, in general, my bread making procedure is this: pour ~2 cups of warm water in a bowl, add ~2 tsp active yeast, mix and add ~1 tsp sugar, mix again. Then, add as much flour as it's necessary to make a workable dough. If I want a softer and more airy bread, I try to use as little flour as possible, and I leave the dough a bit sticky. Then, I knead the dough for 8-10 minutes, adding flour if I need it not to stick too much, and I let it to rest for 1-2 hours (depends if I have time to wait or not - the longer the wait, the fluffier the bread, usually, but good results are obtained also with just one hour wait). Then I divide the dough into 2-3 balls, or into smaller pieces if I decide to make rolls (NB - the dough for rolls definitely needs to be more sticky than regular bread). I leave the shapes to rise for another hour, on the buttered (or oiled) and floured baking pan I'm going to use to cook them. In the meanwhile I warm up a stone in the oven at 450 F, with a container with some water inside (that helps making a harder crust outside and a moist dough inside - you can not put it if you are making rolls). Then I put the shapes in the oven, on the stone. It takes about 20-30 minutes to cook them, depending on how big they are. Usually I understand that they are cooked if they are golden and hard when I tap on them. I take them out of the oven and remove them from the baking pan, and let them cool on a wire rack, letting air circulate around them.
Given this general procedure, here are some details concerning the different breads.
Fiore di farina di riso integrale e avena (Flower with whole rice and oat flour)
The dough for this bread was made with 1/3 regular flour, 1/3 oat flour and 1/3 whole rice flour, and I left it a bit sticky, without bothering kneading it too much. I made rolls, and assembled them inside a round pan with high borders, which I usually use for cakes. I gave the flour shape because I was inspired to do so. :) The rolls were really nice and soft and the oat and rice flours gave a slightly sweet taste to the bread. Very good.
Ciabatta/focaccia con olive nere (Ciabatta/focaccia with black olives)
I decided to make this bread when I saw it on Chanit's wonderful blog 'My mom's recipes and more'(Thu Jul 17th, 2007). This is one of the best blogs you can find if you want bread and bread-related recipes, visit it! For this recipe, you need to make a starter with a part of the flour, yeast and water the night before you make the bread. The whole recipe can be found here. As always, every time I try to follow a recipe from A to Z, it doesn't really come out as I thought it would. Indeed, my bread was more like a focaccia than like a ciabatta (Chanit's looks more ciabatta). In the recipe, oil is added to the dough - I followed this suggestion, and I also used the suggested amount of flour and water. But the dough turned out very sticky and didn't maintain a real shape when I put it on the baking pan. It was actually absolutely delicious, different from my usual breads, more soft and airy, but I felt it was more similar to a focaccia (for its softness and for the presence of oil) rather than a ciabatta. So, maybe I'll try to make a real ciabatta another time! In any case, thanks Chanit for showing this recipe!

Pane di mais con semini di sesamo (Corn flour bread with sesame seeds)
I already made a bread with corn flour in the past. In this case, though I used almost all corn flour (~3/4 corn flour and ~1/4 regular flour. So, it was really like eating polenta-tasting bread! It was very good and pretty to see (I added the sesame seeds on the surface of the bread before baking it).

Pane di farina di ceci e farina integrale (Garbanzo bean and whole wheat flour bread)
This is my last creation and we're still enjoying it - I was a bit scared to try, but I finally decided to make some bread using garbanzo bean flour! So I used ~1/4 garbanzo bean flour, 1/4 whole wheat flour and 1/2 regular white flour. I added ~2 tbsp olive oil to the dough. I left it a little sticky and didn't bother kneading it for more than 7 minutes. The result was really good. The taste of the garbanzo bean flour is very definite in the bread, a little bit like eating a farinata-bread. It's absolutely delicious if toasted and eaten with butter or olive oil! Mmm.. maybe I should go eat a piece of it now!!

9 comments:

bee said...

you are an excellent baker, marta. i am totally going to try your garbanzo bean flour bread. i think it's what we indians call besan or chickpea flour.

Nora B. said...

Your breads look terrific. I feel like such a cheat. I make bread once a week, but most of the time, my breadmaker does the kneading.

chemcookit said...

Hey Bee! thanks! Yeah garbanzo bean is chickpea. Let me know if you like it, if you really try t!

Nora, thanks! I never tried the bread machine and I don't have one. It would be really interesting if you could try one of your recipes by hand and the same with the bread machine, and see if the result is any different. Some purists say the bread machine kneads too much, but I really have no idea. I mostly do it by hand because I like the feeling of the dough and then I don't have to clean up too much. :)

Rosa's Yummy Yums said...

Those breads all look wonderful! I particularly like the one made with rice flour...

Elle said...

All four look fantastic, but I am very much taken with the flower bread. I love oats and often bake bread with oat flour, too.

Chanita Harel חני הראל said...

Thank you marta !
What a lovely post , I love baking Breads.. ;-)

cdtnhar said...

do you know if it is possible to make bread using only bean flours? I cannot eat flour made of grains including oats or wheat so am trying to see if its possible to make just bean flour breads. Thank you so much for your help.

chemcookit said...

Thanks to everyone - I'm glad the bread recipes are enjoyed!
As for cdtnhar question - I doubt you could make a real bread without any grain flour. But I think one could make a more 'cake-y' bread. I'd try to mix up some bean flour, salt, water/milk, oil and baking powder and see what comes out. If I end up having some time this weekend or the next one I'll give it a shot and post the result here.

Sunshinemom said...

My garbanzo bean flour (Besan as Bee said) is just back from the mill. I love the flavour of besan and will definitely try out that last bread:)