Rustic Italian Bread

First of all, sorry for the lack of posts the past week. Between the craptastic weather this past week, a sick hubby, and a super rough week at work my creativity for blogging was at an all time low. I am going to try to be better in the future. No promises though :P

Today I want to tell you about the wonderful creation that filled my morning with joy. This wonderful creation was actually about 24 hours in the making.. It is a wonderful Rustic Italian bread I made from scratch.

I had been wanting to make some homemade bread for months now. I have a beautiful heavy duty Kitchen Aid mixer (courtesy of my hubby) and I strive to put that baby to good use. I wouldn't want him to feel he wasted his hard earned money :). So it was inevitable that bread was to be eventually tried.

Oh I've made bread before. It was usually hard, and just all around not really great. Even with a bread machine (a device that was such a pain it was quickly relegated to the bottom of the cabinet).

About two weeks ago I checked out an Italian cookbook from the library (the Montgomery county library has an AMAZING section of cookbooks and i'm working my way through them). It had a recipe for a rustic Italian bread using a preferment (a starter) or biga as it's called in Italian. I made a starter at that time with very good intentions of making the bread. Well I got busy and time got away from me, and well the starter was really bad by that time... Definitely not fit to put into anything I would eat. So I decided to wait until another time.

Well that time came this past Friday evening. I had a phone conversation with my friend, Chad. We were discussing the menu that we are preparing for an upcoming birthday party for another friend. Chad was telling me how he was going to make some of his homemade Italian bread for the party. Then I got the lightbulb idea to ask him about how he does his (I knew I wanted mine somewhat similar to his because it's super tasty). Sure enough he uses a starter too. So I knew that was the way to go. He gave me a few tips too (buy the yeast in the jar for example, dust the bread with cornmeal, and make sure the oven has plenty of humidity for a really crisp crust, and work the dough by hand (something I did take to heart except for the very first mixing in the mixer the dough was hand kneaded)).

Saturday morning, I was off to HEB. I picked up some yeast in the jar ,and some really good King Aurthur bread flour. I came home and started my biga. First of all I made it too liquidy ,and it threatened to overtake the bowl I put it in. I then researched online and discovered it needed to be much firmer. So I added some more bread flour and that helped. I let the biga ferment overnight.

Sunday morning(this morning) bright and early I got up and mixed up the actual bread. Before noon my bread had went through 2 risings and was ready for the oven. I put a dish of water in the bottom of a hot oven to create humidity and I also spritzed the bread with a spray bottle every 15 minutes of the 35 minute baking time. The results was a crunchy on the outside soft on the inside loaf of bread.It was exactly perfect. This recipe is a wheat recipe. Actually it's 2/3 regular bread flour to 1/3 wheat flour. The recipe is from Cooking Up an Italian Life Cookbook. It is Rustic Italian Bread. Email me if you want the recipe (as I really don't want this to be a recipe blog :P).

I have posted pictures of this bread. It is sooo tasty and will definitely become a staple in our house. Next time I'm trying it without the wheat flour to see what difference it makes. My recipe made 2 loaves. I immediately served some hot to my Mom, my hubby, and myself. My Mom had hers with a bit of butter, I had mine the traditional Italian way with extra virgin olive Oil and some fresh ground black pepper, and Alfred had his dry.. But we all agreed it was a success

I'm so thankful to have good resources for making such tasty treats. Good cookbooks and good friends :)

Enjoy your Sunday,

Julie