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🍞 Italian-inspired breads you’re going to love.
Published about 2 months ago • 3 min read
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Italian-inspired breads you’re going to love.
Ciao from northern Italy!
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I'm currently traveling through this incredible region with a wonderful group of The Perfect Loaf readers on a culinary adventure.
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It’s always a challenge baking in a new location—different equipment, new flour, dramatically different altitude—but the upside is it’s the perfect stage for instructing how to adapt and make wonderful bread wherever you are.
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(Before I get going, though, if you want to see more about the workshop and tours I’m leading out here, and more coming, check out my travel page.)
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It’s great to pull out perfectly risen, colored, and structured loaves every time, but this is rarely helpful when one baker’s conditions are dramatically different from another’s.
Far more useful, in my opinion, is showing how I use my baking experience to help diagnose, troubleshoot, and solve issues with underperforming ovens, or soft flour that’s not entirely optimal for bread—or one of the many other issues that can come about when making bread.
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We made some delightful loaves despite a few challenges along the way, and my hope is that the attendees on this trip have come away with a new set of tools to help them make even better bread at home.
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And since I'm immersed in weeks of Italian baking traditions (and yes, plenty of gelato breaks), I thought you might want to bring some of these flavors into your home, too.
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Today's newsletter is packed with techniques and recipes for classic Italian breads that are always my go-to: ciabatta, baguette-like filoncini, bread with durum flour, focaccia, and more.
Last year on my tour through southern Italy, I made these with the group and we enjoyed them as an appetizer for lunch. I love that once they’re baked (the second time), they last nearly indefinitely.
In my workshop last week I asked the school to get durum flour for the class and to my surprise, they weren’t able to find any. This is such a common grain here in Italy—and it’s even grown down south!—I was quite surprised.
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Turns out, it is possible to find it here in the north, but it’s not quite as common as you’d think.
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(If you’re curious, instead of durum, we ended up using whole wheat in its place.)
Not all focaccia in southern Italy has potatoes in the dough, but I'll tell you, the magical tuber gives this focaccia an otherworldly texture. Think chewy meets softness.
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If you have any straggler tomatoes lying around, get them on top!
Last week, I talked about The Baker's Corner, the newly-named membership here at The Perfect Loaf. Want to come talk about your bakes, ask questions, and nerd out about sourdough? Join us!
In many of your recipes, I see "Water 1" and "Water 2" listed in the ingredients; what are these?
In many of my recipes, I have a Water 1 and Water 2, which is just the water in the recipe split into two additions (usually 95% and 5%, respectively).
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I hold back Water 2 and add it later in the recipe to ensure I don't overhydrate the dough (you can always leave out Water 2) and to fine-tune the dough's hydration during mixing.
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But also, holding back some water during mixing, also called "bassinage," makes mixing easier because you can develop the dough's gluten more effectively with less water, then slowly stream in that Water 2 later once the dough is stronger.
🛟 2 Ways I Can Help You Today
I'm packing a bit of my sourdough starter to go with me on the trip to Italy for the baking workshop, but my main starter will be stored safely for when I return. ​
Want to make bakery-quality sourdough bread from home? Subscribe for the best sourdough guides and recipes to take your bread from ordinary to incredible.
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