Pane Bianco

My favourite past time since a year is to read various bread blogs. Of the many ones, King Arthur Flour blog is one of my favourite site. I love all their recipes and feel like trying each one of them atleast once in my life time. Pane Bianco has been in my mind since I saw it on their Bake along post few months back. I had been looking forward to baking it since then. Finally made up my mind to bake it for tonight’s dinner. The recipe is adapted from King Arthur Flour’s blog, though I have made it eggless and substituted bread flour with a combination of all purpose flour, semolina and whole wheat flour. Also, the original recipe asks for sun dried tomatoes, which I didn’t have, so I have used our normal tomato, removed the seed, cut it into small pieces and sauteed it in a drizzle of olive oil till the extra moisture of the tomato goes off.

This bread has a super soft crumb and a very cheesy crust filled with the flavours of crushed garlic, home grown green basil leaves, tomato and cheese. It’s ideal for a perfect dinner accompanied with any piping hot soup or a veg or non veg stew, especially when it’s raining in Chennai. You can use purple basil leaves or any cheese that you like. Here I have used mozzarella cheese.

Oh my God !! As I was typing the recipe, I realised that I had forgotten to add sugar to the dough while kneading. But still my dough rose beautifully 🙂

Ingredients:

• All purpose flour 100 gm
• Semolina 100 gm
• Whole wheat flour 100 gm
• Salt as required
• Sugar 1 tsp
• Curd 1 tbsp
• Instant yeast 1/2 tsp
• Olive oil 2 tbsp
• Milk 100 ml
• Lukewarm water 100 ml
• Basil leaves 1/4 cup
• Garlic 6-8 cloves
• Tomato half sauteed
• Grated cheese 2-3 tbsp
• Butter 1 tsp (optional)

Method:

• Wash the basil leaves and chop it roughly.

• Crush or mince the garlic cloves and keep it ready.
• Mix the flour, salt, sugar, yeast, curd well. Knead into a soft and supple dough using the milk and luke warm water. Knead for atleast 10 minutes.
• Keep the dough in a well oiled bowl and cover the bowl with a cling wrap. Keep it in a warm place and allow the dough to double in size.
• Gently punch out the gases and knead for a minute.
• Shape the dough into a neat ball and allow it to rest again for 10 minutes or so.
• Roll the dough on a clean kitchen platform into a rectangle with breadth 8-10 inches and length 18-20 inches approximately.

• Smear the rectangle with the crushed garlic and spread the tomato pieces on it.

• Sprinkle the chopped basil leaves and finally add the grated cheese on top.

• Slowly fold it into a log by rolling from the length of the rectangle.

• Seal the edges by pinching it properly.

• Take a sharp serrated knife and dip it in flour and cut the log horizontally till you almost reach the base, leaving around half an inch on both ends. Do not cut till the bottom.

• Slowly fold it in the shape of letter “S” and tuck both the ends at the bottom.

• Take a baking tray and line it with a parchment paper and gently transfer the “S” on to the tray.
• Cover it with a big dome like lid and allow it to rise again maybe for 20-25 minutes.

• Meanwhile preheat the oven at 180 degree celsius for atleast 10-12 minutes.
• Bake the bread for 30-35 minutes or till the top appears golden and cheese on top browns well. You can wash it with some milk after 25-30 minutes and bake at a slightly higher temperature during the last 5 minutes or so.
• Remove from oven, smear little butter on top and allow it to cool for 5-10 minutes on a cooling rack.
• Slice it carefully with a long serrated knife and serve it warm with a soup or stew of your choice.

Notes:

• Do not follow the liquid measurements in a bread blog blindly. Each flour absorbs water differently and it changes with the weather conditions too. So use your discretion and slowly add the liquid ingredients. Use blogs only as a guideline.
• Do not over stuff the bread or else the filling might ooze out and burn from the exposed cut area.
• This is a mildly flavoured bread. You can slather it with some butter and toast it or enjoy it as it is.
• This bread tastes better when it is fresh and warm directly from the oven.
• You can use the flours in any proportion of your choice.