Italian Peasant Loaf

Pass the butter please!

Some bread was just made to go with butter.  Actually, strike that.  I think all bread was made to go with butter.  They are lifelong friends.  However, some bread needs it more than others.  I sort of feel this bread is in a codependent relationship with butter.  This bread doesn’t want to play the field with olive oil and balsamic.  Although it is an Italian bread, this is soft, like grandma.  This is bread that a nonna would slather thickly with butter and give to her little bambino/a…or, some other (highly stereotyped) version of an Italian Norman Rockwell scene that we conjure up when we think of a pastoral Italian scene.  I also think this bread would be smashing in a slightly more Americanized meal of spaghetti and meatballs.  Nonna optional.

This Italian bread makes use of a preferment.  It sounds scary, but it’s actually pretty basic.  You mix flour, water, and a little yeast together and let it sit for up to a day to develop a good strong flavor (think sourdough type) then you make the bread and add this in.  Sometimes called fun things, like poolish, biga, or sponge, they are used to help add flavor to the bread.

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Italian Peasant Loaf

Ingredients

For preferment:

  • 1/8 teaspoon active dry yeast
  • 2 tablespoons warm water 105°‐115° F.
  • 1/3 cup room-temperature water
  • 1 cup bread flour

For bread:

  • 1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast
  • 2 tablespoons warm milk 105°‐115° F.
  • 2/3 cup room-temperature water
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 2 cups bread flour
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt

Instructions

  1. Make sponge: In a small bowl stir together yeast and warm water and let stand 5 minutes, or until creamy and you can tell the yeast is doing something. In a bowl stir together yeast mixture, room-temperature water, and flour until mixed. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let sponge stand at cool room temperature at least 12 hours and up to 1 full day.

  2. Make bread: In a small bowl stir together yeast and milk and let stand 5 minutes. In bowl of a standing electric mixer fitted with dough hook blend together milk mixture, sponge, water, oil, and flour at low speed until flour is just moistened and beat dough at medium speed 3 minutes. Add salt and beat 4 minutes more. Scrape dough into an oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let dough rise at room temperature until doubled in bulk, about 1 1/2 hours. 

  3. Have 2 12- by 8-inch sheets parchment paper ready. Divide dough in half and put each half on a sheet of parchment, forming into an irregular oval about 9 inches long. Dimple loaves with floured fingers and dust tops with flour. Cover loaves with a dampened kitchen towel. Let loaves rise at room temperature until almost doubled in bulk, 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

  4. At least 45 minutes before baking, put a baking stone on oven rack in lowest position in oven and preheat oven to 425° F.

  5. Using the parchment as a sling, place each loaf on your baking stone and bake loaves for 20 minutes, or until pale golden.   Let cool 15 minutes before slicing.