Food, travel, recipe & sights

I am quite disappointed with the result of the Italian bread I tried baking yesterday. It took me two days to get the darn dough to prove because the method is to use biga. Biga is a mixture of flour and yeast, made to rise for 6 hours and left in the fridge for another 12 hours. Then, the biga is added to a new batch of dough and made to rise for another 3 hours. That is almost a freaking one day of work.

So, I thought that this bread (before baking) with pieces of bacon, sunflower seeds and poppy seeds are going to make me an Italian. After all, it took me two days. But the texture is not what I had expected.

The bread is to be baked with a pan of water to make it soft. The texture is soft and the crust crispy. However, it is rather dense and heavy.

The saving grace is the pieces of bacon on top which makes the bread really yummy. We finished the one with the bacon but the other plain loaf is still standing on my dining table. I have turned it into mini pizzas by baking with ham and cheese.

So pissed that my excitement of a light and fluffy bread turned into :

Eldest son : What is this mom? Bread or cake? Like huat koay.
Husband : Why the bread so heavy? Like kueh bingka
#2 son : Like mee-koo
#3 son : Why the bread so sourish smell one?
#5 son : I don’t want the crust, take away the black-black thing…ewwsss