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How to Make Italian Whole Wheat Bread

Italian Bread - Making the Sponge

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Amy Riolo
Author, Cooking Instructor, Food Writer, Culinary Consultant
http://www.amyriolo.com/  
 

Amy Riolo is an internationally recognized culinary expert specializing in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean culture and cuisine. As a cookbook author, lecturer, food historian, food writer, culinary consultant, and cooking instructor, Amy promotes her philosophy of cooking and living with both pleasure and health. Her first book, Arabian Delights; Recipes & Princely Entertaining Ideas from the Arabian Peninsula has received rave reviews (Capital Books). Her second book Nile Style; Egyptian Cuisine and Culture (Hippocrene Books) will be released in spring 2009. She is also completing The Mediterranean Diabetes Cookbook, (American Diabetes Association) which will be released in spring 2010.

Amy’s popular lectures range in topics and include everything from Middle Eastern business etiquette to the history of various cuisines. She has been an invited guest speaker for the Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt, Welcome to Washington International, Montgomery College, Les Dames D’Escoffier, The Baltimore-Luxor-Alexandria Sister City Committee and the Mycological Association of Washington, DC. Amy also makes frequent appearances on numerous television and radio programs both in the United States and Egypt including Fox TV, Montgomery and Fairfax County TV, Nile TV and WHYY.           

Amy currently writes the “Culture and Cuisine” feature for the Baltimore- Luxor-Alexandria Sister City Committee. She has also written articles for Cooking Light Magazine, Azizah Magazine, and the Kulanu newsletter. A graduate of Cornell University, Amy has experience in vocational, recreational, and children’s instruction, as well as corporate team building and cultural/culinary events. Her knowledge of the Italian, French, Spanish, and Arabic languages has enabled her to interpret many cultures and cuisines with intimacy and ease. She regularly teaches cooking classes at Sur la Table in Arlington, Virginia, and for private organizations.

A successful culinary consultant, Amy enjoys developing menus, recipes, training seminars, and themes for corporations, restaurants, and hotels. Amy is often asked to work as a consultant for museums where she creates menus and décor which represent the theme of new collections. In addition, she works with curators to incorporate sensory components like scent, touch, and taste into the schedule of events, allowing museum patrons to fully experience each exhibit.

Amy is a member of The International Association of Culinary Professionals, Culinary Historians of Washington, Les Dames d’Escoffier, Slow Food DC, Welcome to Washington International (where she co-chairs the Gourmet Committee), Cornell Club of Washington, the Women’s National Book Association, and the Baltimore – Luxor – Alexandria Sister City Committee (Where she is the chairperson of the Baltimore Friends of the Alexandria Library). Amy is based in the Washington DC, area and maintains a home in Egypt. She is currently organizing culinary tours to both the Mediterranean and Middle East.

Italian Bread - Making the Sponge

This video will show how to make the sponge for Italian whole wheat bread.

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Italian Bread - Making the Sponge

Ingredients

For the Sponge:
2 1/4 tablespoons active dry yeast
Pinch of sugar
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 1/2 cups unbleached bread flour
For the Dough:
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour, plus extra for kneading
1 teaspoon oil, for greasing plastic wrap

Instructions

1. If making 1 loaf, prepare 1 baking sheet by lining it with silicone mats or parchment paper and sprinkle 2 tablespoons of semolina over the top. If making 2 loaves, prepare 2 baking sheets in the same manner.

2. To make the sponge, place 1 3/4 cup tepid water in a large bowl.  Sprinkle yeast and sugar over the water and stir until dissolved.  Set aside and let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. 

3. Stir in the whole wheat pastry flour and bread flour.  Whisk well to combine and form a smooth batter like consistency. 

4. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature for a minimum of 4 hours or store overnight in the refrigerator.

5. To make the dough, place sponge in a heavy - duty electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Add the salt and 1/2 cup of the flour and mix to combine.  Beat on high speed for one minute.  With mixer running on low speed, add in the rest of the flour and mix until a dough forms.

6. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead energetically for approximately 10 minutes to create a soft, slightly sticky dough. If dough is too sticky to work with, gradually add more flour, a tablespoon at a time, and continue kneading until you have a smooth, elastic dough.

7. Cover the dough with a clean kitchen towel and allow to rest for 20 minutes. 

8. After dough has rested, divide it in half to make 2 smaller loaves or keep it whole for 1 large loaf. To shape the dough, roll it into 2 small or 1 large ball and place on prepared baking sheets.
 
9. Cover with oiled plastic wrap and let rise until tripled in volume, about 1 1/2 hours.

10. Twenty minutes before baking, preheat oven to 425F degrees.  Unwrap loaves and make crosses on the top. Bake on the lowest rack of the oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until golden. Cool on wire racks.

 

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Transcripts

Amy Riolo: Hi, I am Amy Riolo. Today we are making Italian wheat bread and we are going to prepare our pan as we get started by just placing a piece of parchment paper on top. If you don't have parchment paper you could grease the pan. It will be absolutely fine or you can use a silicone mat and then we are going to place a little bit of semolina on top of that. So we are just going to sprinkle some of the semolina down. This gives a nice texture to our crust. What semolina is actually, it's a wheat product and it comes during the milling process of making the wheat. As wheat is milled the first thing that are released from the outer layer of the wheat are the wheatgerm and the bran and once you get passed those two layers you get to the semolina which is this yellow color, it looks kind of like cornmeal and then you get to the middle of the actual wheat grain itself which becomes the flour and what we are used to. So this is kind of that second step before we get to flour and from the wheat bran and the germ.

Now we are going to make our yeast and in order to proof the yeast all that we have to do is pour into one and three quarters cup of tepid water. Again, you want the water to be tepid so that the yeast will dissolve, but you don't want it to be too hot because that will stop the yeast from working and too cold will make it not dissolve at all. So we are just going to whisk those together and then we will set it aside and now we are going to start putting our flours and a pinch of sugar into the KitchenAid and this process is called making a sponge. This is our whole wheat pastry flour and this is our bread flour and then we are going to add just a pinch of sugar. The process of making a sponge is very typical in Italian baking and the reason why they make a sponge before they make the actual dough is because the sponge allows the yeast to start working with only a few ingredients.

When you put all of the ingredients in together with the yeast in the beginning, the yeast has to fight and hold its own against a lot of different ingredients and a lot of bulk. But when you start the yeast working in with the water and just a very little bit of flour, the yeast can start working more actively and it gets to make a more unique texture in the dough. So you will find that very often, in French breads and in Italian breads.

Now, we are going to add our liquid into our doughs and then we can mix those together. You can also whisk these with a wire whisk by hand, but since we have the KitchenAid we can go ahead and just do it this way and it's ready. At this stage, you just want it to look like a smooth batter. Once you have that smooth batter consistency you know that your sponge is ready. You can set it aside and you will need to cover it and let it rest for a minimum of four hours. If you don't have time to wait four hours to make your bread, you can set it up to a week in advance, just cover it, leave it in the refrigerator, whenever you are ready to make your bread you can come back to it and this is one of those times when it is actually good to procrastinate because the longer you leave the starter, the better it will be. When we come back we will show you what the starter looks once it's rested and we will make our dough for our wheat bread.

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