Making Good Italian Bread At Home


Although I dabbled in bread making over the years, it wasn’t until I returned to North America after living in Italy for 8 years that I was forced to learn to make good Italian bread at home. Having been spoiled in Italy where you can find the very best bread baked daily in bakeries on almost every street corner, I have searched high and low to find something similar here and just can’t, so have had to learn to make my own quality bread at home.

The bread they label as “Italian” in our grocery stores most often cannot compare to what a good loaf of bread should be, and I have no good bakeries within a 30 minute drive of where I live. Even if you have never baked bread before, you will be able to make a good Italian bread at home very easily.

In my opinion, a good every day loaf of Italian bread should have a thick, chewy crust, and a soft but not moist interior. The inside should have a coarse texture, full of small holes to help sop up sauces while you eat. In Italy, although every region has its own specialty breads, most good everyday breads have these same qualities I just mentioned. As important as bread is to the Italian diet, it is no wonder they have managed to perfect bread baking, and in fact, it is estimated there are over one thousand different national breads.

Basically, an everyday, simple bread recipe has only four main ingredients, flour, leavening, water and salt. Although the flour in Italy is very different from what you can find here in the States, I have very good results with an all-purpose, unbleached flour. I try to use King Arthurs brand if it is available, as I find it gives me a nice, coarse texture.

I use the general dry packaged yeast you can find in every grocery store and make a biga to begin with the day before I am making my bread. A starter, or biga, is simply a mix of a little yeast, warm water and flour that is left to ferment for a few hours or overnight. It helps give the bread a more complex flavor, and a little extra push when it comes to rising.

I often leave my starter in the fridge for a few days, using some as I need, and feeding it with a little more flour and water as I go along. This gives the bread a flavor similar to a sourdough type of bread and is delicious. Carol Field in her book The Italian Baker says biga also freezes well, and keeps up to one week in the refrigerator, although I have never tried freezing mine.

Through trial and error, and from a few tricks I learned from my Mother-in-Law, my method of making bread might be a little different than what you generally find in most cookbooks, but it does work. I use a fairly wet dough, little kneading, and bake it much longer than usual over lower heat.

By doing this, I am able to create a nice thick crust, while retaining a soft, coarse interior. Please follow my Basic Bread recipe below, and then try some of the other bread recipes listed in my Bread Collection. I have just been reading about a “no knead” bread recipe that is getting rave reviews from many food bloggers that I am attempting myself. I will share the reviews tomorrow when I bake and taste this no knead bread!

 
Deb’s Basic Italian Bread

This is my method of making good, crusty Italian bread. Once you know how, you can do lots of things with this dough. I start with a biga or starter the day before, and leave it sit in the fridge overnight, and complete the bread the next day. I don’t knead my bread as much as the traditional recipes call for, but I get great results.

Even if you’ve never made bread before, you’ll find this recipe easy. The quantity of water is the amount I use to make bread with all-purpose flour. You may need to increase the amount of water you need if using bread or white wheat flours. You can also use half all-purpose flour and half white wheat flour to create a light wheat bread that still remains light in texture with a good, crunchy crust.

Makes 2 Loaves
by Deborah Mele

Biga:
1/2 Teaspoon Active Dry Yeast
1 Cup Lukewarm water
2 Cups Unbleached, All-purpose Flour

Mix the yeast and water together, and then slowly start adding the flour, mixing well. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for up to 6 hours. Refrigerate overnight. Bring out of the refrigerator an hour before you plan to make your bread to allow the biga to come to room temperature.

Bread:

2 Cups Warm Water (about 90 degrees F.)
1 Pkg. Active Dry Yeast
5-6 Cups All-purpose, Unbleached Flour
2 Teaspoons Salt
Optional – Sesame Seeds

Place the water in a large bowl, sprinkle the yeast overtop and mix well. Let sit 10 minutes until bubbly. Add all of the biga, flour, and salt and stir with a wooden spoon (or mix with your hands) until everything is mixed. The dough will be fairly wet and sticky at this point. Cover and let stand in a warm spot for about 1 to 1 1/2 hours until doubled in volume.  Punch down the dough, folding it over on itself two or three times, cover and let rise once more until doubled, about 1 hour.

If you choose, you could refrigerate your dough at this time and leave it overnight, or up to three days, and finish baking it later.  When ready to bake your bread, turn out your dough onto a floured baking sheet, and without overworking it too much shape into one large or two smaller round or oval shaped loaves, using as much extra flour as needed to keep it from sticking. Slash across the tops of the loaves with a serrated knife or razor just prior to baking. If using sesame seeds, lightly wet your hands and run them over the bread to moisten. Sprinkle the seeds over the bread, gently patting them to help them adhere to the dough.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. and place a casserole dish with boiling water on the lower oven rack. Bake your bread 30 minutes, turn the baking sheet around, and reduce the heat to 300 degrees and bake for another 30-45 minutes. At this point your bread should be golden brown and should sound hollow when you tap the bottom. Allow the bread to cool to room temperature and serve.

Baking Tip: You could also use a baguette pan to make long thin loaves, or spread your dough across a well-oiled cookie sheet to make focaccia.

Variations:

Rosemary Bread: Add 4 Tbs. finely chopped rosemary to the flour. Brush the loaves with water and sprinkle with coarse sea salt just prior to baking.

Olive Bread: Add 12 oz. flavorful pitted olives, coarsely chopped to the flour mixture.

 
Deborah Mele 

18 Comments

  1. Thanks for all the little tips. I love to make bread and the Italian bread I make is similar although I let my bread set overnight before baking, I’m going to try the biga next time.

    And I whole heartedly agree about the King Arthur’s flour. I hope I never have to use any other kind of flour.

  2. My Noni made wonderful bread all the time. How I wish she was still here!
    I have some questions. What is the ideal room temp to let the bread rise? In the winter, my house temp is mostly 70F if I can’t use the fireplace. In the summer, it is 80F.
    When baking the bread, which rack do you place the bread on? If the water is on the lowest rack, is the bread place on the rack just above that level? I have 4 levels to choose from.

    1. Karen, I honestly never really worry too much about the room temp and simply pick a warm spot for the bread to rise, often in my window sill. If the ambient temperature is cool, I may turn the oven on low and sit the bread on top of the stove to rise. Even if the air is cool, the bread will rise, it will just take longer.

      When I bake bread I always try to use the middle rack.

  3. I love the way Italians enjoy their food specially Bread. After visiting all my recommended restaurants in Verona, I sat down at my favorite place, Enoteca Can Grande, with my friend and guide, Franklin. We let the chef, Giuliano, bring us whatever he wanted. Franklin’s a local. He knows the cuisine. And just to see Franklin swoon over the food made the evening even better than the impact of Giuliano’s fine food and wine.

  4. The method of making this bread recipe interested me, especially the reference to a coarse texture, crusty yet soft crumb. I would like to know if after shaping the loaves you again let them rise or immediately bake allowing them to rise during the baking. My dough has turned out awesome with 100% whole wheat flour, and now after the second rising I am ready to shape and bake. I’ll take a guess after I shape the loaf.

  5. Thank you from my whole family. One with a fresh pasta dinner and one that the kids took home with them. I had never worked with the lower oven temps but they both came out perfect the first time. This one is copied and filed in my kitchen recipes.

  6. I made this bread once before and it came awesome!! I made one loaf, refrigerated the rest and made it the next day. I made the second loaf when I got home from work and I made the mistake of not letting it cool completely before storing it 🙁 it was tough and chewy the next morning but I was able to turn it into a French toast casserole (which was awesome, I might just have to make the same mistake again lol) However, I just started making it again and I noticed that the recipe says to let the biga sit at room temp, and then to refrigerate it overnight… I must have thought that refrigeration step was optional last time because I didn’t refrigerate it at all. I just let it sit for several hours and followed the recipe as normal. The bread still came out beautifully and we were all very happy with it. Now I’m wondering if i had stuck it in the fridge, would it have come out better?? Would you consider this to be a crucial step in the process??

  7. So, i made the bread and it came very hard on the outside. like, reaally. almost a teeth-break situation D: but soft, maybe a little raw, on the inside. it’s supposed to be like this? is there something i can do to save it? altough, the taste is awesome anyway. thanks for this.

    1. Jana, the bread should be very crispy on the outside, but never raw inside. To ensure your bread has cooked through, use a thermometer to measure the internal temperature which should be 190 degrees F.

  8. I am in Thailand a just followed your recipe and result is gorgeous bread too bad I cannot load the picture. thanks

  9. HI Deb,

    I have just finished making the Biga and am really looking forward to making the bread tomorrow. I make my own bread and buns several times a week but I have never yet been able to quite achieve the texture of an artisan style Italian Bread. Having found your recipe I am thinking that I will now be able to do so. I am noticing that you don’t mention kneading the dough. Am I right, that after mixing the dough , no kneading is required, and that I should just place the sticky dough into a bowl for the 1st rise?

    Regards,

    Gail

  10. Hay Deb: Thanks for the post. Best Italian I’ve ever had, this side of Rome. Simply delicious and an easy to follow recipe. Five forks. RJ

  11. Wow ! can’t believe how simple it is. I alwaysthought that you needed other ingredients like butter and milk to make bread. Will see if we can make this for our Pizza night on Thursday. Lucy

  12. Well I made this bread for the first time. I was so excited to make it and it was great. Followed the recipe exactly.  It was that easy.  I guess it like paying attention to someone. Thanks so much.

  13. Just a couple of notes, I have been baking hearth breads for a lot of years.

    1. This recipe can be slightly changed to use a starter rather then instant yeast. Refresh starter so that it is thick rather then soupy then add 1/2 cup to the 2 cups flour 1 c water to form Biga. Leave out overnight, do not refrigerate, it works slower then instant yeast.

    2. Add less yeast then called for on the dough mixing step

    3. I like Alta Artisan 11% protein flour from honey vile grain, 50lb bag is $45 with $5 shipping anywhere in the country, it’s a great organic flour for hearth breads

    4. Line rack of oven with quarry tiles and bake at 480 with steam or in a covered cloche (8 min covered, 18-20 minutes uncovered)

    I love your basic recipe less salt makes it rise a little more irregularly and the second rise seems to give a little different flavor. This tastes a lot like the southern Italian loaves, very nice recipe!! I’ve made this three times and it’s great for sandwiches, soup, and toast

  14. I like your recipe but wonder if I could use a local beer instead of water. If I remember correctly, I read in one of the many Italian bread books, beer was used in place of water. Have you tried the recipes with beer?

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