Her bread recipe has been passed down from generation to generation, and today I made it for the first time.
And it was yummy! Very bready, with a hard crust. It was better shaped as a loaf than as a baguette. I made the baguettes just to try out my new baguette pan that Tony, Grayson, and Max got me for Mother's Day.
The bread was great with butter, and with my favorite Bonne Maman Wild Blueberry Preserves. These are not any preserves - they are French preserves and I discovered them while living in Brussels. I was shocked (and thrilled!) to discover the same preserves at my local Publix here in Atlanta (with the same label, but in English instead of French). You'll see in the left-hand lower corner "Product of France." This is the real deal.Here is the bread recipe. I cut the recipe in half and it worked great. Just be careful with the flour. According to online conversions, 2.5 pounds of flour equals 10 cups. But when I divided my full 5 pound bag of flour in half it was only 7 1/4 cups! It must be because the flour was unsifted.
The Puccio - Pallone (now Balloon!) Family's Sicilian Bread
Ingredients
5 lbs of All Purpose Flour
5 cup warm water (105 degrees to 115 degrees)
¼ cup olive oil
3 packages of yeast (3-cubes)
2 Tablespoons of salt
Directions
Disolve yeast in the warm water for 10 minutes.
Mix and knead all of the ingredients for 20 minutes. Let rise for 2 hours, in a bowl covered with a towel, in a warm place.
Punch down and knead for 5 minutes.
Let rise for 1.5 hours in a warm place.
Fashion loaves (makes 3-4 loaves), make deep slashes across the top (mine were not deep enough and my loaf split open on the side!), and let rise to size.
Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes.
Finish baking at 275 degrees for about 1-hour.
1 comment:
After my job ends, I want you to teach me how to bake bread! What a treasure to have this recipe and to be able to pass it on to another generation of Pallones/Balloons. I love it!
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