STEP BY STEP HOMEMADE APULIAN BREAD recipe from my mother Apollonia

INGREDIENTS:

Chariot:

• 100 g of 0 flour
• 75 g of water
• 1 g of brewer's yeast

Dough:

• 500 g of 00 flour
• 350g of water
• 10 g of salt
• 5 g of yeast

Flour for pastry board (better if re-milled semolina)

PREPARATION:

Prepare the chariot:

Mix the biga ingredients in a bowl and leave it to rise in a closed container for 18/24 hours.

After this time, prepare the dough:

Place half the water in a bowl and dissolve the brewer's yeast, add the biga, about a third of the flour and the salt.

Work until the dough is well blended.

Add the remaining flour, alternating with the remaining water.

Continue working until it is well strung.

At this point start making the folds (helping us if possible with a spatula) and bringing the external part towards the center, doing the same for the whole dough. Take the dough and place it in a bowl greased with oil and leaven for 3 hours covered with cling film.

Once the established time has elapsed, take the dough again and after having dusted the surface with plenty of semolina, remove the dough from the bowl by turning it upside down. Repeat the movement already performed previously, then turn the dough upside down and, holding it in your hands, try to form a ball (the dough should always be kept just suspended from the surface, and placed on your hands; when you have a nice ball, leave the ball to rise for 1 hour, covered in a bell shape on the lined oven tray from baking paper so you won't have problems moving it.

Once this last hour of leavening has passed, turn the oven on to 220/230 degrees and bake for 10 minutes, then lower the temperature to 200 degrees and leave to bake for another 30/40 minutes.

Wait until it becomes lukewarm before slicing it

Biga (food)

In indirect bread making, the biga is a pre-dough obtained by mixing water, flour and yeast in such proportions that it is rather dry (about 450 g of water for 1 kg of flour and 10 g of fresh brewer's yeast).

It requires the use of strong and balanced flours, with W greater than 300 and P/L (strength/elasticity ratio) varying between 0.5 and 0.6, short mixing times, final temperature not exceeding 21 °C and a fermentation period varying from ten to forty-eight hours at temperatures of 16/18 °C, for biga up to 24 hours, or 4 °C in the first phase and 18 °C in the last 24 hours, for chariots up to 48 hours. Depending on the type of bread you intend to prepare, the other ingredients are then added. After further leavening, the final dough is cut, formed and left to rise again before baking.

Cedits: Chef Marco Capurso, Facebook®