La tarte flambée, or flamme-küche, is a speciality from Alsace.

Imagine the thinnest pizza base covered with crème fraîche, lardons, onions, and if gratinée, rapé. In the oven, and oplà, piping hot under your nose!

I’m not entirely sure it’s pizza base, because you do not sense any yeast and there no proofing involved, but every time I ask they say it’s pizza dough…

I’m a speaking a strange language? Yes, I know and it’s called French!

Let’s get to the anatomy of this Alsatian staple:

The base: I’m not entirely sure it’s pizza base, because you do not feel any yeast and there is no proofing involved, but every time I ask they say it’s pizza dough…

Crème Fraîche: it’s basically a very thick (aka very fat) and not so acidic sour cream. They make a thin layer of it over the pizza base.

Lardons: it’s stripes of think bacon, not smoked. They lay them over the crème fraîche.

Onions: they cut them thinely but not to much, and they go on the same layer of lardons.

In case the tarte flambée is gratinée, over the crème fraîche they put a layer of rapé, grated gruyere cheese.

They are cooked in wood or electric oven, at a very hot temperature, like pizza.

It’s one of the most delicious crunchy dish I’ve ever tried!

If I say pizza and what do you think?

I hope you think of Italy, because it comes from here and more precisely Naples. No pineapple, no salami, no strange, exotic  toppings.

The one I prefer is the simplest of all, a pizza margherita: tomato sauce, mozzarella and basil. Sometimes the better pleasure in life are most simple.

But today we concentrate on how to make a good pizza dough at home. Then, in the privacy of your homes, I won’t advocate on how you top your own pizza .

Basic Recipe

500 g flour, a mix of 0 (or manitoba) and 00

12,5 g fresh yeast, o 3,5 g dry yeast

2 teaspoons sugar

280-300 ml warm water

1 heaped teaspoon of salt

1 spoon of extra virgin olive oil + more for baking

For 2 30 cm circular pizzas

1. In a large bowl mix crumbled yeast (if fresh), sugar and water. Be careful with water temperature: it must not be hot, but just warm. Otherwise it will kill the yeast.
2. When it begin to bubble, add the rest of the ingredients.
3. Begin to mix to amalgamate all the ingredients. When you have a bowl, transfer everything on a floured working surface and begin to knead. Keep kneading for at least 10-15 minutes, until your dough is silky and not sticky any more.
4. Lay your dough in a large bowl, cover with a wet tea towel and let it rise for at least 2 hours or when it double its volume.
5. When is risen, punch it, knead it briefly and let it rise for a second time, for at least 1 hour. (if you have no such time, let it rise the first time the night before in the fridge, then let it rise for a second time during the day, always in the fridge, and then at night it’s ready to be cooked once it’s a room temperature).
6. Oil 2 baking tins (better glass or no stick), divide your dough in half and roll it out on the tins with you hands, with circular movements. The dough doesn’t have to fill completely the tin, as raising again it will expand. Let it rise for at least 30 minutes.
7. Preheat your oven at 220° C or full rack.
8. Once the oven is hot, top your pizza the way you prefer and cook it for at least 15.20 minutes, or until slightly golden.

Now that you have your pizza dough, how will you top it?

I recently had the fortune to put my hands on a 22 years old pasta madre, levain, sourdough (kind courtesy of Semerssuaq*).
I was always afraid of sourdough: I mean, it’s alive! What if it dies? What if I kill it???
Well, apparently it’s not so simple to kill it! If you take good weekly care of it, well, it will survive, kicking lively in your fridge!
And the bread, oh the bread: unbelievable!

200 g of sourdough
500 g of strong flour
1 teaspoon of salt
300 ml of water

Mix the sourdough with the water.
Add flour and salt, and knead for 20-30 minutes (better with a stan mixer: you’ll need only 10 minutes).
Let it rise in a big glass bowl, covered with film, for at least 3 hours.
pre-heat the oven at 200° C.
Cover a baking tin with baking paper and lay the dough, making a rounded ball, no kneading. Cover it with the bowl and let it rise for at least 30 minutes, better 1 hour.

Cook for 30-40 minutes, until knocking on the bottom it sounds hollow.

Let it cool completely before slicing it.

I love Julia Child! Love, love, love her! Last summer I read her biography and I was just startled by her voice: clear, gentle, friendly…
So, when I saw this month challenge I thought: “GREAT! A dream comes true!!!”
I knew that when Mary and Sara chose this particular recipe they were going in the right direction toward the true spirit of the Daring Bakers!
Never, in the whole of my life, I would ever dared to make a bread that needs an entire day to be made!!!
And by an entire, I mean it: I began around 10am last Sunday and I end up with the bread ready to be cut for dinner, around 8 pm!
An overall 6 hours of rising it was a mystic experience!
Ad the rules were allowing me to use a stand mixer, I bail out, and I used my beloved one… But the time you have to wait, the fact that you have to be patient and careful while your gluten is forming to the right consistent, and the fact that you have to wait other 2 to 3 hours to let it cool before to eat… Well, it was a mystic experience!
Of course the bread didn’t come out like the one you buy in France, even if I used French flour to make it!
As Julia, Mary and Sara say the problem is the home oven!
But I NEVER made a bread with that kind of breadcrumb!!! It was amazing! And I was so pleased!
Expecially beacuse, remember, I married a French! And he was very pleased to!!!
To celebrate we ate it with a nice Fois Gras aux pruneaux we bought last time we were in France! A glorious dinner!

Thanks Daring bakers to make me dare!!!!
Here the recipe by Breadchick Mary.

P.S. I know, I know: the windows in my home have horrible dirty glass! I hate to clean windows! Every time I do it, it rains the very next day! Let’s just hope my mum do not see this picture!!!

Warm focaccia filled with Parma Prosciutto: to die for!!!

Last time I’ve seen Annemarie in London, we just ended the Bostoni Cream Pie challenge, and we were a bit disappointed about our Chiffon cake turned out…
Then we moved to one quite corner, and whispering, we spoke about the new challenge. She already had the time to look it up, so she revealed to me what was about. At first we thought: “oh, that’s it?”
But then I remembered that once, the mother of one of my former boyfriends, told me that she was adding a boiled potato to the normal pizza dough, to make it fluffier… And her pizza was one of the best home made pizza I’ve ever tried!!!
So, here we are with this amazing potato bread!
Flour: the recipe was calling for all-purpose flour, suggesting to use an organic one, so I did. Not any fancy big name organic flour, just the Esselunga (the most widespread supermarket chain in northern Italy) organic all-purpose flour. And then for the whole-grain, yet again Esselunga organic whole-grain flour.
Potatoes: recently we’ve been to France, and shopped at the supermarket (I love to shop in French supermarket: you can find so many amazing stuff!!!). So I bought French potatoes and, honestly, they are very good potatoes: in Italy is difficult to find potatoes as good! Quite floury, good for baking, wonderful for boiling, and I would use them for Italian gnocchi too…
Yeast: I’ve used fresh yeast, 25 g. I rarely use active dry yeast, only when I don’t have fresh yeast at home and I have the urge for pizza…
Of course I knead the entire loaf by hand, and, as usually, it was a wonderful moment, very liberating, as if I was detoxifying from the whole working week and free my mind to reach higher level of relaxations…
Of course if “normal people” would read this last sentence they would rather think I’m completely crazy, but all my fellow Daring Bakers would absolutely agree with me: kneading is good for mind and soul!

And I have to say that this recipe, especially the quantities, are just perfect! I haven’t use a single gram more of the indicated flour!

And as the dough was quite a lot, I made:

A small loaf

Rolls

Simple focaccia with coarse salt

Today it’s World Bread Day!!!!
I consider focaccia a type of flat bread, as it is the way I eat it most of the time: if I have friends coming over and I do not have fresh bread, I knead a focaccia (my Kenwood chef knead a focaccia, to be precise), and the appetizers are saved!
And sometimes, with focaccia, I get a bit “inspirational”… This time I had some sumac lying around and so I sprinkle the top of it before to bake it… And I even made it whole grain this time…

300 g of wholegrain organic flour
100 g of strong flour
7 g of fresh yeast
300 ml of warm water
1 teaspoon of sugar
Salt
Extra-virgin olive oil
Sumac

Dissolve yeast with sugar and warm water. Add flours and salt, and knead.
Let it rise or at least 1 hour or until it doubled its volume.
Lay it in an generously oiled oven proof dish and let it rise again.

Preheat the oven at maximum, sprinkle focaccia with sumc and bake until golden.

Serve straight away.

“Waiter there’s something in my bread” really encouraged my bakery instincts! After the bread I baked yesterday my only thought was: “Bake! Bake! Bake!”!!! Plus I was truly inspired by some of the wonderful entries, and especially by Patricia‘s recipe, so I hope she won’t mind if I made something similar, yet different, to her wonderful Berry Twist Bread!
It was days I was looking for something not to sweet for breakfast, but I didn’t want to wait for an entire overnight fridge rise (as fo the French brioche), so I’ve used the basic recipe for Stollen, from Patisserie Maison, and I changed it just a little, to meet my objectives…

15 g of fresh yeast
13 cl of lukewarm milk
100 g of strong flour
300 g of flour
2 tablespoons of honey
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon of grounded nutmeg
4 egg yolks
75 g of melted butter

60 g of raisins
40 g of pistachio nuts

4 tablespoons of marmalade

First make the dough. As usually I’ve used my wonderful Kenwood chef with the kneader hook.
In the kneader bowl dissolve the yeast in the milk, let it rest for 10 minutes, then add all the ingredients, except raisins, pistachio nuts and marmalade.
Begin to knead at the lowest speed and after 10 minutes, knead at speed 2 for 5 minutes, then lower the speed at minimum and knead for another 5 minutes.
Make a ball and let it rise for 1 hour and half, covered with a tea towel.
After the given time, knead a little (by hand this time) and begin to add raisins and pistachio nuts. Once they are completely mixed with the dough, roll it out on a floured surface on a rectangle 1 centimeter thick. Spread it with the marmalade (I’ve used homemade orange marmalade), roll it, fasten the ends, and let it rise for another hour in a cake pan.
Preheat the oven at 170° C.
Once is well risen again, bake it for 30 minutes.

Serve cold with a nice mug of coffee!
Enjoy!

I find this monthly challenge very interesting, not only for the funny title, but even for the theme they choose! And it’s indeed a challenge fo me: never made a pie before and I’m not so much of a bready person. I like to eat bread, but make it sometimes seem to long and complicated… But since I discovered how a wonderful kneader is my Kenwood chef, well, why buying it when I can make it??? And, by the way, in Milan you can only find the worst bread in the world, so…
This bread is a complete invention: I had some provolone piccante and some pine nuts in the fridge (the pine nuts were in the fridge because I’ve toasted them some weeks ago…) and I wanted to use them together. And as the thyme is blossoming on the balcony, I added some fresh springs… Et voilà!

10 g of fresh yeast
2 pinches of sugar
300 ml of warm water
100 g of strong flour
100 g of semolina flour
400 g of hard wheat flour
150 g of provolone piccante (but emmenthal or mature cheddar will be fine too), grated
60 g of toasted pine nuts
Few springs of fresh thyme, minced

In the kneader bowl crumble the fresh yeast, add sugar and dissolve everything with the warm water. Once the yeast is begging to bubble, add strong flour, semolina flour, 300 g of hard wheat flour, cheese and thyme. I haven’t added salt because the cheese is very savory.
Knead until you have a nice and silky ball, adding more flour if needed. Transfer the ball in a glass bowl, cover it with film and let it double in a warm environment (45 minutes – 1 hour will do).
Preheat the oven at 200° C.
Once the bread is doubled, punch it and work it a bit, then resize it in a ball and lay it on a floured baking tray, covering it with the glass bowl upside down. Let it rise for 30 – 45 minutes.
Once is well risen, dust the surface, make criss cross cuts, and cook it in the oven for 30-35 minutes, or until knocking on the bottom you can hear an empty sound.
Let it cool completely before to slice it. Yeah, I know it’s hard to resist to freshly baked bread…

Enjoy!

A ship loaded with… And my answer to this childish game was always: POTATOES!!!
But not in this case!
Here how I filled my bagels: ricotta mixed with stracchino (just because I hate average cream cheese and I prefer to make my own personal idea of it!) and grilled vegetables marinated in balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil and a squeeze of lemon juice…

Enjoy, have a good Easter and Easter Monday (those bagels are of course perfect for Easter Monday picnic!!!)!

I’m Italian and I’ve almost ever lived in Italy (if you take off some month in France and some others in England…). And that should be enough to explain you which kind of relationship I can have with bagels: none! I’ve seen them in movies, on tv, but I’ve never ate a REAL one in my life. Once I ate a very expensive one from this chain, but I don’t know if they were the real thing… So, now that I gave you the background of what I can know about bagels (rather nothing…), I can explain you why I came up making them!
Monday night we went to the movies early, so I decided I had to fill my afternoon making something handy we could eat in the theatre. Searching searching, I thought, well, bagels! I’ve never make them and they always seemed so nice! I took the only possible book I could trust in the matters of baking and I began.

15 g fresh yeast
250 ml warm water
1 tablespoon sugar
350 g flour + more if needed
1/2 tablespoon salt
1/2 tablespoon oil (I’ve used extra virgin olive oil)
1 tablespoon of black treacle

In the kneader bowl (or any bowl if you are so crazy to knead this by hand: your choice, not mine!) crumble yeast, add sugar, then water, mix and let rest for 20 minute, until it foams.
Add the rest of the ingredients except the black treacle, and begin to knead on medium low speed. After 5 minutes (with the kneader, at least 10-15 by hand) touch the dough and if it’s too wet or vaguely sticky, add flour: drier the better. Knead for 5 minutes more.
Oil a glass bowl, form a ball with the dough, then coat it with little oil and let it rest in the bowl, covered with plastic, for 1 hour. the dough will be ready when pressing your thumb the imprint will remain.
Punch the dough (thinking of the face of someone you hate: it always works!) then divide it in two, roll each piece in a big sausage, divide each in four. Take each of your piece, make a little ball, then begin to roll it in a long sausage. Form a circle, close it well and leave to rest on a floured surface, covered with a tea towel, for 20-30 minutes.
In the meanwhile, preheat the oven at maximum and bring to the boil a large pan full of water ( you won’t need it too deep, just 5 centimetres). When the water is boiling, dissolve the black treacle. When the bagels are puffed, and the water is boiling, add each bagel to the water, two at the time, and cook for 30 seconds each side. Lay them, well distanced, on a oiled baking sheet and cook in the oven for 10-15 minutes, until shiny and golden.

Tomorrow, before leaving for my Easter vacation (Strasbourg, Rhone Valley and Camargue), I will tell with what I’ve filled them!