A (or perhaps the?) defining characteristic of Tuscan bread is its lack of salt. I have made saltless Tuscan bread before, and I was pleasantly surprised by its sweet flavor.
This “dark Tuscan bread”, a 70%-whole-wheat version adapted from Carol Field’s The Italian Baker, did not warm my heart quite as well, but I did like the soft crumb and crisp crust. I might experiment with different wheat flours to see how the flavor varies with each. And in fairness, I have to say I have so far only eaten it pretty much straight up, and Tuscan bread is meant to go with the hearty flavors of Tuscan food. Panzanella (tomato and bread salad) is traditional with this bread… stay tuned.
This goes to Zorra (1x umrühren bitte) and Family and Food for BreadBakingDay #32, Italian Breads. Buon appetito!
Pane Toscano Scuro
Yield: 1150 g (2 loaves)
Time:
- Ferment sponge: about 8 hours
- Mix final dough: about 10 minutes
- First fermentation : 1 hour
- Preshape, rest, and shape: 30 minutes
- Proof: 1 hour
- Bake: about 40 minutes
Desired dough temperature: 76F
Sponge Ingredients:
- 175 g flour
- 2.3 g (3/4 t.) instant yeast
- 152 g water
Final Dough Ingredients:
- 30 g flour
- 475 g whole wheat flour
- 320 g water
- 4.5 g (1.5 t.) instant yeast
- All of the sponge
Method:
- In a bowl, combine the sponge ingredients. Cover and let rest for about 8 hours.
- Combine all of the final dough ingredients, holding back a small portion of the water, in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. Mix on low speed until the ingredients are incorporated. Adjust the water as needed to achieve a medium dough consistency.
- Continue mixing on low or medium speed to a medium level of gluten development. The amount of time this takes will depend on your mixer.
- Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled container. Cover and ferment for 1 to 1.5 hours, until the dough approximately doubles in size.
- Turn the dough into a lightly floured counter. Divide into two pieces. Preshape it into balls and let rest, covered, for 20 minutes.
- Shape the dough into tight balls and place them, seam-side-down, on a floured board.
- Proof, covered, for about an hour, until the indentation left by a fingertip springs back very slowly.
- Meanwhile, preheat the oven, with baking stone, to 475F. You will also need steam during the initial phase of baking, so prepare for this now.
- Just before baking, slash the loaves in a tic-tac-toe pattern.
- Once the loaves are in the oven, reduce the temperature to 450F. Bake for 8 minutes with steam, and another 22 minutes or so without steam. Then turn off the oven and leave the loaves in for another 10 minutes, with the door ajar.
- Cool on a wire rack.
That book continues to surprise and most often please. We’ve been heavy into the panzanella this last week. This would seem made for that.
This would be lovely right out of the oven with some bruschetta on it. Yum.
That looks so good.
That Pane Toscano Scuro looks perfect and yes salt-less bread taste can be very dependent on flours and the toppings used with it. Excellent photos as always. Yes i joined BBD also this month.Cheers from Audax in Sydney Australia.
IT WOULD BE GREAT IF YOU ADDED ” PRINTER FRIENDLY ” WITH EACH RECIPE,
A new bread 🙂
My Dad used to eat panzanella, especially in the summer when we had fresh tomatoes. Only we called it water salad. Tomatoes, water, olive oil, salt, pepper and maybe something else, not sure. Eaten with a loaf of crusty Italian bread from the bakery downtown.
He can’t eat bread like that anymore. But I am interested to try Tuscan bread (without salt?) and see if that is close to how his Mother made it. Yes, the elusive bread like Mom used to make. We’ve come close. Now I’m thinking Tuscan bread (sweet because it doesn’t have any salt?) might be it. Soft crumb and crusty crust. Yes, that sounds right.
This looks really good, Susan. It’s not really surprising that it needs to be eaten with other things to really show it off. (We do like salt… even if it is just what is naturally occurring in the meat.)
I’ve not had panzanella but I have had bread soup in Tuscany. I bet this bread would be perfect for that as well.
Maddy, at the end of each post are links to print the post either with or without images. This will give you the entire post, not just the recipe, but it will be printer-friendly.
Honestly I don’t like saltless bread, but perhaps I need to try it again. Thank you for participating in BBD.
Hopefully not too little, too late, but the best application of salt-free bread (also common in Umbria, not just Tuscany) is with charcuterie. It’s amazing how much the cured meat flavour jumps out compared to eating it with salted bread.
Good stuff – thanks for sharing!
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