Tuscan Bread

This bread, which is intentionally made without salt, is soft, yet chewy and surprisingly sweet. But it’s clearly meant to be eaten with highly flavoured foods, or at least a sprinkle of salt.

The bread starts with a cooked flour and water paste that needs to be made at least the day before. Flour, yeast, a little olive oil and water are added to this and kneaded. I made a mistake when I added all of the water listed in the ingredients before reading to add only as much as required to reach a certain texture. I had to add more flour to compensate; quite a bit of kneading and a lot of flour later it finally looked like bread dough instead of play dough!

After the first rise the dough is shaped and left to rise again. It gets slashed and baked in a very hot oven with steam to create a crisp crust. It didn’t have much oven spring but the crumb seemed fine.

It’s not one of my favourite breads but it was quite good grilled and eaten with olive tapenade, and in a grilled cheese sandwich with basil and tomatoes.