Pane Pugliese Recipe
This is an Italian bread from the Puglia region using durum wheat. Durum wheat is most commonly used in pasta but here it lends a beautiful yellow colour to a tasty bread. The dough has to be a bit stickier than it normally would be to allow the finely ground durum wheat (known as semola) to fully absorb the water as the dough rests and forms gluten. The bread benefits from a sourdough starter so if you have one now is the time to use it instead of the biga preferment. You can use 50g of your starter, add 150g strong white flour and 100g water to make a stiff starter. Allow to rise for 6-8 hours until doubled in size and bubbly and then use in place of the biga that I give the recipe for below. The biga is a shortcut and whilst it won’t bring the same complexity to your bread as a sourdough starter would it will add flavour and strength and help improve the gluten strength of the semola.
Ingredients
Biga Preferment
200g strong white flour
1g instant yeast
100g warm water
Final Dough
The biga as above
300g semola (finely ground durum wheat or fine semolina)
100g strong white flour
10g fine sea salt
4g instant yeast
Approx 320g water (you may need more or less, you want a sticky dough after mixing).
Method
If you are making the pre-ferment (in lieu of having a sourdough starter) then you can make it the day before. It needs at least 6 hours and up to 12 hours to ferment before using. It is a fairly stiff mixture so don’t be tempted to add extra water. The stiff mixture means a slower fermentation and it can add strength and sweetness to the final bread. Place the 200g strong white flour, 1g (1/8th teaspoon) of instant/ easy bake yeast in a large bowl and mix in the 100g warm water to make a stiffish dough. Cover well and leave to ferment at room temperature for at least 6 hours.
When you are ready to make the final dough, add the 300g semola, 100g strong white flour, 10g fine sea salt, 4g instant yeast and 300g water on top of the biga and mix the dough together well. Add a splash more water if you think it needs it, the dough should be on the sticky side. Once well mixed cover the bowl and leave to rest for 30 minutes. Do 3 rounds of stretch and folds with rests in between of at least 10 minutes. The dough should have good gluten strength after these stretch and folds. Leave to rise until doubled in size. Shape the loaf how you like it and leave to rise again until light and airy. In the meantime preheat the oven to 220C, 425F gas mark 7 and when ready bake the loaf for 30 – 40 minutes until golden and feeling light. Allow to cool and enjoy.
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