Homebaker’s Cookbook: Aromatic Crisp Bread / Il Ricettario di Homebaker: Pane croccante aromatico

Today for Homebaker’s Cookbook I present you with a recipe for a crispy bread, loosely based on South Tyrol’s Schüttelbrot. A versatile bread which is ideal for an aperitif served in combination with cheese and salami, you can also break it in small pieces ad add it to soup and guess what, it is amazing paired with jam…for a slightly different breakfast. Trust me, I tried it with an orange jam and was ecstatic!

Homebaker’s Cookbook: 4 Seeds Crackers / Il Ricettario di Homebaker: Crackers ai 4 semi

 Crispy baked goods have always been an obsession of mine…during the past years I had to face countless disappointments with full trays of grissini and crackers that wouldn’t turn out as crispy as I would have liked them. Stubbornness pays off though, and finally with time I came up for the recipe for perfectly crispy crackers. Ideal for aperitifs or to nibble on during work breaks, especially needed when spending a whole day in front of the computer. A simple and reliable recipe, just top with fresh cheese, two lemon zest, sprinkle with freshly cut chives and you will have a stunning aperitif with zero effort! For today’s Homebaker’s Recipe Book I present you with my tasty 4 seed crackers recipe crackers. Follow me and discover our online shop!

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Rye Flour Tigelle / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Tigelle con farina di segale

 

Street food is now everywhere on the streets of our cities and at every special event around Ticino. A few years ago when I attended Food Immersion Festival I was impressed by Tigella Bella‘s stand but there was so much to say and eat that I realized I had completely forgot to mention them! The thought of these soft flat breads didn’t leave me but only now I had the idea to reinterpret the original recipe for Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook. The result? Spectacular! Try them as soon as baked. Warm, soft and fragrant they lend themselves beautifully for a brunch in your backyard!

Tigelle

Street food is now everywhere on the streets of our cities and at every special event around Ticino. A few years ago when I attended Food Immersion Festival I was impressed by Tigella Bella‘s stand but there was so much to say and eat that I realized I had completely forgot to mention them! The thought of these soft flat breads didn’t leave me but only now I had the idea to reinterpret the original recipe. The result? Spectacular! Try them as soon as baked. Warm, soft and fragrant they lend themselves beautifully for a brunch in your backyard!

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Rye Flour Grissini Breadsticks / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Grissini alla farina di segale

Rye flour, you name it I’ve baked it! Or have I? Well so far for Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook? I baked an orange and thymian cake, gluttonous vegan cookies, blinis and many other recipes. But I forgot about grissini! Here then the recipe for Maroggia’s Mill rye grissinis! Crispy and fragrant… try out rolling the dough in cornmeal or breadcrumbs to make them more crunchy and irresistible.

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Rye Flour Grissini Breadsticks / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Grissini alla farina di segale

 

Rye flour, you name it I’ve baked it! Or have I? Well so far for Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook? I baked an orange and thymian cake, gluttonous vegan cookies, blinis and many other recipes. But I forgot about grissini! Here then the recipe for Maroggia’s Mill rye grissinis! Crispy and fragrant… try out rolling the dough in cornmeal or breadcrumbs to make them more crunchy and irresistible.

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Marjoram and Orange Zest Focaccia / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Focaccia maggiorana e scorza d’arancia

And yet again another focaccia recipe! For today’s Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook I present you the recipe for a high hydration, fresh, spring-mood flavoured focaccia. Mix a hint of creativity, a sprinkle of marjoram a pinch of orange zest and you will have a delicious bread to accompany your salads with. Keep aside the recipe to accompany cold summer soups…try it with a fresh gazpacho, you will love it! To make it I used Maroggia’s Mill pasta and pizza flour, a skilful mix of wheat flour and finely ground semolina flour. When I don’t have any of this special flour around I usually mix 50% of wheat flour with 50% of semolina flour. The recipe has been tasted and approved by my guinea pigs, what are you waiting for?

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Paprika Puff Pastry Crescents / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Cornetti di pasta sfoglia alla paprika

Here we are with our usual appointment with Maroggia’s Mill and its Cookbook. Today’s recipe is homemade puff pastry, a recipe I spent several days working on many years ago in order to find the perfect recipe as you can well see my numerous posts on millefeuille. I re-tested the recipe a few months ago using only Maroggia’s Mill flour and, needless to say, the result was excellent. On this occasion I tweaked the basic recipe with savoury pies and croissants in mind and decided to add sweet paprika powder to the flour. This puff pastry is ideal for small pies and finger food to nibble on before dinner. I shaped them into crescent shape, a form that lends itself very well to various fillings (but I haven’t filled them…I am on a diet!).

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Saffron and Chilli Bread Thins / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Sfoglie di pane allo zafferano e peperoncino

Crack, crunch, crock! As I crunch through a bread thin the first thing coming up to my mind is the classic comic balloon words written in a bold uppercase font and the exclamation point, slightly bigger than the character as to give strength to the onomatopoeic sound. To me crunchy foods, especially if they are baked goods, are irresistible. Is it an ancient heritage we carry with us that drives us to go through entire packs of crunchy crisps and crumbly grissini?

After a quick glance at the blog I realized that along all these years I posted few recipes for crackers. Such a gap had to be filled as soon as possible, I thought to myself! It’s thanks to chilli and a brilliant intuition (which I admit was totally random as when opening the “Food Thesaurus” the first ingredient I came across was saffron) I baked these amazing bread thins. Without modesty I can say this recipe is among the best I ever made for the blog when it’s up to crackers and Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook.

These bread thins are quite spicy, so if you do not like spicy food but you still want to feel a slight tingling I recommend to halve the amount of chilli.

“Cuochi d’artificio”: Bicycle! / “Cuochi d’artificio”: La bicicletta!

Bicycle! Bycicle!, when Alice proposed me this theme I clearly sensed her perplexity…what would I do of it? Was it feasible, with bread? Her uncertainty was palpable and I had to think quick in order to convince her everything would be fine and not miss this opportunity. Paris-Brest, of course! One of the most famous and popular French pâtisserie classics was created in 1910 by chef Louis Durand to commemorate the Paris–Brest–Paris bicycle race begun in 1891. It’s basically a wheel shaped choux filled with praline flavoured cream. What about a bread wheel, filled with a foie gras cream? To recreate the craquelin effect, a decorative crackly topping, I relied on the recipe for the topping for tiger bread rolls. The result? Simply stunning! Unfortunately due to ethical issues my first recipe for the filling was rejected. But since I personally find it amazing and love foie gras I decided to post it, in case you would like to try it. The recipe I cooked in the studio has more of a strong and rustic flavour, but is still very good.

Here you will find the list of ingredients needed and the directions to bake the bread and to whip up the filling (sorry it’s in Italian but I’m pretty sure google translate will be ok) and here you can find the whole episode with me explaining all the steps to bake this beauty at home. Are you ready?