Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Rye and Herb Ciabatta / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Ciabattine alla segale e erbe aromatiche

Ciabatta. A versatile crunchy bread roll. Breakfast? You can have ciabatta spread with butter and jam. Lunch break? Bite into a cheese and lettuce ciabatta. Snack? A mini ciabatta with a piece of chocolate will ease those hunger pangs. Dinner? Ciabatta is the perfect accompaniment for any soup, or a valuable help to scoop spaghetti sauce from the plate. For today’s recipe for Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook I flavoured the dough with fresh herbs. What a flavour! And what a pleasure to eat them with a little soft goat cheese. Maroggia’s Mill’s farina bianca nostrana is the perfect choice for this highly hydrated dough, developing a good gluten bond which traps all the air bubbles who make this ciabattas so soft. But in order to bite in those crunchy rolls you have to pull your sleeves up! Let’s get started!

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Pistachio and Candied Orange Peel Ciabatta / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Ciabatte al pistacchio e scorza d’arancia candita

Ciabatta mon amour. As you well know, I have tried out and made several ciabatta recipes as its such a versatile dough that I never get tired of experimenting. This time around I wanted to make a version for Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook that lends itself beautifully to whip up a quick and delicious bread and chocolate, strictly extra dark, snack. Don’t you agree that pistachios and orange peel are the perfect match to enrich this simple dough? What are you waiting for? Roll up your sleeves!

MTChallenge May: Giant Penne with Cherry Tomatoes, Licorice and Orange Toast Crumbles / MTChallenge Maggio: Penne giganti al sugo di pomodorini, liquirizia e pane tostato all’arancia

Another month, another challenge. This month’s MTChallenge Paola Sabino from the blog Fairies’ Kitchen challenged us with a “simple” tomato sauce pasta. Nothing more difficult than an “easy” dish. The challenge lies in being able to enhance the dish in all its components, first of all of course the tomato that should not be overwhelmed by other flavours and blend well with the pasta with its creamy texture. Another considerable detail is the degree of doneness of the pasta (it is known that overcooked pasta in addition to being sticky and unpleasant to taste is difficult to digest) for which Paola specifically requested a photograph that proves the perfect “al dente” cooking. Paola also called for a brief cooking of the sauce, even though not of its individual ingredients, and forbid us the use of onion. She tied our hands a little, something I particularly like when confronted with a challenge. More limitations and more the challenge gets interesting! For my dish I chose to stick to simplicity, but with the eccentric touch which distinguishes my cooking. To enhance the natural sweetness of tomatoes I used licorice powder and orange as pairings and added a bit of crunchiness with toasted bread. The result is very fresh, with notes of orange paving the way first to the tomato, blending with the licorice at the end of the bite. To make my life easier for the photograph of the doneness of the pasta I chose giant penne, although I personally recommend to pair this sauce with linguine.

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Multigrain ciabatta / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Ciabatte del mulino alla farina 4 cereali

It’s Maroggia’s Mill Cookbok Friday again! It has been a while now since I last posted a recipe for ciabatta. This time I chose Maroggia’s Mill multi grain floru, which I used for these Multigrain Flour, Sesame Seeds and Polenta Taragna Grissini. The result is very good, a nicely developed dough, with a good ratio of holes and a super crunchy crust. The flavour is richer than white flour ciabatta and the texture slighlty rustic, but without the stodginess so common in whole flour breads. The long fermentation helps develop carbon dioxide and gluten, so the bread can rise properly during proffing and baking, and develops a richer flavour of the dough while at the same time making the bread more digestible. But let’s move on to the recipe!

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Caramelized Pecans Ciabattas / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Ciabatte alle noci pecan caramellate

This Friday for Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook I’m going back to one of my favourite bread recipes: ciabatta. Those who know me best are well aware I’ve spent whole months working on several ciabatta recipes. Yeasted, both with fresh and instant yeast, with bread flour and with buckwheat flour too, up to my special version of garlic and lemon thyme flavoured ciabatta. In short, ciabatta is one of my favourite breads ever (as well as my dear friend Flavia‘s). This time the input for the recipe came to me from a long standing acquaintance, Anna Lucylle, who already inspired me a basil flavoured bread. I met her the first time more than ten years ago, but mostly communicate with her through facebook.

Garlic and Lemon Thyme Ciabattas for Twelve Loaves / Ciabatte all’aglio e al timo limonato per Twelve Loaves

When this month’s Twelve Loaves theme came out I was so happy! Onions, garlic, chives, shallots, leeks and Co. Love them all and the choice is so vasti t was only a matter of flavour pairings. Michela just came by for a few days, bringing with her nice presents and a few little glass jars filled with herbs and spices. One particular herb stole my heart and amazed my tastebuds: lemon thyme. I wanted, at all costs, to use it in a bread. Lemon thyme and garlic, I just knew it would work.

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Maroggia’s Miller Ciabattas / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Le ciabatte del Mugnaio

Here we go, another “other friday”, another recipe from Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook. This time it’s not a recipe I made up but one that was given to me by the miller itself. Alessandro Fontana in fact is not the miller but headchief of production at the Mill, but I’m sure he won’t mind being “labeled” the miller, it has a romantic and vintage allure to it, don’t you think?

Of Buckwheat ciabatta Quest / Alla ricerca della ciabatta al grano saraceno perfetta

Some recipes are like miracles, perfectly balanced from the first test to the hundred times you cook/bake them after their discovery. Some recipes are like nightmares, thoughts of the numerous failures hunting you at night, the need to nail them a monkey on your back. Especially if you’re like me, instinctive and a bit lazy on the technical/study side of the cooking/baking world. I am improving, but to me nothing beats some proper experiments and action in the kitchen. Guerrilla cooking (oh and how many times I come out defeated!).

Ciabatta the fourth / Ciabatta, la quarta

Recently I have been focusing my attention on blogs and online forums, something I couldn’t afford to do previously, and realized that bread baking can be considered a form of addiction, and I’m not alone. Not that I thought of being unique in this kind of passionate obession but the awareness that out there many other people suffer from the same form of dependence can only make me feel happy and less alone.

Vittorio’s ciabatta, my own way / La ciabatta di Vittorio, a modo mio

This version of ciabatta is born from my experimentation with an original recipe from Vittorio of Viva la focaccia blog. He’s an amazing baker, and his videos and recipes have inspired me and taken my baking passion to a higher level. I have never failed with his recipes, which are always paired with videos that illustrate his techniques step by step. The only changes I have done with his recipes have been with salt and yeast percentage, because I prefer my bread lightly salted and do not digest yeast too easily.