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: Rye flour, Thymian and Orange Cake / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Cake alla farina di segale, timo e arancia

Orange is one of the most versatile fruits that we can find in the kitchen. Whether it is sliced, juiced or peeled, orange is found in countless recipes. Both sweet and savoury. Habit, at least for what concerns me, often leads to combine it with the same ingredients, especially when it comes to sweets and cakes. Cinnamon and dark chocolate, a classics. In this recipe I developed for Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook I decided to combine orange with an aromatic herb that I love very much, thyme. The result is fresh and very fragrant. Especially given the contrast with the more rustic flavour of Maroggia’s Mill rye flour. A true discovery! This cake is excellent with a good cup of tea, I’m sure it will bring a bit of sun in these chilly days. Are you ready? Then roll up your sleeves!

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Rye flour Blinis / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Blinis alla farina di segale

Here we go again with another post for Maroggia’s Mill and its Cookbook. More precisely with rye flour. After this gorgeous recipe for a soft, sweet rye bread I decided to whip up some blinis, one of my favourite options when its up to deciding what to cook for a relaxed and rewarding breakfast, preferably on a lazy Sunday morning in the company of family or friends. The recipe is a bit time consuming due to all the proofing steps but I assure you will not be disappointed. Alternatively, you can prepare a large batch of blinis and freeze what’s left by stacking them between layers of plastic wrap. Thaw 10′ in the oven at 150° C, they will keep their soft consistence as if they were freshly cooked. If you don’t have enough time on your hands you can reduce the first rest to 30′ and skip all the other steps by incorporating the remaining ingredients, always respecting the sequence in which they are mixed in, but the blinis will not be as soft!

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Cinnamon and Hazelnut Rye Flour Babka / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Babka speziata alla cannella e noci con farina di segale

Catch a Babka in the Rye! I haven’t been baking this soft and pillowy treat for a while and when Alessandro gave me the first few packets of Maroggia’s Mill rye flour I knew immediately I had to try and develop a recipe for Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook which had nothing to do with the idea we usually have of rye bread. Nothing better than a Babka. Would I be able to obtain a soft and pillowy crumb with such a flour, which as you know is not as rich in gluten as wheat flour? Well, I am proud to say that I made it! And my guinea pigs loved it. Of course it’s not as light and pillowy as it would be using wheat flour, but i can assure you its surprisingly soft and melts in the mouth beautifully.

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Stale bread focaccia / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Focaccia con pane raffermo

I don’t know what’s your policy at home, but at my place nothing gets thrown away. Food is sacred and anything that is left over is eaten the next day, possibly converting the dish into something else or mixing up with other ingredients. This rule goes for bread too. I had already used breadcrumbs to bake pain de beaucaire, discovering how the addition of ground stale bread to give something extra to the flavour of the dough. With this in mind I came up with this tasty focaccia, covered with a crunchy breading, especially for Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook. Suffice to say it has been all the rage at RSI (the tv channel I am working for) and people still ask me with pleading eyes to bring some more!

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Millet flour Focaccia / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Focaccia con farina di miglio

Thanks to my new diet and lifestyle in the past months I have come across many ingredients that I did not really know or had never tasted so far. Among these millet flakes, which have become a staple for a creamy breakfast or even an afternoon snack. This ingredient immediately struck me for its taste and creamy texture. I was so intrigued by it’s qualities I decided to pull together a recipe for Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook. And here it is. The addition of millet flour provides with a more dense focaccia than the ones made with wheat flour only, with an extremely creamy and fragrant crumb. This focaccia is ideal for a quick and filling lunch, something handy to take with you. My mouth is already watering, what about yours?

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Multigrain Pizza / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Pizza con farina 4 cereali

Pizza, oh my beloved pizza… Anyone who knows me well knows as well how much I love this dough and how hard I worked over the years to get perfect results. The funny thing is that I’m the queen of “neapolitan style” pizza while I can’t get proper results with the dish version.

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Toasted Wheat Flour and Black Sesame Naan / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Naan alla farina di grano tostata e semi di sesamo neri

Long time no see, flat bread! Thinking of new recipes for the blog I realised that flat bread has been missing for a while (just a quick reminder of what has been posted so far: piadina, reinterpreted in a menu, Turkish pide, a classic white naan, persian lavash and msemmen) and that Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook doesn’t even feature this type of bread. Bad, very bad of me indeed. So I am back to using the wonderful toasted flour of which I wrote about in this post for my rye, toasted flour and thyme crackers. A flour that can be done at home by simply toasting plain flour in a pan, which gives breads, crackers and breadsticks a very particular taste.

Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook: Multigrain Flour, Sesame Seeds and Polenta Taragna Grissini / Il Ricettario del Mulino di Maroggia: Grissini alla farina 4 cereali, semi di sesamo e polenta taragna

And it’s Maroggia’s Mill Cookbook time again! I love grissini, just ask my family and friends. One of the easiest and tasty way to use sourdough leftovers, those crunchy breadsticks (even though I loathe the word, bread is bread and grissini are…grissini!) never fail and I usually bake a batch once a week or on special occasions as having dinner with friends. Actually I have the habit of giving away tons of bags of grissini, being single and living on my own! The best thing is there are no limits to your fantasy when it comes to baking grissini.

Ècole de Boulangerie de Panissimo: Marguerite

Last month I was so taken by Easter Festive Breads (fortunately all went down well) I didn’t post the bread for Panissimo’s École. You probably won’t believe it but at the beginning of April my bread for the École de Boulangerie de Panissimo – the Marguerite – was already baked and photographed. But then came Twelve Loaves, a couple of recipes Michela and I cooked together and some other projects and there was no space for another blog post.