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Recipe for the Week - Pataqueta, a Traditional Spanish Bread (Baking Partners Challenge #16)
6:54:00 pm
This is the third bread recipe I’m
trying out from Baking Partners. The other two are Tzangzong Bread and Pumpkin Yeast Bread. They were both completely different from the usual breads I
bake and so is this one.
Pataqueta is a traditional, crescent
shaped bread from Valencia
This is a recipe that uses very few
ingredients, but employs the steam baking technique. It is essentially a
process where you place a tray of hot water on a rack below the rack containing
your bread. I use a microwave oven in convection mode for baking, so all I have
is a turntable, no racks. Hence I’m not sure if what I did here qualifies as
‘steam-baking’ :-).
What you’ll need:
For the Ferment:
100 ml warm water
1½ tsp instant yeast
1/3 cup flour
½ tsp sugar
For the Dough:
3 cups flour
200 ml lukewarm water
1¾ tsp salt
All of the ferment
Extra flour for dusting
What you’re going to do:
1. In a mixing bowl, stir the yeast
into the water. Add the flour and the sugar and mix till smooth. Cover with
cling film and refrigerate at least overnight or up to 48 hours.
2. Take the ferment out of the fridge and
leave it on your kitchen counter for an hour or two. My ferment looked the same
when I took it out, but after resting outside the fridge, it foamed up.
3. Into the bowl containing the
ferment, add the flour and water and mix together using a scraper, till it
comes together as dough.
4.
Take it out on a work surface. Add the salt and knead some more. The
original recipe mentions not flouring
the work surface, but my dough was extremely sticky and there was no way I
could knead it without dusting it with extra flour. Knead for some more time,
till the dough is smooth and elastic. I needed quite a bit of flour to go from
this:
to this:
5. Separate the dough into balls. The
original recipe calls for balls weighing 150 g each. I divided my dough into 5
balls, but I’d suggest dividing into 6 for a more manageable size.
6. Cover with a clean cloth and let it
rest for 20 minutes, after which it’ll have risen.
7. Flatten the balls a little from the
top and sides, ensuring a perfectly circular shape.
8. Using a baking scraper, cut the ball
from the middle towards one end. Separate the two ends to form a crescent and
flatten it a bit from the top.
9. Mark two lines with the scraper on
the bread. Place the Pataqueta on a floured baking sheet, cover with the cloth
and leave to rise for another hour.
10. Preheat the oven to 200°C. With a
knife, make two cuts along the lines marked earlier and sprinkle a little flour
on the top using a sieve.
11. Now, here’s what I did next. I took
a little steel bowl, filled it with hot water, placed it on the baking sheet
next to the proofed bread and placed the whole contraption into the preheated
oven. That was the best way I could manage to get some steam :-).
12. Bake at 200°C for 30 minutes. Take
out of the oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Brush with butter right away,
or the crust gets too hard.
At this point, there’s a nice rustic
look to the bread :-). The crescent shape makes it look cuter somehow :-)
You can also see the lines we made
earlier. I don’t know why, but I really liked how those lines turned out once
baked!
Once cool, slice it any way you’d like
and enjoy it with butter. Or anything else :-).
Check out the beautiful crumb:
These breads were really yummy and
soft, with a harder crust. I’d say they are best served with some hot soup. Not
your store bought types at all, these remind you of quaint farms, where the
farmer’s wife makes cheese herself and serves it to weary travelers with her
home made crusty bread. I know I read it somewhere, but I can’t remember
where!!
Do try this out at home; you can see
that you don’t need too many ingredients. If you’re not sure of the steam
baking technique, do check out how the other Baking Partners have baked their
Pataquetas. The lucky ones with multiple racks in their ovens have done it
beautifully, although I wouldn’t call my Pataquetas bad at all!!
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16 comments
Dear Fabida, thanks a lot. I’m very proud of your pretty pataquetas, your perfect explanation and the efforts you’ve made to achieve this challenge. Your pataquetas look awesome and don’t worry about your method of making steam. I sometimes used when the type of bread doesn’t need to much steam. With pataquetas this, is enough. Love you like it and hope you'll bake it again. :-) Cheers from Valencia.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your lovely comment, Marisa!! The bread did turn out awesome, my son isn't a fan of crusty bread, but even he gobbled it up with butter!!
DeleteGreat looking Pataqueta, your pictures are helpful to people making these first time.
ReplyDeleteThank you Nagashree!! They'll be useful for me too when I'm making them next time :-)
DeleteThe pataqueta looks delicious and perfectly baked even without steam. I love it Fabida
ReplyDeleteThank you, Swathi!!
DeleteGreat looking bread,lovely clicks too..love it
ReplyDeleteThank you Suja!!
DeleteOh this doesn't look that hard. I am going to try this out!
ReplyDeleteAllie of ALLIE NYC formerly Dressing Ken
www.allienyc.com
Oh, it isn't that hard at all, Alicia!!! This is easier than a lot of bread recipes :-)
DeleteThe Pataqueta looks great and loved the cartoon too. Nice touch.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Shefali!! I saw the cartoon somewhere and loved it :-)
DeleteYou are killing me woman! drools and dies.
ReplyDeleteGlad you liked it :-)
DeleteThis looks amazing I wish I could do it!
ReplyDeleteSalam :) x
Thank you!! And salaams to you too :-)
Delete