Recipe for Italian Bread

This is a classic recipe for Italian Bread that I inherited on a trip to Tuscany to visit family.  Never in a million years did I think I would be making bread from scratch. I thought it would be difficult and time consuming. I can’t tell you how lucky I feel to have discovered how simple it is to make a loaf of  bread.  Now, I have this amazing recipe for Italian Bread to share with you! It’s my Rustic Italian Bread.

TYPES OF ITALIAN BREAD

Every region has it’s own specialty bread. With all of the different flours and shapes there are well over 1,500 types of Italian bread.  The ingredients for good bread remain simple and include: flour, water, yeast, and sometimes a little salt. From there you can enrich the bread with ingredients like butter, olive oil, raisins, figs, olives, grapes, nuts, almonds, walnuts, rosemary, caraway, anise, sesame, pumpkin, and honey.  It’s easy to get creative but before you jump in try this simple recipe for Rustic Italian bread.

LIST OF A FEW REGIONAL ITALIAN BREADS

• Ciabatta: created in 1982 by a baker in Veneto, Italy, in response to popularity of French baguettes.
• Pane Tuscano (without salt):  a common bread found in Tuscany, Umbria and the Marches. Pair it with salty cheeses and meat.
• Pane Casalingo alle Olive: a bread made with olives.
• Pane Napoletano: a peasant bread from Naples.
• Crescentina:  a bread from the Emilia region that is sliced into diamond shapes and then fried, and served with cheese and salumi.
• Taralli: they can be sweet or savory and are shaped into rings. Taralli have a similar texture to a breadstick.
• Focaccia: a flat oven-baked Italian bread similar in style and texture to pizza.
• Pizza: the most popular bread in Italy. Homemade Pizza Dough
• Pane con le Mandorle: a bread made with almonds.
• Piadina: a thin Italian flatbread usually made with white flour, lard or olive oil, salt and water.
• Coppia Ferrarese: a sourdough bread with a twisted shape.