For this month's Baking Partner's challenge Marissa of Thermofan, suggested Pataqueta, a traditional bread from Valencia, Spain. It was an amazing experience, making this bread. The origin of these crescent shaped bread dates back to seventeenth century. The inhabitants of Valencia's Orchard used to bake this bread for their important festival.
This bread has no fat at all, no oil/butter is used in the bread making process and it has to be baked by steaming. Not our idly steaming, Baking by introducing steam in the oven. I have a small microwave convection oven with a turntable, with no racks. So, i was a bit hesistant to try, but then Swathi Iyer was so encouraging and Marrisa was so kind to help us with all our silly doubts. Thoroughly enjoyed making them and was proud to bake such a traditional bread.
Ingredients
For the ferment
100 ml water
50gms(or) ⅓ Cup all purpose flour
2 teaspoon active dry yeast
½ teaspoon sugar
Bread dough
1.5 Cups of All purpose flour
1.5 cups of Whole Wheat flour
200 ml tepid(slightly warm) water
1 & ¾ teaspoon fine sea salt
all the ferment
a little flour for dusting the work surface and the bread.
Method
For the Ferment
Stir the yeast into the water in your mixing bowl, then add the flour and sugar and mix well. Cover with plastic film. Put into the fridge overnight or up to 48 hours.
I used my Tupperware box to make the ferment.
I used my Tupperware box to make the ferment.
Bread dough
- I removed the ferment from the fridge after 36 hours. On the day of making the bread, remove the ferment and leave it on the kitchen counter for 2 hours or more to get to room temperature. (see notes)
- After 2 hours. Keeping the ferment in its bowl, add the rest of the ingredients except the salt, and mix together with your scraper/hands. i used my hands to make the dough.
- When everything starts to come together into dough, turn it out onto your work surface (don't flour it first).
- Start to work the dough for about 10 minutes, then add the salt and continue kneading until smooth and elastic. Keep the dough in a well oiled bowl and let it raise in a warm place until doubled in size. It took about an hour.
- After the first raise, take the dough out, punch down to release the air. Weigh the dough using a kitchen scale. My dough weighed around 2lbs/900 gms. Divide dough into 150 g pieces and then form the dough into small balls.
- Place the balls on a baking tray, make a slit at the centre of the ball and pull apart the sides from outside to form a crescent shape. Make a slit on top of the balls too.
- Cover them again with a kitchen cloth dusted with flour. Leave to rest until them double in size, for about 1 hour.
- The bread has to be baked with steam in a regular oven. Place a wire rack and a round pan under the wire-rack inside the oven and preheat it to 200C/400F. In the meanwhile boil 2 cups of water and keep it ready.
- Once the oven reaches the temperature and beeps, open the oven door, pour the boiling water into the pan kept under the wire-rack, place the bread tray on top of the rack and close the door.
- Bake for 30-35 minutes. My bread was done by 30 minutes. My oven could bake only 2 pataquetas at the same time, so i baked it in 3 batches. i kept the rest of raising pataquetas, in the fridge and took it out at the time of baking.
- Serve it warm as a sandwich or slather it with plain old Nutella and enjoy. I made a Mixed Vegetable and Cheese sandwich for breakfast and it was a yummmm!!!!
Notes
- I made the ferment on saturday 7:00 pm and removed from the fridge on Monday morning 10:00am. When i first removed, the ferment wasn't bubbly, but rested it and found little tear here and there and still had that yeasty smell. So, i proceeded with the process and got a beautiful bread.
- The first bake i baked for 35 minutes, the crust become a bit hard. so, the second and third batch i baked it for only for 30 minutes and got a perfect crust. The crust will be a bit crunchy with a soft and fluffy inside.
divya says
looks so gorgeous and tempting..
Unknown says
Beautiful Priya, You made it perfectly love it.
AparnaRajeshkumar says
i liked the last photo , bread with mayonaise and salads are good combo
Archana says
Awesome pataqueta. Wish I could gran the last pic.
Congrats on your new domain.
Priya Suresh says
Very interesting bread, prefect for making sandwiches na..
Pavani says
Perfectly baked bread. Love the soft crumb.