Bread Baking Babes May Stromboli

There are entirely too many bread books and blogs with bread recipes...or not enough. One of my favorites is Carol Field's The Italian Baker. I was thinking of having the Babes bake her very complicated Panettone con Dotteri e Noci, a recipe that has intrigued me for a while. Once I realized that it is a laminated dough and that April and May can be too hot for laminated dough, I looked elsewhere for May's bread.

I'm inviting ya'll to gather round the kitchen table in May of the Bread Baking Babes 4th year and bake Stromboli. It's still Italian and should be delicious! It's getting to be picnic time, or will be by the time this bread gets posted, so I hope you'll enjoy it. The challenge for me with this one is to roll it up so that the whole thing doesn't unravel when sliced, a problem I've encountered with cinnamon breads.

The dough itself is pretty basic but maybe that's OK because we can enjoy the product as much as the process this way.



I found the recipe at Girlichef's blog. Heather has been a buddy in the past and this recipe was part of her celebration when she conquered her fear of yeast. If you go to her blog you can see the nice tight slices I hope for and look at that gorgeous sea salt and rosemary on top to say nothing of the filling. Bet this bread would go well with a glass of a hearty red wine. Join me?

Here is the link to Girlichef's post. I used her photo, too, but will post my own once I get back home to my own computer in a couple of days. I brought a thumb drive with me on vacation, but it seems to be lost. It had the post I was going to do for this challenge and the photos, too.

I do hope that you, dear reader, will be a Buddy this month. Just bake this lovely bread by June 26th and send me an e-mail (plachman at sonic dot net) with a link so that you can be included in the round-up at the end of May.

In that spirit, I'm sending this over to Susan at Wild Yeast for Yeastspotting, the weekly yeasted bread extravaganza. Be sure to go there after this Friday for this week's entries.

Also, be sure to check out the other Bread Baking Babes' blogs to see what they have done with this yummy and fairly easy bread. The links are to the right on the sidebar. Picnic anyone?
XO Elle

P.S. After baking it myself, have added weights for most of the ingredients...in italics after the measured ingredient.

Stromboli
adapted from Ultimate Bread by Eric Treuille & Ursula Ferrigno

Ingredients:
2 tsp. dry yeast (1 packet dry yeast...I used fast acting) (7 grams)
1 ¼ c. water (268 grams)
3 ½ c. unbleached flour (470 grams)
1 ½ tsp. salt (11 grams)
3 Tbs. olive oil (38 grams)

For the filling and topping:
8 oz. smoked swiss cheese (226 grams)
3 cloves garlic, minced 8 oz. Prosciutto, sliced thin (226 grams)
4 oz. pepperoni, sliced thin (113 grams)
Handful of fresh basil leaves
~1 tsp. coarse salt
3 sprigs rosemary, stems removed
~1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

Sprinkle yeast into 1 c. of the water, in small bowl. Leave for 5 minutes to then stir to dissolve.

Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in center and pour in dissolved yeast and the oil. Mix in flour from sides of well. Stir in reserved water, as needed, to form a soft, sticky dough.
Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead until smooth, silky, and elastic...~10 mins. Pour dough in a clean, oiled bowl and cover with clean kitchen towel. Let rise until doubled in size, 1 1/2-2 hours.

Punch down and chafe* for 5 minutes. Let rest 10 minutes.

Shape into a 14" x 8" rectangle. Cover w/ clean towel and let rest another 10 minutes.

Spread your cheeses, meats, garlic and basil evenly over dough. (You can use your own combination of meats and cheeses, or roasted veggies and garlic or whatever you like for filling.) Roll up the dough like a swiss roll, starting at one of the shorter sides, but without rolling too tightly.

Place on oiled baking sheet. Use a skewer or a carving fork to pierce several holes through the dough to the baking sheet. Sprinkle with 1 Tbs. of olive oil, salt, rosemary and pepper.

Bake in preheated (400 degrees F) oven for 1 hour, until golden. Drizzle remaining olive oil over top. Slice and serve!!