Sourdough Casatiello

Casatiello

I made casatiello sometime last year as part of the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge (which I never actually finished…) but never got around to posting, I made the bread again recently for our second hike up Icehouse Canyon (trail report here [2 of us continued to Telegraph Mountain, great views!!]). I’ve modified the recipe slightly, mainly to accommodate making it as a sourdough. I figured this bread, which we commonly refer to as sandwich bread, would be good for a hike since it would be ready made sandwiches!

Sourdough Casatiello

Makes: 2 large

Time: Day 1: Elaborate starter. Day 2: Mix final dough, fold dough shape, proof, and bake.

Ingredients:

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Directions:

1. Elaborate your starter however you choose, but ending up with the same flour and water weights. (or make a commercial yeast preferment) Allow it to rise overnight.
2. The next day cook the pancetta until lightly crisp, and saute the salami (chopped in chunks or slices) until it is also lightly crisp. Set both of the meats aside and reserve the rendered fat from both. When they are cool cut them into small pieces.
3. Having cooked the meat (giving it time to cool before adding to the dough), cream the starter with the buttermilk for the recipe.
4. Mix together the flours, sugar and salt, then mix in the creamed starter and eggs, til the dough just starts to come together as a ball. Let the dough sit covered in the bowl for 20 minutes
5. At this point weigh your rendered fat and use it to substitute for an equal amount of butter. Cut the remaining butter into at least 4 pieces and stir it vigorously into the dough, the dough will get fairly soft and sticky as you do this, keep mixing until the dough is smooth.
6. Either knead or mix all of the pancetta and salami pieces into the dough until fairly well incorporated.
7. Grate the smoked provolone coarsely and the hard cheese finely, and then mix into the dough until evenly incorporated. I like to do the grating right before the mixing because of an incident last time I made this where the grated cheese sort of reformed into a large piece before mixing into the dough and I ended up with a giant cave of cheese in the middle of the loaf.
8. Prepare oiled panettone molds or papers, or oil loaf pans. The dough will be fairly tacky and soft, so just quickly shape it into a loaf for a loaf pan or a ball for the papers/molds. I didn’t even move it to a work surface, I just did it straight out of the bowl. Cover the molds/papers/pans with oiled plastic wrap and leave the loaves to rise
9. Leave the loaves, covered, to proof, for me this was about an hour.
10. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees with the rack in the lower third of the oven. If you’re baking in the papers I suggest using a cookie sheet under them to make them easier to move, and to catch the oil that will likely drip out of the bottom
11. Bake for 20 minutes and turn loaves 180 degrees. Continue baking for another 20-40 minutes (depending on container), the loaves should sound hollow on the bottom when complete. Remove finished loaves to a cooling rack and let sit for at least 1 hour before cutting.

This bread was pretty yummy on the hike, and the salt content from the cheese and meat helped with the salt we were losing from the sweating! So, for now, submitting this to YeastSpotting but you should also be able to find it soon on The Weekend Bread and Hiking Club. Wrote up the hike, find it here Ice House Canyon to Telegraph Mountain!

Casatiello

Casatiello

Casatiello

Casatiello

Casatiello