I belong to a lovely, friendly group of local people – mainly English – who speak Italian. Even though my Italian is rudimentary they are very welcoming and supportive. They also like my baking, especially bread. At a recent group lunch I baked several loaves to share.
This one isn’t actually an Italian bread, but it does use two Italian cheeses. Cambozola is quite a mild cheese, so feel free to change it to something stronger if you want a more punchy flavour, Montagnolo for example.
As I said, my Italian is in its infancy and I struggled to translate “tear and share” but here’s the title in Italian. If you’re a fluent Italian speaker please forgive me and please correct me and I hope you enjoy the bread: Involtini di cambozola ed erbe aromatiche “strappa e condividi” con copertura al Parmigiano Reggiano
Makes: 14 rolls
Time: 30 min. initial “hands-on”, 60 – 90 min. first prove, 20 – 30 min. second “hands on”, 30 – 45 min second prove, 30 – 40 min. baking. (Proving times will vary according to the temperature in your kitchen.)
Level: A short step up from “easy”
Need: A large baking sheet or tin + parchment. A stand mixer is useful, but not essential. Likewise, a baking stone is good, but also not essential.
Ingredients
- 275ml/9½fl oz – 300ml/10fl oz tepid water
- 10g/¼oz caster sugar
- 7g sachet of instant dried yeast
- 500g/16oz strong white flour
- 10g/¼oz fine salt
- 2 – 3 tsp of dried or fresh herbs of choice (e.g. oregano, dill, tarragon, rosemary)
- 50ml/1¾fl oz olive oil
- 150g/5½oz Cambozola cheese (or any “meltable” cheese of your choice
- An egg
- About 30g – 40g/1 oz grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese (or Parmesan)
Method
1. Warm the water, stir in the sugar until dissolved then stir in the yeast. Set aside.
2. Put the flour, salt and herbs in a large mixing bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer and mix to combine.
3. Make a well in the centre and mix in the olive oil and most of the water. Mix to form a soft dough, adding more water as/if required.
4. Knead the dough (15 – 18 min. by hand; 7 – 10 using the dough hook) Cover and leave to rise in a warmish area free of draughts until doubled in size, maybe 60 – 90 min.
5. Gently knock back (knead/fold) the risen dough & weigh it. Divide the weight by 14. This will be the weight that each dough ball should be.
NB An easy way to divide the dough is to roll it into sausage shape 14” long and then cut it into 1” pieces. But, you should still weigh each piece and adjust as necessary.
6. Using the palms of your hands, shape each piece into a ball then flatten them into circles. Place a piece of Cambozola – about 10g in weight – into the centre of each circle then fold the edges over to enclose it.
7. Place these in a pattern on the lined baking sheet, leaving a small gap between each piece so that they can “grow together” during the second prove. One pattern that works is a middle row of four, with a row of three then two at each side: 2 – 3 – 4 – 3 – 2
8. Cover again or place in a proving bag and leave for about 30 – 40 minutes until they have risen again. During this time turn the oven on to 180°C / fan 160°C / 350°F / Gas 4. Lightly beat an egg.
NB I‘ve never actually bought a proving bag – a black bin liner works fine. Fill it with air, twist the neck and fasten it so that it stays inflated.
9. When the dough balls have risen again, brush the tops with beaten egg and bake for around 30 min – until golden. Cover with foil part way through if they’re going very dark.
10. Take the almost baked rolls out and sprinkle them with the grated cheese then return to the oven for a final 5 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.
I wish you every success with your bread making. I hope you have a go at this one and enjoy making and eating it. If you want to see more of my bread recipes click this link.
Here are some quite different breads that you might want to try:
Ridiculously easy No-knead bread
Blueberry and Cinnamon English Muffins
Also, please have a look at my site for lots of other recipes, sweet and savoury. If you’d like to comment or ask a question please do, via the contact page.
Retired Bloke on Food n stuff 