Hello fellow bread lovers!
*grin*
*more grin*
*Okay, now I officially look like a cuckoo*
Life has been keeping me awfully busy lately, which is
always a good thing and probably would be even better had God provided me with
Shiva’s retractable hands, and to be able to even drop by on my own little blog
is quite an impossible task. My fingers would be tempted to start penning, in
this case… typing, my ramblings and when my fingers have started doing so,
nothing could stop it. Unless of course when my bladder screams a high pitched
scream, that is.
So, I’ll try my best to stay in course and write as fast as
I can about this wonderfully, unbelievably easy and crispy bread that truly
lives up to its name. Carta da Musica. Oh, how I love how
romantic it sounds. Carta da Musica is
the Italian for ‘music paper’. This is
the lightest and thinnest flat bread, slightly thicker than filo, but then
again filo is not considered bread. What attracted me is the story behind this
bread. If you know me well, I am such a hopeless romantic and I just feel doing
something the traditional way, making something handmade, if it is possible for
me, would be truly satisfying.
Native to Sardinia, Carta da Musica is very ancient bread and
has been eaten by shepherds for centuries. For once baked, it may be stored for
several weeks. If you want to store it much longer, the already thin bread
should be separated into two even thinner bread and baked again. It is said
that Carta da Musica could be stored up to a year when kept dry. Knowing that,
I do not have any reason not to make it.
Ingredients:
-1 ¼ dry yeast
-1 ¼ cups water
-3 ¼ cups bread flour
-1 ½ tsp salt
Directions:
-Set the oven for 225C.
-Proof the yeast in water.
-Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the
center and pour in the proofed yeast. Mix to form a stiff, sticky dough.
-Turned to a lightly greased work surface and knead until
smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes.
-Put the dough in a clean bowl and cover with a dish towel.
Let rise for just 20 minutes. Lightly flour a baking sheet and place it in the
preheated oven for 5-10 minutes.
-Divide the dough into 16 equal pieces. On a lightly greased
surface, roll out the first piece of dough to form a paper-thin round shaped
bread.
-Cover the remaining pieces of dough with damp towel to
prevent them from drying out. While the first piece rests, begin rolling the
out the second and so on.
-Immediately place the rolled dough on the preheated floured
baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes, turning the risen part over once.
-Remove the breads from the oven and pile them on top of one
another on a wire rack. As they cool, they will become brittle and crisp.
- If you want to make thinner Carta da Musica, use a thin,
sharp paring knife to cut an incision along one edge. Use your hands to
separate the bread into two very thin rounds then return them to the oven to
further bake it for 1 minute to crisp.
Wow! Look how simple the ingredients are! Now, making this
is not difficult. But you do need a lot of patience. With my Baba Yaga oven,
that is the name of my oven, I can bake 4 Carta da Musica at once. And my oven
IS big, hence the name. Opening and closing the oven door result in the decline
of the oven temperature. So you must have patience to wait for the oven to
reach 225C again to bake the next batch.
You can serve this bread, which is so crispy it can also fit into cracker category, with spreads or dips. You can also brush it with seasoned olive oil and sprinkle with good quality sea salt. Or, you just have it plainly like me and close your
eyes, imagine that you are a shepherd, herding your healthy sheep across the
lush green meadow and when you find that you need to rest a bit, you would take
out your Carta da Musica from your brown leather satchel you got from your grand father and rest under a huge
tree. Feel the breeze caressing your tired face yet it is only humble happiness
that you feel and a deep grateful praise towards mother earth.
*lamb bleats*
Okay Amy, time to watch the sheep safely graze again. J
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