Easy artisan bread made with San Pellegrino

Ingredients:

350 ml. San Pellegrino sparkling water
500 gr. Flour (Caputo tipo 1)
1 tbsp Kefir yogurt
1 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil
8 gr. sea salt
2 gr. Dry yeast

  1. Pre-heat oven to 190 degrees Celsius. Prepare an oven grill rack, covering it with parchment paper (that will allow a more even distribution of heat).
  2. Mix San Pellegrino sparkling water, salt and kefir yogurt together in a bowl of a standing mixer, first with a whisk.  Then attach the bowl to the standing mixer.
    2. In a separate bowl, sift the flour into a bowl and add the yeast, mixing the two until well combined. 
  3. Add the flour/yeast and olive oil to the water mixture. Using the dough hook knead on medium speed for 8 minutes.  The dough should detach from the sides of the bowl by the time 8 minutes has passed.
  4. Grease the same mixing bowl with a bit of oil and place the dough back inside, allowing to rest and rise for 1.5 hrs.
  5. Then fold 4-5 times (lifting left side up and folding over the middle, and lifting the right side up and folding over the middle.  Do the same with the top and bottom halves of the dough) and allow to rest for another 45 mins.
  6. Fold again in the same manner and rest for a final 45 mins. (Room temperature should be at least 20 degrees Celsius). 
  7. Place dough on the parchment paper covered grill rack and shape the dough into a slightly oval shape, and make a 0.5 cm slit in the dough (length wise).
  8. Bake for 50 minutes.  Remove from oven when done and allow to cool on a cooling rack.

This particular bread uses San Pellegrino sparkling water both to help add some lift, as well as to create a more tender texture.  As the mineral water already contains traces of sodium, less salt is required.  Normally, I would put more than 10 gr. of salt, but in this case, I reduced the amount to 8 gr.  In Italy, some people even leave out the yeast entirely, using the sparkling water as the key raising agent.

The kefir yogurt adds a slight tanginess, offering a flavor similar to sourdough bread.  However, as sourdough often requires a much longer waiting period, the addition of the yogurt simply adds the flavor, and the use of dry yeast instead speeds up the overall process.

This bread can be considered to be a mix between a baguette and sourdough bread. 

Published by Salvatore Cuomo

Salvatore Cuomo was born in Naples, Italy, in 1972, son of an Italian father and Japanese mother. Cuomo was first inspired by his father who also was an Italian Chef in Naples. He began at the young age of 11, where he trained himself in the kitchen and traveled frequently between Italy and Japan. He gradually learned how to blend the traditional Italian art of cooking with the Japanese art of perfection. A few years later he traveled to Japan with his father who opened an Italian restaurant in Chiba in 1984. About those early years Salvatore told the press that it wasn't a good starting experience: "I didn’t like Japan at all, so after one year, I went back to Italy and spent 2–3 years studying at a culinary school. When I was 18, I returned to Japan after my father became terminally ill and I have been here ever since."[3] Cuomo said that Italian Cuisine was just starting to get popular in those days. He and his two brothers decided that in order to succeed in the restaurant business in Japan they would have to understand the Japanese food mentality. They spent a couple of years researching the market before opening a new restaurant in Tokyo with what Cuomo calls "Original Neapolitan pizza." Since that time, Cuomo has been credited with catapulting Neapolitan pizza to fame in Japan, and today in all Asia with over 100 restaurant.

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