Italian Bread Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What makes Italian bread different from regular bread? ›

Italian bread tends to include olive oil, herbs, and milk that add to its distinctive taste and texture.

If you've made my favorite white bread recipe, you may remember that I opt for all-purpose flour because it produces a super light and fluffy bread. In contrast, we want to use bread flour for this Italian bread due to its higher protein content, which will create a bread that is chewier in texture and a bit denser.

1. Ciabatta. Ciabatta is an Italian bread that is known for its distinctive shape and texture. It is a relatively new bread, created in the 1980s by Arnaldo Cavallari, a baker from Verona, Italy.

The "flat" term in question simply refers to the pan in which it's baked compared to other breads. Focaccia does not require kneading, making it an easy bread to pull together. It's easily recognized by the large hills and valleys in the top, caused by the pressing of fingertips into the risen dough before it's baked.

Italian Bread Basics

You may have had Italian bread before, but it's important to know what characteristics you can expect it to have: The inside is moist, thick, and very absorbent, perfect for soaking up soup, sauces, and oils. Italian bread tends to be an elongated oval shape, not too thin and not too thick.

According to Eva, the answer is that they use a different type of flour – Italian bread and pasta are made of durum wheat flour which doesn't spike your blood sugar levels as much and therefore it doesn't significantly contribute to weight gain as much as regular refined white flour would, for example.

Too much extra flour worked into the dough while folding and/or shaping can cause dense bread. Over mixing can cause a dense loaf by the weakening and breakdown of the gluten (not likely to happen if you fold dough or hand knead). The flour you used is a whole grain with coarse bits of bran and grain in it.

Perhaps the most obvious difference is that all purpose flour lacks the super-fine texture from which 00 flour gets its name. This will make rolling or stretching your dough more difficult, so you'll need to be extra careful to avoid tearing.

No matter how the flour gets processed, the Italian kind is already softer, slightly sweeter, and lower in protein (i.e. gluten), while American wheat is already harder, slightly more bitter, and high in protein (i.e. gluten).

Other sweet options include maritozzi, the famous Italian sweet bread often found in Rome, or biscotti to go with your coffee. A healthy Italian breakfast might consist of some bread, butter, jam, some yogurt, and fruit. Italians also eat muesli and cereal in the mornings with yogurt or milk.

What kind of bread do Sicilians eat? ›

Pane Siciliano is a traditional bread from Sicily made with durum wheat (semolina), sometimes a little olive oil (as I do in this recipe), and even sweeteners such as honey or barley malt syrup. The flavor is nutty, sweet, and with a buttery mouthfeel, thanks to the olive oil.

Ciabatta. Ciabatta is a rustic Italian loaf that's filled with tons of irregularly-shaped air pockets. It's super crusty on the outside and chewy on the inside, making it an ideal choice for making sandwiches.

Like croissants and brioche buns, focaccia is high in calories and fat. Most people aren't aware of it, but it contains a lot of olive oil, which in excess has the same effect. To lose weight, people should choose whole-grain or rye bread, which has more fibre and is lower in fat and calories.

But though pizza can stand in for a meal, focaccia is more of a snack, or at most an appetizer. In Italy, it's a popular walking-around food. Also, though cold pizza may have a certain raffish charm, focaccia really needs to be eaten when it's hot to be at its best.

So why does it tend to be more expensive to purchase? Friends who have worked in the restaurant industry had some thoughts: Focaccia requires a lot of olive oil, which is pricey (though some other breads call for butter and eggs, which pencil out to more in my own Kirkland-brand-olive-oil kitchen).

Like ordinary white bread, most are made from refined white flour. However, true French and Italian breads are made without added fat or shortening, so the calorie count could be marginally lower than a same-size slice of white bread.

Sourdough bread is healthier than Italian bread. Like the other bread types touched on thus far, Italian bread is made using commercial yeast. Since Italian bread does not traditionally use wild yeast that ferments slowly, Italian bread does not have the enhanced nutritional content that sourdough bread has.

The biggest difference between American breads versus European breads is the quality of the ingredients used in each bread. Standard, store-bought American bread contains many preservatives and fillers that are banned in European countries.

It has yeast, water, oil and flour. But no salt. Without it, the bread has no flavour, but it also has a lighter crust and chewier texture. The reigning theory is that salt was taxed too heavily in medieval Florence, so bakers left it out.