I love breads and love to experiment a lot trying to create breads that pamper our taste buds. So when Marisa my friend and a “Baking Partner” asked me if we can try Pataqueta bread, I thought it was a great idea. I thought since it is Thanksgiving month it will be good idea for us to try this bread.
Marisa of Thermofan is a teacher by profession, and thus lot of enthusiasm and drive, she put in a lot of time and efforts to learn this bread from a local baker who makes this occasionally. This bread belongs to ancient European bread, with thick crust and thin crumbs inside. This is one of the ancient and traditional seventeenth century bread from Valencia. The Pataqueta, diminutive for "pataca" has the shape of a crescent Moon. This is the bread the inhabitants of the Valencia’s Orchard used to eat when they went to work. It was firstly baked in the Moorish oven they have in their Barraca and then in wood
Nowadays, it is not frequently baked and people book it in advance to get one. “Pataquetas” are usually baked for the important festival, “Fallas”. Most of Valencia’s bakers are asked to bake “pataquetas” every year in March.
However modern day Valencia region is famous for its Horchata and Farton, Paella,Tapas etc.
It is really simple bread without any added fat, only flour, yeast, salt and bit of sugar. First day you need to make starter and store them in refrigerator to do cold fermentation and next day, make the bread with starter. The original recipe to make with bread required bread flour; however I was short of bread flour so made this bread with white whole wheat bread. It is tasty hardy bread you need dig in with soup or curry, so I made spicy egg curry to go with it. We enjoyed this bread for our dinner. The speciality of bread is its crescent shape.Usually a pataqueta served with a grilled tenderloin and cheese on one side and other side with minced garlic, parsley and olive oil and tomato with oil and salt. It is sandwich bread. I think they may be distant cousin of Italian Ciabatta.
If you like thick crusted European style breads, then try it, as it has lot historical importance attached to it.
Please visit rest of baking partners blog to see how they created this traditional bread.
If you wish to join us next month baking please shoot an e-mail.
Ingredients
- 100 ml water
- 50 g /1/3 cup white flour
- 12.5 g fresh yeast/5g or1 ½ teaspoon Instant yeast/6.25g or 2tsp active dry yeast
- ½ teaspoon sugar
- 450 g/3 cup strong bread flour (substitute with all purpose flour/Maida) I used 2 cup of white whole wheat flour and 1 cup bread flour
- 200 ml tepid water
- 10 g/1 ¾ teaspoon fine sea salt
- all the ferment
- a little flour for dusting the work surface and the bread.
Instructions
- Ferment
- Day before you baking bread in the evening, in a container, mix all purpose flour, sugar, year and water and cover well and keep in the refrigerator for about 8 hours or overnight. You can store this up to 48 hours.
- On the day of baking in a bowl of kitchen aid stand mixer add white whole wheat flour, bread flour, all the ferment and water mix very well once it is combined well. Then add salt and mix once again into very smooth dough
- Set aside in a lightly greased plastic container for doubling in volume. Cover with plastic film and a damp towel. When it is double in volume that is after 60 minutes of fermentation weigh the dough( 871g) and divide into 150g pieces you will get around 6 pieces, of which 5 pieces are of 150g pieces and a small piece of about 121 g.
- Make dough pieces into smooth round balls.
- Then with a sharp knife or baker scraper make a cut in for about 1 ½ inch and cut open from the outside. Flatten the ball and mark the cut above.
- Place them on a baking tray and cover them again with a kitchen cloth dusted with flower.
- Leave to rest until them double in size, for about 1 hour.
- Preheat the oven to 400F/200 C
- Slightly score the top of the bread and dust with some flour using sieve or strainer before making. - Bake the bread by keep a pan with hot water on the bottom rack, this will create steam and make crust crusty. 30 minutes 400F
- Cool on a wire rack. Enjoy as sandwich or with any spicy curry or hardy soup.
Notes
This recipe is adapted from Entre Cacerolas'Pataquetas
Copyright ©2013 Zesty South Indian Kitchen by Swathi( Ambujom Saraswathy) All Rights Reserved
If you wish to join us next month baking please shoot an e-mail.
This is Swathi ( Dr. Ambujom Saraswathy Ph.D) from Zesty South Indian Kitchen who loves to explore cuisines from all over the world. Whenever possible I try to to give an Indian touch to several of the world cuisine, and has weakness for freshly baked bread. All the recipes you see here are created by me and approved after taste-test by my family.
Reeni says
Your bread turned out great with the white whole wheat flour! These are so cute! I really enjoyed making them. I might make them for Thanksgiving if I have time - smaller like dinner roll size with some kind of flavoring - maybe a little cheese and some tpe of seeds.
Swathi says
I too thinking of making them with cheddar cheese and rosemary.
Divya Ashok says
Awesome Swathi! Beautifully done 🙂
Swati Sapna says
I had never heard of this bread before... and just love its quirky new shape! Thats the beauty of food blogs... we learn something new every day thanks to people like you who take the effort to research and try new things learnt from new people 🙂
Fab says
The bread in the basket looks very inviting!!
Minnie@thelady8home says
I have a love for fresh bread, and this looks beautifully done!
Hema says
Bread looks awesome, perfectly baked..
Meena Kumar says
Wow the bread looks yummy Swathi!
Sangeetha says
wonderful bread n love the clear explanation Swathi!!!
savitha says
Loved this challenge a lot. Swathi your bread looks so good.
Ash-foodfashionparty says
Swathi, the bread looks so good. Bread is the best when freshly baked at home, can't get enough of it. Rustic breads are a gorgeous thing.
Rafeeda says
the bread looks really interesting...
Suja Manoj says
Swathi,loved this challenge and loved baking this bread,yours looks so yummy and perfectly baked.
rosita vargas says
Hermoso pan tradicional si hasta el nombre me encantò,abrazos.
maha says
very soft and delicious luking bread...good.
Shannon R says
It looks great Swathi! I love your step by step photos.
sangeetha says
they look perfect.. well baked
Swathi says
Thanks sangeetha
Sapana says
Bread looks so soft inside and crispy fomrom outside . Wonderfully presented ...
Swathi says
Thanks Sapana, yes really wonderful bread.
Arthy shama says
Hi Swathi, lovely pataqueta. And am happy to say that your recent updates are shown on reading list, ( all last six posts lined up like ' posted six hours ago', ) Good that you fixed it 🙂
Swathi says
Thanks Arthy , yes I played little around to figure it out. Thanks for notifying me dear friend.
Marisa says
Dear Swathi, I’m really touched after reading your post. As you know, you’re also my friend from America, the only one (at the moment, ja ja).
Love all your explanation about the origin of pataqueta and how it is eaten, always as a sandwich.
Planning this challenge and baking this bread, has been a long trip and you can imagine how happy I am seen all the contributions. Hope you’ll bake it again.
I also see that you have started an investigation about my city and what it is eaten. Marvelous. Paella is the most important dish and is known all around the world but it is in Valencia, where people can eat the best paellas in the world. You can imagine my mother’s paella, delicious. Horchata and fartons are also famous; I’ve got both recipes in my site.
Hope one day, you can taste everything here. There are only 8.358,90 km by plane .
Please, if you don’t mind, change the link to my site so that visitors can see my pataquetas.
http://thermofan.blogspot.com.es/2013/11/pataqueta-de-lhorta-valencias-orchard_15.html
Thanks a lot for everything.
Cheers from Valencia.
Swathi says
Thanks Marisa,
For wonderful challenge, yes I loved the bread to the core. Sure when I visit Valencia, I am going to try all the yummy goodies, espcially pallea, tapas, horichata etc. Sure I will bake this bread more often.
Rekha says
I like that you have put an empty bread flour tin..heee
The bread looks perfectly baked Swathi
Swathi says
Yes Rekha, I have only that much bread flour left, thanks for liking the bread.
Gayathri says
awesome looking bread...perfectly baked and gorgeous
Swathi says
Thanks Gayathri
Radha says
Yummy and tasty recipe <3
Swathi says
Thanks Radha
Nagashree says
Beautiful looking bread Swathi, thanks for this challenge.
Swathi says
Thanks Nagashree