Rustic Italian Bread

happened to stumble across this recipe, and it looked interesting. I have never made italian bread so I was up for the challenge! The bread needs to be prepared the night before, because you need to make the biga. I had no idea what that was so I googled it:

"Biga is a type of pre-ferment used in Italian baking. Many popular Italian breads, including ciabatta, are made using a biga. Using a biga adds complexity to the bread's flavor and is often used in breads which need a light, open texture with holes. Apart from adding to flavor and texture, a biga also helps to preserve bread by making it less perishable. Biga techniques were developed after the advent of baker's yeast as bakers in Italy moved away from the use of sourdough and needed to recover some of the flavor which was given up in this move."



The time thats put into the bread is worth it. The bread is delicious! The crust is crispy and inside is very soft. The recipe is from cookography.com and it has illustrations on how to fold the bread. So for the recipe click here.