Tomato bread. Recipe by Emmanuel Hadjiandreou

One of the books I have enjoyed more in terms of baking is Pains et Viennoiseries Maison Pas à Pas, by Emmanuel Hadjiandreou. Since I bought it, a year ago, I wanted to prepare this tomato bread. I don’t know why I haven’t done it before.

It’s a low hydration bread dough, with a big avarage of sourdough, and a short fermentation. You shouldn’t let the dough rest a lot of time because concentrated tomato paste contains a lot of sugar, and you could cause a mess.

Ingredients:

 - 400 gr bread flour

- 300 gr liquid sourdough (50% water 50% flour)

- 100 ml water

- 40 gr concentrated tomato paste

- 2 tsp rosemary

- 2 tbsp olive oil

- 10 gr salt

In the book recipe, the master suggests to mix the dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet ingredients in another one, and then mix them. Let it rest 10 minutes, and then knead. It is a very dry dough, so you can add a little bit of water. When the dough is ready, let it rest 1 hour.

Shape a batard, put it into a banetton or a proofing basket, and let it rest between 3 and 6 hours, depending on the room temperature, the power of your sourdough, the amount of sugar your concentrated paste contains.

Preheat your oven at 240C (465F). Put the bread into the oven, 35-45 minutes at 220C (428F). Create some steam at the begin of the baking process.

This recipe calls to make some changes: increase hydration, use poolish instead of sourdough, make buns instead of a big batard, add another ingredients like black olives… It’s your choice!

More info: http://breadgallery.wordpress.com/2013/08/06/pan-de-tomate-tomato-bread/