How to make Panini at home

To begin, I am always biased when it comes to breads. Bread recipes excite me. Today I am sharing Panini bread recipe. The bread is extremely light and has a beautiful web of air pockets. The word panino [pa’ni:no] is Italian and it means “small bread roll”; its plural form is panini. Panino is also used as the word for a sandwich made from bread other than sliced bread.

How to make Panini at home

Panini are commonly served warm after having been pressed in grilling machines called either panini presses or simply panini machines. I had great time with my Panini sandwich yesterday.

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A rainy afternoon with excellent Panini sandwich, in my room watching Monte Carlo. Amazing ! The best part is yet to come- Kids at school, Pranav in office. I am just at peace and my coffee is hot. Only a mom will understand this pleasure. Lol

How to make Panini at home

Getting back to the Panini bread. It’s different and very interesting. This recipe is not complicated at all, although it does take a little bit of planning ahead since the biga (pre-fermentation) needs to be made the night before you plan to bake the bread. But that is what develops the actual flavor

The dough is extremely slack (wet) and sticky; and you will not need any bread kneading machine to do the dough. The technique I am sharing here is specially used for wet moist dough. You might find the time mentioned in the recipe is long but hands-on time is less than an hour total.

HOW TO MAKE BREAD – BEGINNERS RECIPE

To begin – if you are new to bread making; read these (click and learn) because bread baking is an art. And it would be great if you understand the ingredients and how these ingredients work together.

BREAD BASICS

The points to read before we start:

1. We will be using flour with a higher protein level, labelled as bread flour, strong flour, or high-gluten. I prefer adding a pinch of gluten powder to my flour, when the water ratio is high in the recipe. A high water ratio is important in getting nice open crumb in the bread.

2. You will need to prepare Biga a night before (Combine the flour, yeast and water in a bowl and stir with a wooden spoon until a uniform mass forms. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature for at least 8 hours or up to 15 hours).

3. You might find that the dough is annoyingly sticky and wet. The reason I did the whole kneading process in this blue bowl is to prevent the temptation of adding more flour while kneading. You got to do the same thing.

How to make Panini at home

4. All you have to do is use a dough scraper and a big bowl. Once the basic ingredient mix is done; start using a dough scraper for the rest of the job. Lift the dough gently with the scraper and take one edge of the dough and stretch it slightly and then fold it onto the top of the dough. Turn your bowl 180 degrees and stretch the dough in the same way. Fold the dough over itself by gently lifting and folding the edge of the dough toward the middle. Rotate the bowl;, and fold again. Turn the bowl and fold the dough 6 more times (for a total of 8 times). After some flips, the bottom part of the dough should be on the top.

5. Repeat the process in 30 minutes (So these step needs to be done a total of five times). I know it sounds like too much time; but come on- The bread is gonna be just awesome. And you have all the time free in between the folding process. (I was making Yati do her Maths, Listening Geography from Nitya).

6. Feel free to flavour the bread; but I suggest make a plain one first. I sprinkled some dried basil on top just before baking.