bread

Schiacciata is a well-known flatbread from the Tuscany region of Italy. This bread is a bit like focaccia, but while focaccia is rather soft and fluffy, schiacciata has a crispy crust and is soft and airy inside. In the streets of Florence, schiacciata-based sandwiches were quite common, and they were also offered as bread in food places. A good way to eat this bread is to make a nice Italian sandwich with either ham or salami, adding lettuce or arugula and basil, as well as tomato, olives, and mozzarella. This bread is thin, but it’s quite easy to cut in half to put the filling in because of the crispy crust. Making this bread is not so difficult as it takes a lot of time, but the result is worth it.

Preparation time: 14-15 hours preparing the root system, 4-5 hours preparing the bread, 30 minutes baking
Level: Not too difficult
Quantity: One 30 x 35 cm loaf

Ingredients:
Sourdough:
125 g Tipo 00 flour
125 ml of water
0.5 tsp dry yeast

Bread dough:
240 g of water
30 ml of olive oil
380 g Tipo 00 flour
10 g of sea salt

Plus olive oil to pour over the bread before baking

Preparation:
Sourdough:

1. Mix the flour, water, and yeast into a smooth liquid dough and let it stand at room temperature for 30 minutes until the yeast starts to work and the sourdough starts to bubble.
2. Cover the leaven with a clean towel raise it to +4 degrees C and let it stand for about 14-15 hours. During this time, the yeast should have risen about twice.

Dough:

3. Add water, flour, salt, and olive oil to the leaven. Mix the dough until smooth. It remains sticky and extremely runny.
4. Let the dough stand under a towel at room temperature for 30 minutes.
5. After 30 minutes, wet your hands slide your hands under the edge of the dough, and lift and stretch it over the dough, turn the bowl 90 degrees, and lift the edge of the dough over the dough again. In this way, lift the edge of the dough from all four sides. Let the dough rest under a towel for 30 minutes.
6. Repeat stretching and lifting the edge of the dough over the dough three more times, letting the dough rest for 30 minutes each time.
7. After the last stretching and lifting, let the dough rest and rise for 60 minutes.
8. Line the baking pan with baking paper transfer the dough to the baking pan and spread it into a square of about 30 cm. The dough remains in a 1 cm thick layer. Cover the baking pan with cling film and let it rise for 90 minutes.
9. Heat the oven to 200 degrees C.
10. After 90 minutes, sprinkle about 30 ml of olive oil on the bread and press the oil into the bread with your fingers. Air bubbles appear on the surface of well-risen bread, which cooks until crispy.
11. Bake at 200 degrees C for 30 minutes.
12. Let it cool down a bit, cut it into the pieces you like, and eat it as it is, or cut it in half crosswise with a knife. It’s easy to do because the crust of the bread is quite crispy and hard.
    Sprinkle olive oil on the cut bread, place lettuce, ham or salami, mozzarella, tomatoes, or anything else you like.
    This bread is special because it doesn’t harden very much on standing. The crust remains crispy and the bread remains nicely soft inside.
    Ready!!