Moving right along in my apparent quest to bake all breads at least twice, I tackled Casatiello for the second time this weekend. You may remember that I pretty much hated this bread the first time, but this time, done right? It was amazing. The texture was exactly what you’d expect after reading the description “savory panettone,” and the melted cheese throughout, plus the salty bits of great salami, well . . . what’s not to like!?!?
The two main things I changed ingredients-wise were the meat and the milk. In my first try I used 1% milk because that’s what I had on hand, but for the redo I used buttermilk. I could tell right away that the buttermilk added a certain richness to the dough, even the uncooked dough smelled delicious! But the change was probably subtle in comparison to the other ingredient change: the meat!
I decided to go with the right meat this time, Italian dry salami, one of my favorite things ever. It surprised me how little salami I needed in terms of volume, I guess it’s much heavier than I realized? I weighed it in one big hunk and then diced it up:
And sauteed it to a crisp in the frying pan. Since I’ve already posted the process of making this bread, I figure I’ll just skip to the end . . . here’s the dough done fermenting:
Because I was jealous of everyone else’s gorgeous Casatiellos made in cake pans with parchment paper sides, I decided to do the same for this try:
I used an 8″ cake pan and made sides out of parchment paper so that the bread could grow vertically far beyond the top of the pan. And grow it did! Look at it after it finished proofing:
When it came out of the oven I was even more surprised to find how much oven spring it had! Compared to my last attempt, well . . . there is no comparison!
I thought it was funny that the bread came out with a sort of hourglass shape, I have no idea what I did that caused it! Isn’t it funny-looking?
In this picture you can see that it grew so much, the top actually touched the oven tray above it and got an indent!
Taking a slice out of the cake, uh, I mean, bread, was heaven. The cheese had spread all over and was integrated with the crumb but there were still little pockets of it every so often. The bread itself was moist and soft and fluffy. And the little salty bits of salami were like the icing on top, just enough of a kick of flavor every so often to make you feel like you had to eat every last bit.
I will certainly be making this again in the future. Only next time, maybe a half-recipe?
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Gorgeous shape on your bread and it looks so scrumptious!
What a beauty. Terrific shape on it.
Great job and nice baking along with you,
Susie
Congrats! Well done… truly beautiful and I am sure it tastes even better! Mine did the same thing with it’s oven spring. LOL. I am re-doing a couple of breads too.
Wow! That really came out so well. Now I’m thinking I’m going to have to try mine again. Mine tasted really good but I definitely didn’t get the nice open crumb you did. Great job!
Beautiful. Maybe I’ll have to give it another try, too. I was less than impressed with my previous attempt. It was just OK, but THIS looks great! Well done!
See! I knew it would work for you. The bread looks simply delicious. Even though I am a vegetarian, my mouth is watering because it looks almost exactly like mine. But even better!