Eisdiele Capri

It’s time for another Bread Baking Day again :-). Making cannoli last weekend I had some ricotta left, so I was more than happy to discover that this month’s bread-baking-challenge was: bread with cheese *woohoo*! This means I just had to participate with a ‘pane alla ricotta’.

I thought Ricotta is a very popular kind of cheese but as I just asked in my Turkish supermarket for it and they never heard of something that would be called “what ricotto?!”, I’ll shortly explain what it is :-)!

Ricotta (lit. ‘recooked’) is an *obviously Italian* fresh cheese, grainy and creamy white in appearance and slightly sweet in taste. In this form, it is somewhat similar in texture to some cottage cheese variants, though considerably lighter. While Italian Ricotta is typically made from the whey of sheep or water buffalo milk, the German product is almost always made of cow’s milk whey. The name Ricotta refers to the proces of heating the whey near boiling, forming a fine curd. Once cooled, the curd is separated by passing though a fine cloth.

Pane alla ricotta is a common kind of bread in Italy. You can have it savoury or sweet, just as you like it. I made a sweet one, obviously because my blog is all about sweet things, and as I’m expecting many savoury breads for Bread Baking Day this month I guess this sweet one can make a nice variety :-).

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And this is how it works:

- 350 gr flour
- 100 gr ricotta
- a bit of salt
- 3 TB sugar
- yeast (I used my favorit one this time: pane degli angeli for sweet treats :-). But you can of course also use fresh one.)
- some water to smoothen the dough
- egg or condensed milk to make your bread glaze

1 Mix all ingredients until your dough is smooth (don’t forget to add water)
2 Let it rise for about 30 minutes (room temperature)
3 Knead it another time and let it rise another 30 minutes
4 Form it as you want (I braided mine this time)
5 Let it rise in the oven by 50°C until it “growed” around 1 cm
6 Spread some condensed milk or an egg on it, decorate with decorating sugar
7 Heat up until 180°C until the bread looks crispy

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Bread Baking Day # 16 is hosted by High on the Hog. Make sure you’ll visit the round-up page around Feb. 5th.