tortano {easter bread by gabriele bonci}

As I mentioned the other day, my recent Easter bread extravaganza with Gabriele Bonci included not one, not two but four types of savory breads. While the incredible energy of Gabriele made it through all four, my batteries failed. Literally. My video camera stopped working half way through the class.

Luckily I was able to capture the magic for bread number two: Tortano. And this one is actually a tad bit lighter, and whole lot easier. And I have to say, it’s awful pretty.

This type of bread is called Tortano, because it refers to it’s tortuous – as in twisted – shape. After being stuffed with things like salami, pepper and cheese, ropes of bread dough are twisted into ornate loaves to be eaten at Easter.

While Gabriele taught us four variations, there was one constant: lard. And lots of it. The porky fat not only went into the dough, but was spread liberally in the stuffing before being rolled up. (but it doesn’t have any eggs or butter, so that kind of makes it diet food compared to the pizza al formaggio!)

“When we’re baking dozens of these, and I’m using the lard from four or five pigs, the entire place ends up smelling like porchetta. Easter is beautiful!” Feel free to quote GB on that one.

The recipe is the basic bread recipe, with the addition of strutto. Which, of course, makes all the difference in the world.

The fun thing about these breads, of course, is the shape. Gabriele made four different kinds, two of which involved twisting pairs of ropes of dough into a long spiral, which he then formed into a wreath. The other  two, stuffed with cheese and salami,  were double the thickness and then twisted into a crown shape and a double snail shape.

It’s hard to explain, which is why I made a video (one with my voice over and one without, below).

And it’s also just fun to watch Gabriele’s hands at work. Which have much more stamina than my camera batteries.

Must be the lard.

Tortano Dough

500 gr type “0” flour
500 gr type “1” flour
650/700 gr water
20 gr salt
7 gr dried yeast
100 grams lard

Stuffing:
lard
cubed salami
pepper
rated pecorino cheese

Make the bread dough as you would any other bread, working in the lard at the very end, once the other ingredients are mixed. Let the dough rise, and when you are ready to make the Tortano divide the dough in half.

With one half, you can make the salami and cheese stuffed Tortano, which is made with only one piece of dough, and then twisted into itself.

Divide the remaining dough in half again, and use to make either just pepper, just salami or just cheese.

See the video for the assembly.

Once you have made your loaves, spray them with water, and let them rise until doubled in size.

Bake them in 350F/180F oven for about 40 minutes, until they are golden. They are even better the next day once the fats have time to set.

Here is the original video, without my annoying voice over.

Pizzarium
Via della Meloria, 43

Panificio Bonci
via Trionfale 34/36


For a full list of Bonci’s classes visit the Tricolore  web site , where the schedule is updated monthly.  

See my post from the other day for a full list of all my past Bonci posts.