Annalisa

Annalisa De Luca lives in Tuscany, and for many years she has been living sustainably. She is renowned for her sourdough bread made with “mother dough” (also called sourdough or mother starter).
Annalisa teaches her bread making techniques and a few weeks ago I attended one of her classes. In this class Annalisa taught us to make Pan Dolce also showing us how to make this for Vegans.

There were 12 of us in the class and we arrived at an old Tuscan farmhouse complete with a wood fired oven. The atmosphere in the class was very relaxing especially when I was kneading the bread. I firmly believe that when you use your hands to cook for me it is not like work because it is pure joy.

Il pan dolce

Before the class Annalisa prepared the dough for us. The dough was made from the mother dough combined with water and flour. It was wrapped in a cotton cloth and tied up tightly then left for almost a day. The whole class then started to knead this dough ball together.

After kneading the dough we let it sit for about an hour so that it could rise. We then divided the dough into about 500g loaves.

The dough of a single loaf is made of:

• mother dough 200gr,
• warm water 30° 150gr,
• flour 250gr

to which we added sweet ingredients:

• 100g butter,
• 100g of brown sugar,
• chopped spices (cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, ginger etc.)

For the vegan loaf:

• 100g of seed oil,
• 100g of malt and spices.

Annalisa also showed us how to gradually add flour to get a soft but elastic dough which must fall between your fingers. One of the students In the class also added raisins, walnuts, hazelnuts , apples, prunes and various seeds.

It truly was a beautiful day and whilst we waited for the bread to rise (3-4 hours) we all had lunch together asking many questions of Annalisa. After lunch we baked the bread in the wood fired oven which took about an hour and we were all so excited to see the fruits of our labour.

To those who want to learn how to make sour dough I suggest Annalisa’s book Facciamo il pane by Edizioni Terra Nuova. It is really extensive and full of interesting recipes – including that of pan dolce.
You can also follow Annalisa on her blog.

I would like to thank Annalisa for her generosity and for the bread making class as my bread making has improved immensely. Thank you as well to my friend Franco for introducing me to Annalisa.