Culinary Stories: the sweet bread made with 5 cereals and dry fruit.
Welcome to our first appointment with our culinary stories.
Our philosophy of life is socializing, sharing emotions, and enjoying healthy, good food. Since the 1900s in Italy there have been many small revolutions in the food sector that have changed our eating habits. They haven’t always contributed to our quality of life in a positive way, especially when it comes to the most important meal of the day: breakfast.
We are no longer a population who consumes a quick cup of coffee on the run, and we can say that eating a regular breakfast actually began in Italy around the 1950s. Farmers used to eat the typical bread or polenta dipped in hot milk, or they used to eat leftovers from the day before. The wealthier people used to eat biscuits with milk but these were nothing like the ones on the market today. With the economic boom of the 1960s the Mediterranean breakfast changed drastically. Besides milk, bread and coffee, people started to consume croissants, biscuits, pre-packaged cakes, melba toast, flavoured spreads, honey, jams and marmalades, butter, yogurt and packaged cereals. With wealth, even the standards for aesthetics and beauty changed.
Bathroom scales arrived in our homes and calorie counting began. Yes, it is important to watch our caloric intake, but above all we must pay attention to the nutrients, the proteins, the simple and complex carbohydrates, the fibres and the fats.
These are all very important for our diet: proteins keep us full for a long time and can be found in meat, fish, eggs, milk, yogurt, ricotta, pulses, quinoa, vegetable milk and soy.
Simple carbohydrates are in fruit, which should be eaten at breakfast and as a snack. Complex carbohydrates like oats, potatoes, pasta, bread, rice help the body assimilate less fats. Fats are also important, however, especially the omega 3 that are found in oils, flaxseeds, fish and dry fruit, which make a great snack if eaten with moderation. In honour of the bread and milk breakfast of our great-grandparents, we wish to present to you our recipe for the sweet bread made with 5 cereals and dry fruit.
Ingredients:
half a kilo of 5 cereal flour
10 grams of bread yeast
2 tablespoons of olive oil
2 tablespoons of brown sugar
1 teaspoon of pink Himalayan salt
260 millilitres of water
Dry and desiccated fruits
We prepare and knead the dough well and leave it to rise for about an hour. We deflate it by kneading a bit more and then add the fruit leaving a few almonds for decoration. We shape it and leave it to rise in a bread loaf tin a bit more until it doubles in size. We place a few almonds on top and put it in the oven at 180° for about an hour. A slice of this delight with a touch of jam or honey, eaten at breakfast, with our favourite milk drink, is an excellent way to start the day!
(La foto sweet bread made with 5 cereals and dry fruit. English translation di Tina Ferraiuolo & Cristiana Ordioni)
