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Pane Rustico is a delicious bread that I will be making for years to come! It’s a soft bread with a pillowy crumb. It also has a really lovely crust that makes this the ideal bread to have as toast!
For more bread recipes, try this no knead olive bread!
Pane Rustico is a traditional Sicilian Bread that is typically baked in an wood-fired oven and eaten with stews, cheeses, and sandwiches!
I paired this bread with cream cheese and sun-dried cherry tomatoes from Cost Plus World Market and topped it with salt and fresh basil. To say that this combination was “good” is an understatement of the century!
Right after I baked this loaf, I couldn’t wait for it to cool. I cut into it and let the steam fill my house with the smell of freshly baked bread. Easily one of my favorite smells!
Table of Contents
Key Ingredients
Active dry yeast helps bread rise by feeding on sugars in the dough and releasing carbon dioxide. This creates air pockets and makes the bread light and fluffy. It also adds subtle flavor during fermentation, giving homemade bread that classic yeasty aroma and taste.
I used a mix of bread flour, whole wheat flour, and all-purpose flour. This balances the structure, flavor, and texture of the bread. Bread flour adds chew and strength, whole wheat brings a slightly nutty flavor, and all-purpose softens the crumb for a tender, well-rounded loaf.
Water hydrates the flour, which activates gluten development and allows the dough to form and stretch.
Kosher salt enhances the flavor of the bread and helps strengthen the gluten structure for a better texture.
How To Make Pane Rustico
After reading many recipes on how to bake, I wanted to keep this as authentic as possible. I don’t have a wood-fired oven, but I do have an oven that gets pretty hot!
The dutch oven preheated in the oven at 450 degrees F for 30 minutes. Then, I baked the bread at 450 degrees for 30 minutes, took the cover off of the dutch oven and took the heat up to 500 degrees F to get a beautiful crust on this loaf!
For this Pane Rustico, I used three different kinds of flour for this recipe – bread flour, all purpose, and whole wheat. For the sake of time, I also yeast active dry yeast as opposed to making a biga. After looking at several recipes, yeast and a biga were used interchangeably.
Expert Bread Baking Tips
- Let the dough rest (autolyse) for 20–30 minutes after mixing flour and water but before adding salt or yeast. This jumpstarts gluten development and improves texture. (see instructions in the recipe card)
- Make sure your yeast is not expired! This is critical – I’ve done this and was puzzled as to why my bread didn’t rise. Checked the yeast and boom – expired. Learn from my mistakes, make sure the yeast is active!
- Let it cool completely before cutting into to! As tempting as warm bread is, slicing too early ruins the texture. Let it cool at least an hour so the crumb can set fully.
More Bread Recipes
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If you make this recipe, please leave a star rating on the recipe card and comment below! You can also tag @BritneyBreaksBread on Instagram and hashtag #britneybreaksbread so I can celebrate your beautiful creations!
Pane Rustico
Ingredients
- 430 g Bread Flour
- 80 g Whole Wheat Flour
- 230 g All-Purpose Flour
- 600 g Water
- 6 g Active Dry Yeast
- 17 g Kosher Salt
Instructions
- Combine bread flour, whole wheat flour, all purpose flour, and water in a large mixing bowl. Mix thoroughly and cover with a towel and allow dough to rest for 1 hour.
- Add salt and yeast and knead dough for 5 minutes. Stretch and fold dough about 3-4 times and allow dough to rest for 30 minutes.
- Stretch and fold dough again for 3 minutes. Dough should be a bit bubbly so be gentle with the dough so as to not degas it. Cover dough and put into an oven with the oven light on. Let it sit for 2.5 hours.
- Gently place dough onto a floured work surface and stretch and fold the dough one last time. Gently fold dough on top of itself to form a shoelace pattern and add to a proofing basket dough side up. Cover dough and refrigerate for 3 hours.
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Add dutch oven to the oven for 30 minutes. Remove dough from refrigerator and add to dutch oven and cover with lid. Bake for 30 minutes.
- Remove lid from bread and increase the oven temperature to 500 degrees and let bread bake for an additional 15-20 minutes.
- Allow bread to cool for 1 hour.
- Eat!
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Hi! Do you think it would harm the bread to leave it in the fridge longer than 3 hours? I started the process but don’t know if I’ll have time to bake it before I go to work. Thanks!
Yes! You certainly can! You can leave the bread in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours!