Holy breadness. Lately I've been trying to expand my bread repertoire and bake something out of my comfort zone, all the while a certain bread-eater in my life has been requesting the perfect bread as an oil vehicle. Apparently Safeway's Como bread was a big hit, so off I went to find an Italian Como bread recipe... and I did! This bread was not just delicious, it was by far the best bread I have ever made - according to my sources (and my taste buds). It was doughy and moist, full of pockets to soak up oil, and had a lovely flavor. This is a winner. I've made it every weekend for the last month now, because we keep demolishing loaves right and left!
The recipe is slightly more involved than others I've tried - I had to make a biga the night before. A biga is similar to a poolish, only much firmer and more dough-like. It was easy enough to make, let sit on the counter overnight, and then cut up and incorporate into the full dough as I made it the next day. This bread did take a lot of steps - folding, mixing, shaping, etc. It was totally worth it.
I played around with shapes (and should have actually TRIED to make it pretty, whoops!) while shaping, but for both loaves I rolled it up
Pinched the seams shut
Then dimpled it - recommended so it doesn't rise too much!
I made this recipe exactly according to the directions, as I didn't want to screw it up, and followed their measurements in grams - so having a kitchen scale is pretty essential for this recipe. You could do the conversions (or I could have for you...) but it is really more precise to just weigh everything.
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Lake Como Bread
- Prep Time: 1 hour
- Cook Time: 30 mins
- Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
- Yield: 1 loaf 1x
Description
A rich bread with an open crumb and a light crust with a good crunch.
Ingredients
Biga
- 110 grams bread flour
- 70 grams water
- ½ tsp dry yeast
Dough
- Biga
- 340 grams water
- 65 grams whole wheat flour
- 435 grams bread flour
- 16 grams salt (2 tsp)
Instructions
- The night before you plan to make this bread, mix the ingredients for the biga together and knead into a dough. Place in an oiled bowl and cover for the night.
- The next morning, combine the water and flours with the biga (I cut mine, with scissors, into small pieces) in a stand mixer. Mix, with the dough hook, for 2 minutes. Cover the dough and let rest for 25 minutes.
- Uncover and add salt - mix for 6 more minutes. Place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover, and let rise for 75 minutes.
- Uncover dough and fold it. Cover and let rise for 30 minutes.
- Uncover and cut dough into two pieces - let rest for 20 minutes before shaping dough into loaves, covering with a damp towel, and letting it rise for 90 minutes.
- Heat oven to 425 F, bake bread for 23-25 minutes or until it sounds hollow when you knock on the bottom. Cool on a bread rack until completely cool before packaging - it will soften up considerably
Notes
- To make your own bread flour, use Smitten Kitchen's tip of replacing 1 tablespoon per cup of regular flour with gluten flour.
- Using a stand mixer was the easiest way to make this bread, but you could do it by hand - just be prepared for a lot of kneading!
bread says
Hi,
Which bread flour did you use for this? (brand)
Thanks!
mary says
I use Wheat Montana flour - but I buy regular flour and add Bob's Red Mill Wheat Gluten to make my own bread flour. It works perfectly for me! I also highly recommend Wheat Montana flours, although I don't know how widely available they are outside of Montana!
Cassie says
That's a neat trick! What's the regular flour to wheat gluten ratio?
Mary says
Hi Cassie! Replace 1 Tbsp per cup of regular flour with gluten flour. Enjoy!
Mariah says
It's great.
Thank you so much!
Joe says
I made this recipe and used a pre-heated baking stone for one loaf and a cold pan for the other. The loaf off the baking stone was smaller in size, remained denser, probably more true to como style. The loaf from the baking pan ended up larger and had more of a 'french bread' feel to it. I threw in a cup of water in another pan to keep the air most in the oven. Both were delicious.
★★★★★
Mary says
Thanks for the notes, Joe! Glad you enjoyed the bread. xo