Cuban Bread

Sasquatch-

Here is a pretty basic cuban bread. It's fairly simple to make (I own a bread bakery and we found this on a website but can't remember which one. But I can vouch that it's simple to make) You can use this as a base and add your own favorite cuban influences. Anyway here's the recipe.

(From Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads)

Cuban Bread
(two plump loaves)

5-6 cups all-purpose flour
2 packages dry yeast
1 tablespoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
2 cups warm water (110F)
Sesame or poppy seeds (optional)

Grease a baking sheet and sprinkle with cornmeal

Place 4 cups flour in a large bowl, add yeast salt, & sugar. Stir until well blended. Pour in water, beat 100 strokes, or about 15 min (3 min with a mixers flat beater.) Gradually work in remaining flour 1/2 cup at a time, until dough loses stickiness.

Sprinkle work surface lightly with flour. Work in flour as you knead, about 5 min. Keep dusting work surface as needed. Knead for 8 min, until dough is smooth and elastic.

Put dough in greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap and a kitchen towl. Let rise in a warm, draft-free place for about 15 min.

Punch dough down, turn onto work surface, cut in two. Shape each into rounds, place on baking sheet, slash an X in the top of each loaf with a sharp knife. Brush with water and sprinkle with sesame or poppy seeds if desired.

Place baking sheet in middle of cold oven. Put a pan of hot water on the shelf below. Turn oven to 400F until loaves are deep golden brown. Thump the bottom- if they sound hollow, they are done.

NOTE: As this recipe contains no oil it won't stay fresh long. It's best used in the first 48 hours. If you can't use it that fast double wrap in a heavy duty freezer zip top bag and store in frezzer. Thaw in fridge to avoid sogginess.

 

Would anyone mind explaining what is so cuban about this bread, other than it's name? I'm no chef, but it looks like a pretty basic bread recipe to me.

 

An excellent question Falcon. Basically all breads are similar, i.e. made of the same basic ingredients. The differences come during the rising and baking stages. In this case, even though you use the same ingredients as a french bread the thing that makes this recipe distinctly cuban is the baking process. Cuban bread is place in a cold oven with a pan of water underneath. Because it finishes rising in the oven as it bakes it makes for a very thin, crisp crust that most associate with Cuban breads.

 

Thanks for the laugh Dutch. Very much needed on a busy Wednesday.

 

oooohhh! :shock: That is excellent! I think that this will definitely be tried tonight, (possibly with your help giving me a baguette vatiation?) I've searched high and low for a truely authentic store bought baguette, and nothing seems to come close to that crispy flaky crust with an oh so soft and spongy center.

Maybe you can help me to bake my own? I was an exchange student my 16th year of life in 1999-2000, and right now I am drooling on my keyboard with the remembrance of the daily fresh baked bread that I ate. Please! I beg of you! :cry: :D

 

I'll try and help. Let me do some quick searching and see if I can come up with a good step-by-step for forming baguettes.

 

Okay Falcon, I hope this helps. It comes from my French Bread recipe but should work for this as well. Just use that recipe I posted and instead of forming two loaves follow these directions for making a baguette.

After the first rise gently punch down the dough and cut into desired number of baguettes (pieces should be about 10-12 oz. or a little less for smaller rolls) While working with one piece cover the others with a damp kitchen towel.

Gently stretch one piece into a rectangle, leaving some large bubbles in the dough. Fold 1/3 of the way and the bottom third up as if you were folding a business letter. Now form the loaf into a log by rolling the dough over from left to right and sealing the seam with the heel of your palm. Set aside on the work surface and cover to relax before the final shaping. Repeat the shaping process with remaining pieces of dough.

Elongate each baguette by rolling it back and forth on the work surface along its length. Begin with both hands over the center of the loaf and work them out to the ends until the loaf reaches the desired length. Do not press down. Place the finished loaves on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and generously sprinkled with cornmeal. Then bake as per recipe instructions.

 

mmmm.... I can taste it already!

 

jlloyd99,

Do you know what the conversion of this recipe would be for making a pound loaf in a bread machine? It sounds tasty, we got this bread maker as a wedding present but so far we have only made challah bread for bread pudding.

 

I'm so sorry y2k, but I don't know what that conversion would be. I'm not real familar with bread machines as I don't have one. Let me do some searching around and see what I can come up with. I think some of my baking buddies who own them can help me out. I'll let you know what I find.

 

I love my fellow late night bakers. Heres what they came up with. Again I'm not familar with bread machines so I don't have instructions other than place in your bread machine per manufactuers instructions as you would a french bread loaf. If you want poppy or seseme seeds those would be added after. I hope this helps, let us know how it turns out.

1 pound loaf:
2/3 cup water
3/4 teaspoon sugar
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
1-1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon active dry yeast

 

JL,

I tried this last night; I did the typical bread maker thing. I put all the ingredients in the bread maker and set the program to French Bread setting. I then went to bed with visions of warm bread dancing through my head. Unfortunately when I woke up it I wasn't greeted with a loaf of warm bread instead I was greeted with a warm pile of crumbs. It was way to dry, I mean WAY TO DRY and didn't form a loaf. I am no baker that is for sure but I am wondering if the water amount is correct? Of course it is just as likely that this end user error, I don’t have a lot of experience with this bread maker, but the challah loafs I do turn out pretty good.

The bread maker I use is the Toastmaster Bread Box so if anyone has any tips I would love to hear them.

 

Y2K, I'm so sorry it didn't work. I must say I'm at a bit of a loss as to why it didn't. The ingredients are in the right amounts, the only thing I can think of is that it was baked too long. Maybe try your regular white bread setting? Like I said since I don't have one I really don't know what could have gone wrong. My only other thought would be to do a google search for Cuban Bread and Bread Machine to see if there are some other recipes out there.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

 

jl,

After a morning of ribbing from my wife about what a great cook I am; I decided to take another stab at the Cuban bread.

This time I doubled the recipe, but more importantly I changed the order in which I added the ingredients into the machine. The first time I put the water in first, which I think was the problem, this time I put the yeast , flour salt and sugar in and put the water on top. This allowed the water to get more evenly distributed and everything worked out well. Plus I think that the one pound recipe didn't work well in my machine given the size ratio of the pan to the mixer blade.

Anyways, thanks for the recipe. Here is a pic of the bread it turned out great we had pulled pork sandwiches with it tonight and this weekend we are going to use the remaining loaf to cook a version of Dutch’s Stuffed French Toast. Instead of cooking it on the stove we are going to cook them in our cast iron pie irons over the fire.

 

The stuffed french toast over the fire sounds great. I'm glad you were able to get the kinks worked out and sorry again that I couldn't be of more help.