{"id":12725,"date":"2019-11-07T12:27:30","date_gmt":"2019-11-07T11:27:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alfaforni.com\/?p=12725"},"modified":"2024-04-30T07:42:43","modified_gmt":"2024-04-30T05:42:43","slug":"how-to-make-bread-like-a-pro-with-the-alfa-oven","status":"publish","type":"recipe","link":"https:\/\/www.alfaforni.com\/us\/recipe\/how-to-make-bread-like-a-pro-with-the-alfa-oven\/","title":{"rendered":"How to make bread like a pro with the Alfa oven"},"content":{"rendered":"

Baking home-made bread is an old passion that is being rediscovered<\/strong>. Bread has been a staple in the diet of many earlier civilizations and at its simplest can be boiled down to two ingredients: grain flour and water.<\/strong> Making bread is not hard but it can be daunting, especially when it comes to make dough or, more often, to bake it. <\/strong>Easy-peasy with gas or electric ovens and a bit more challenging if you use a wood-burning oven. So, in this article you will find a step-by-step guide to make bakery-quality bread at home<\/strong>, focusing on the differences between pizza dough and bread dough<\/u> <\/strong>and learning how to cook like a pro with a wood-fired Alfa oven.<\/p>\n

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Bread and pizza: the differences.<\/h2>\n

Bread is the most widely consumed food in the world, it comes in numberless forms and can be made from many types of flour with distinct geographical varieties.<\/strong> In Italy, for instance, the Mediterranean climate has favoured the spread of more than 1 200 varieties of wheat, most of which are good for bread-baking.<\/strong> Bread, especially when baked in a wood-burning oven, has a significance that goes far beyond the mere nutritional aspect and embraces cultural and religious elements as well. Pizza is made with the same ingredients<\/strong> and tossing some pizza dough into a wood-fired oven to test the temperature<\/strong> before baking bread is still pretty common. Pizza is relatively young compared to bread but has come a long way since the late 19th <\/sup>century and is now one of the most favourite food.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here are the main differences between bread and pizza<\/strong><\/p>\n

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  1. Bread is a symbol that unites most of the world civilizations and is a cheap source of energy and nourishment even for poorer strata of society.<\/strong><\/li>\n
  2. Bread, in all its various forms, puffs up while pizza remains thin during baking. So, to bake a perfect loaf through to the centre you will need more time<\/strong> while pizza comes into direct contact with the oven floor and will be done in a few minutes.<\/li>\n
  3. There are few ingredients that you really need to make bread even though it may sometimes contain spices, fruits, nuts or seeds but what you surely can\u2019t do is to top it with nearly anything edible like a pizza.<\/strong><\/li>\n
  4. The hydration of dough is lower<\/strong> for bread<\/strong> (50-60%) to produce a denser and closed crumb, a longer shelf life and to help it hold its shape during baking.<\/li>\n
  5. Traditionally, bread is baked in the wood-fired oven after the embers and ash are swept out of the floor and the heat is given off by the oven walls as they cool. <\/strong>On the contrary, pizza is cooked in a few minutes by direct heat from the fire.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

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