This is one of my favourite kinds of bread with its chewy crust and a dense moist crumb. I have been searching for a long time for a recipe that is close to the one used by the Brazil Bakery and this is the closest so far.
The bread is made with wheat flour and finely ground white corn meal. There is also a tiny amount of white corn flour in the dough. This is not to be confused with "corn starch". Corn flour is made from grinding the whole kernel and has a similar texture to potato flour. The corn meal is quite finely ground. And the corn flour is a tiny bit grainy but still has a flour-like consistency.
The first time I tried the recipe, I added too much water. I expected the dough to be slack, but not THIS slack!
But after "stretching and turning" several times and adding quite a lot more flour, I managed to rescue the bread.
The resulting bread was on the flat side but still pretty darn good.
A few days later, I made the bread again, and this time paid proper attention to the water amounts. What a difference it makes when there is the right amount of liquid!
And what beautiful bread!
The crumb is beautifully moist. And the outer crust is nicely floured (using corn flour as the dusting). The bread is wonderful with goat's cheese and honey.
But where this bread really shines is when slices of it are toasted or grilled and used as plates for smoked fish with capers and olive oil.
Biscotti Picanti . Broa . Brunkans Långa . Challah . Chinese Steamed Flower Rolls . Coccodrillo . Cornucopia . Croissants and Pains au Chocolat . Cuban Bread . Fougasse . Dan's Garlic Bread . Ensaimadas . Five-Grain Bread with Walnuts . Hamburger Buns . Herbed Soda Bread . Italian Knots . Kaiser Rolls . Mary's Dark Onion Rye . Naan . Rewena paraoa . Royal Crown Tortano . Soft Pretzels . St. Hildegard's Spelt Bread . Stollen . Streusel Potato Coffee Cake . Stromboli . Swedish Rye . Sweet Portuguese Bread . Taralli Pugliesi . Whole-Wheat Pita . Yeasted Sprouted Wheat Bread
