I made a large, dense pagnotta foggiana over the weekend and the entire process went really well. Whole wheat flour for the biga with cornmeal mixed into the bread flour for the dough. Coarse, chewy, and crusty. Typical of Italian bread in general, maybe closely resembling a nice Pugliese loaf.
My first blog post is about this wonderfully classic teacake with a rich tradition. Back when bread dough was prepared at home and then baked in the village baker's oven, bara brith (Welsh translation is mottled or speckled bread) was usually the leftover scraps of dough thrown together and sweetened with dried fruit.
It did, however, grow into a standardized loaf consumed during teatime, still filled with an abundance of dried fruit (sultanas, raisins, currants, cranberries...).
