Taralli Pugliesi

I was in a bit of an Italian baking phase, and decided to make some more nice crunchy bready snacks following the grissini. I’d had Taralli Pugliesi before and really liked them; they are small crunchy bread rings often made with fennel seed, but you can really add any spice, herb or seed that strikes your fancy. I decided to go for 4 flavours: rosemary and thyme, black pepper and smoked paprika, sesame and tomato and oregano (or “pizza flavour”).

Ingredients:

• basic recipe:
  • 125 g bread flour
  • 30 ml olive oil (27 g if you’re using scales)
  • 50 ml dry white wine
  • 3 g salt (I found many recipes using more, but 3 g is enough if you usually cook with moderate amounts of salt)
• for rosemary and thyme, sesame seed and plack pepper and smoked paprika recipes, just add the spices / herbs
• for the tomato and oregano recipe, I added 30 g of tomato purree and an extra 15 g of flour to catch the liquid

Rosemary and thyme, tomato and oregano, sesame, black pepper and smoked paprika doughs

Preparation:

• For each dough, knead all ingredients until they form a firm, smooth dough, and let the dough rest under a cloth for 30 minutes.
• Divide the dough into approximately 20 pieces (should be about 10 g each if you want to be precise).
• Roll the pieces between your hands, and form the roll into a circle. Press the ends together firmly to make sure they stick together well for the next steps. Place them on a clean towel.

• Bring a pot of water to the boil. Add up to 10 taralli to the boiling water, making sure they don’t stick to each other or the bottom of the pan.
• Once the taralli rise to the surface (should be around 1 minute), take them out with a slotted spoon and place them back on the towel. Let the liquid evaporate from the surface and turn them once to make sure the bottom is also dry.
• At this point, if some of the circles have come undone, you can pinch them back together again before baking.
• I found one recipe that recommended a 6 h drying step here to get them extra crunchy, however, I didn’t do this and mine turned out extra crunchy already!

• Place the taralli on a lined baking sheet or tray, and bake for 30 min at 180C (fan oven). This may seem a bit long, but you really want them crunchy all the way through.
• Once they have cooled off, you can keep them in a tin for up to 7 days. We ate the last one after 4 days, and they were still very crunchy.

The Stats:

• Preparation time:
  • under 1 h to prepare (including the 30 min rest), but don’t underestimate the “making circles” part, especially when weighing the dough balls and making many taralli
  • 30 min baking per batch. Experts will probably tell you no, but with this recipe you can work on multiple layers and start the second batch in the oven below the first one, then shift it up when the first one goes out. You’ll need to add another 5 minutes baking time for that, but it does save 25!
• Carbs:
  • 95 g per recipe
  • approx. 5 g per piece

Taralli Pugliesi

Spicy parmesan and rosemary crackers

For this week’s bake, I decided to give cakes a bit of a rest as the last two cakes were quite a handful to make, and also pretty rich. I’d realised that what was missing so far from the blog were some savoury snacks, and I was considering breadsticks, crispy bread or crackers. Crackers won because why not. I looked at some recipes and while I didn’t find exactly what I wanted, quite a few people seemed to be adding rosemary. Rosemary – Italy – Cheese was an obvious progression in a household that values cheese, and I decided to add a little touch of spice to it, too. Turned out very tasty, I can’t wait to try out more cracker varieties!

Ingredients (makes around 100 small crackers):

• 240g plain flour
• 2 heaped tsp of hot paprika (paprika and cayenne mix)
• pinch of salt (it doesn’t need much because of the cheese)
• 120 g butter (cold, cubed)
• 100 g parmesan, grated
• 1 tbsp sour cream (it needs a little bit of moisture, you can also use milk, water, cream, cream cheese…)
• 2 sprigs of rosemary, chopped (will also work with dried rosemary)
• flour for rolling out the dough

Preparation:

• Pre-heat the oven to 170C (fan oven)
• Knead all the ingredients into a smooth dough, making sure no buttery chunks are left. The paprika will stick to the butter initially, so as you work the butter into the dough, it will become darker.
• Roll out the dough, using flour to keep it from sticking to the surface / rolling pin. The thinner the better, around 2.5 mm is ideal.
• Cut into small squares, around 4-5 cm long and wide. Other shapes and sizes will also work, but the “100 pcs” in the ingredients list is based on that.
• Bake on a silicone sheet or baking paper on a flat tray or cookie sheet for around 10 minutes. Check regularly; crackers are ready when they turn brown.
• Let crackers cool on a rack. They will become crunchier as they cool down.
• Store in a box to keep them crunchy.

The Stats:

• Carbs: Approx. 210 g – which makes it about 2 g per cracker.
• Preparation time: Around 1 hour, but plan in a little more time when baking with only 1 small tray, and if not experienced. The dough can be kept in the fridge or frozen if you don’t have that much time on hand or realise you made a bit too much.