Broa de Milho is a slightly sweet crusty Portuguese bread made from a mix of rye, wheat or corn. It is a dense bread which goes well with soups and stews. The method of cooking is slightly different with the corn or maize flour paste being made with hot water and then added to other ingredients.
I had tried out Aparna's version of broa adapted from KAF site last month itself for We Knead to Bake. I had used Makai ka aatta / Maize Flour available in India. But thanks to exams, couldn't post it till today. I am forcing myself to post it today when I took a break from exam and mommy duties else I will forget my blog itself.. As usual I have halved the recipe and baked a beautiful bread.
Ingredients:
Maize Flour/ Makai ka aatta: 1/2 cup
Boiling hot water: 6 tbsp
Warm milk: 4-6 tbsp
Instant Yeast: 1 tsp
All Purpose Flour: 1.1/4 cup + more for dusting
Salt: 1/2 tsp
Honey: 1 1/2 tsp
Olive Oil: 1 1/2 tsp
Preparation:
Put cornmeal in a bowl and add hot water to it.Mix together with a fork and then add 4 tbsp of milk. Mix everything to get a paste adding more milk if needed. Let it sit until it cools a bit.
To this add the remaining ingredients and knead together to form a smooth and slightly sticky dough. Mine was not sticky -- just very lightly sticky..
Place the dough in an oiled bowl, turning it once to coat well. Cover loosely and let it sit until it turns puffy and risen for abut 1-1.5 hrs.
Turn out the dough onto a dustled counter and shape it into a round ball after kneading it lightly for few times.
Place the ball onto a lined/greased baking sheet and let it sit under a loose plastic wrap or kitchen towel for an hour or so until it becomes more puffy.
Just before baking, you can optionally make 3-4 slashes about 1/4" deep on the top of the dough. Spritz the top lightly with water and bake in a preheated oven at 230C/ 450F for about 10 minutes. After which reduce the temperature to 200C/400F and continue baking for another 15-20 minutes until the top is golden brown.
Take out. Cool. slice and serve with soups preferably..
A healthy bread which is yellow in colour thanks to the corn flour /maize flour. You can replace half of the all purpose flour with wheat flour which will make it more denser or heavy.
Lets see how Aparna did her broa.