Homemade Accordion Bread

Over the years I've learned to make a lot of delicious dishes and this accordion bread is one of them. I'm often asked to make one and it's never enough. I don't mind as it's an appreciation for me, plus I know my family is eating healthy. Baking at home is way better than ordering from restaurants, at least you know what you're eating.

This accordion bread is an Italian bread, at least that's where I got the recipe from. Once I was watching La prova del cuoco, an Italian cooking show and saw this bread made by one of them. It caught my eye immediately as it looked very simple and tasty as well. So I went looking for the recipe, noted it in my cooking book and tried it out. It was an instant success and it has been ever since.

Yesterday me and my niece, who's staying with me right now, baked two breads. She has seen me making it many times but never helped till now. She's old enough now, so it is just about time for her to learn the ropes.

Ingredients

For The Dough

500g all purpose flour,
25g fresh yeast,
250ml lukewarm water,
1 TSP sugar,
2 TSP salt,
3 - 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil,
1 free range egg.

For The Filling

salami or ham,
grated cheese,
sweet corn,
pizza sauce.

Accordion Bread.jpg

Note: I'm using a mix of flour made of 100g spelt flour and the rest of 400g is normal, all purpose flour. This is not a requirement, it's my own choice as I've got a bag of 5kg spelt flour and it's perfect for pizza dough or bread like this.

Spelt has less gluten, therefore it's better to mix with all purpose flour and spelt should always be less than the other flour you're mixing it with. Spelt should not dominate.

The Dough

Add the yeast to 100 ml lukewarm water, add 1tsp sugar, let it rise for 10 or so minutes in a warm place.

Put the flour in a mixing bowl, add salt, the beaten egg, yeast, knead till you get a non-sticky dough.

My niece made the dough and she did a great job I must admit. She is at the beginning but I see her learning the ropes and being great at it.

When you have a non-sticky dough, cover with a clean table cloth and let it rest for an hour in a warm place till the dough doubles.

And voilà, the dough is doubled in one hour!

Split the dough into two equal parts, on a floured surface roll it out so you get a rectangle.

At this point I always have to use a scale to divide the dough as for some reason I am never good enough on doing this. So for a better result the scale is helping me.

I'm using my homemade pizza sauce, with pieces of paprika in it as you can see. If you don't have homemade pizza sauce, you can use whatever ketchup you like, just make sure you don't flood it.

Cut the salami or ham and spread evenly over the pizza sauce, add sweet corn. Sprinkle with grated cheese.

Make sure you leave about 2cm space at the edges as that is going to be sprinkled with olive oil.

Spread the oil on the edges, cover the upper part with the lower part, press gentle on the edges.

Brush the upper part with extra virgin olive oil. Using a plastic spatula, cut it into equal parts.

Now comes the fun part. The extra virgin olive oil serves as an ingredient that is stopping the dough to stick as usual. When placing the slices into a baking pan, covered with baking sheet, make sure to rotate the slices so an oily surface meets a non oily surface and so on.

Why is this necessary? Because that oil is going to make sure you can take apart the slices without using a knife. And that's why it's called accordion bread.

As you can see, the thick and thin parts are alternating, which is helpful as the two sides are going to grow evenly.

In a preheated oven cook till it becomes golden brown. Unfortunately I can't tell you an estimated time as mine is an old oven and has no timer, nor heat meter. It took me 40 minutes but it may take you less.

Thanks to the olive oil, you can take the bread apart, slice by slice without using a knife.

This is the other one.

Homemade Accordion Bread

Ingredients

The Dough

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