Braschino With Raisins, Almonds And Chopped Peel
On the last day of our holiday in Italy, Mr Glam and I were very aware that we had a long drive ahead of us with limited options for stopping, as we’d be heading towards switzerland and the St Bernard Pass. The route would be motorway or mountain pass, a mixture of mundane and stunningly beautiful. However we wouldn’t come across many restaurants for lunch or snacks. The local market filled with it’s artisan pasta, precious fragrant olive oil and blueberry grappa was a wonderful place to buy ingredients for a fabulous meal but not one to eat in a car. Just as we were about to give up, we spotted a pile of brioche type rolls stuffed with local salami and skewered with a cocktail stick in order to keep the contents under the beautifully golden lid. Next to these was a sugared raisin bread, circular and flatish called Braschino. Perfect for our car picnic and both, as it turned out, the perfect mixture of sweet and savoury.
Squares Of Braschino
Despite a lot of searching I haven’t been able to find a recipe for this delicious cross over of bread and cake, packed with dried fruit and nuts. The top is crunchy with sugar whilst the dough is sugarless. Armed with nothing more than an ingredients list of ‘farina 00, olio, uova, sale, lievito, zucchero, noci, uvetta, burro’, I’ve created my version. Because of the eggs, this dough needs a very long initial prove of 3 hours.
Braschino With A Crunchy Sugared Top
Braschino
Makes 1 large or 2 small
- 500g 00 grade flour
- 7g dried yeast
- 2 egg yolks
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 40mls extra virgin olive oil
- 280mls tepid water
- 150g raisins
- 50g flaked almonds
- 50g chopped candied peel
- 25g unsalted butter cut into very small cubes
- 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
Method
- In a large bowl mix together the flour and the dried yeast
- Make a well in the centre and add the egg yolks, olive oil and the water
- Using your hands, mix all the ingredients until a dough is formed
- Turn out onto a counter top and knead for about 10 minutes until the dough has changed from rough to a smooth texture
- Tuck into a ball shape and place back into a clean oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and place in a warm area to prove
- After about 3 hours the dough should have just doubled in size and feel very elastic
- Turn out and knock back, Pull into a rectangular shape and sprinkle with the raisins, nuts and candied peel
- Fold the dough over the fruit and knead until the fruit and nuts are fairly evenly distributed through the dough. Fold into three and replace in the oiled bowl, covered, for 30 minutes
- After 30 minutes turn out and fold again in three, return to the bowl, cover and leave for a further 30 minutes
- Preheat the oven to 220c
- Remove from the bowl and repeat the folding for the last time. cover and leave for 30 minutes
- Finally turn out and shape into either 2 circles or 1 rectangle and place on a baking paper lined baking sheet
- Dot the top with half of the chopped butter and sprinkle with 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of the granulated sugar
- Place in the oven for 10 minutes, then turn the oven temperature to 200c
- After a further 10 minutes dot the top of the loaf with the remaining butter and sugar
- Return to the oven for a further 15 – 20 minutes
- Remove from the oven and leave to cool on a cooling rack
- Slice and enjoy
Braschino
If you enjoyed this post why not subscribe to Glamorous Glutton free here
G’day GG! Your photo looks UBER YUM and great!
Wish I could try some now! WOW!
Cheers! Joanne
It is very tasty and keeps quite well if you wrap it in plastic wrap. GG
What a delicious bread you’ve made. 🙂 Good for you experimenting until you could make it just right. 🙂
It takes a while to make but, really, it’s worth it. GG
I do like the sound of your drive through Europe. To us in Oz, to be able to drive from one country to another seems so foreign. We are surrounded by water and to go overseas is to go ‘over seas’. I love the look of your sweet bread – I would love to try and make this. It must smell amazing as it’s cooking xx
It’s strange how we all view the travelling thing. Oz is so enormous to us in our tiny island, it’s almost unimaginable. As a Brit we have to get off our island too and it’s only the rest of Europe that has the luxury of driving through borders. However we don’t have to travel as far as you guys. We see Bali as exotic and you see Greece as exotic and for each of us they are relatively cheap holidays!!
The bread does smell lovely when it’s cooking, it’s well worth giving a go. GG xx
This looks perfect. Just the thing for car picnics.
Perfect for a car picnic, except you need a sugar catcher!! GG
I’m sure the scenery on your drive would have been so amazing, you probably forget to eat. What a delightful snack to have on standby.
The scenery was absolutely amazing, waterfalls, glaciers, forests of pines and green, green low lying pastures. It’s always reassuring to have a tasty snack in the bag! GG
Love your sweet version of Italian classic. Perfect for breakfast and picnic!
How right you are, the Glam Londoner loved it; he took about half back to uni with him. GG
Your experimenting paid off definitely my friend this looks so delicious 😀
The raisins are popping out at me!
Cheers
CCU
It did! It’s always rewarding when the trials work out. GG
Aren’t you clever developing this recipe when you couldn’t find one! This is a bread that I’d love, I love it when there is lots of fruit 🙂
This is packed with fruit and the crunchy sugar topping makes it really tasty without being too sweet. GG
It sounds like your picnic lunch during your drive was terrific. I’m happy that you could recreate the bras chino as it sounds wonderful.
It was fab and the drive was amazing too. GG
That looks so good. I do like a good fruit loaf, but find ones I buy usually far too sweet. Not having any sugar in the actual dough sounds like the answer. How did your recipe compare?
The one I bought in Italy was slightly flatter, thinner. This recipe could be as thin as that if you rolled the dough out a bit more. GG
GG, I love this. Absolutely love it! Bookmarking now for baking later! Thanks so much for sharing.
Let me know how it goes. GG
That looks so good! Like a flattened panettone. I love these kind of breads and will definitely keep this one in mind to try soon. Hope you and Mr Glam had a great holiday, seems like you did with all these tasty treats!
Thank you, I was delighted with how it came out. Let me know how it turns out. We did have an amazing holiday, Thank you. GG xx
This looks absolutely amazing. I want to go to Italy for about 1,000 reasons. And now it’s 1,001. 🙂
Whatever the reasons, you have to go to Italy. It’s amazing. GG
Looks amazing – and quite Christmassy too so great timing.
You’re right it is quite Christmasy. Perhaps I should add it to my Christmas baking list. GG
Wow, that is an absolute stunner. This is one of my favourite types of things to eat, maybe with a hot cup of tea and some cheeky honey (cause sugar is never enough LOL). I imagine that this would take a bit like pannatone, which i completely adore.
*kisses* H
Thank you. It is a bit like pannetone, but more breadlike. I love it. GG
Oh this looks like a very tasty Italian styly fruit loaf! Obviously oodles more sophisticated than the British version. I reckon this would be a lovely Christmas bake too, packed full of all that gorgeous fruit. Heaven in a slice!
It’d make a great Christmas bake. GG
wow….never heard of a sweet focaccia before…looks beyond delicious…a must try 🙂
This was my first encounter with a sweet focaccia type bread. The eggs make it a little denser than regular focaccia. GG