Pane al Latte – Italian milk bread. This bread is a traditionally made sourdough bread using old dough and an overnight cold proofing. This recipe creates a slightly sour, soft and creamy bread to serve with most Italian dishes.
You can make Pane al Latte into any shape you want; small buns, pan or hand-formed loaves. The cooking times will differ based on size. If you keep the temperature around 175-185C (350-365F) they will cook to the center before burning on the outside. Slow and low is the key to make these soft and pillow-like. Adding the ingredients in the proper order and keeping mixing times short allows the dough to properly ferment without blowing the gluten and becoming dense. This dough is a long-ferment dough and although I used a mixer, you can mix this dough by hand. Keep track of the seam formed when you fold the dough for the final shape because the seam should be up when baking in the final step. Remember to follow food safety when handling room temperature ingredients.
I eat out quite often as many of you know. Usually at Italian or certain upscale restaurants they offer bread and seasoned oil. Many times these breads are not entirely authentic to me. So I wanted to make a traditional bread without commercial dried yeast. Sometimes at home when eating certain dishes, especially those made with my wife’s amazing sauce, I just need to dip some soft bread into a nice oil as a starter. Searching for inspiration, I asked an Italian chef at a local restaurant I promised not to name, what was the secret to their soft rolls. We had a great conversation and the chef was wonderfully accommodating. So this is the recipe I came up with based on that conversation.
I hope you enjoy.
