bread recipe with chillies and pancetta

This is a simple bread recipe I developed over three years while working as a personal chef in Mayfair, London. It works very well and is easily adapted. It does not follow all the usual rules of bread making.
The chillies used are fresh cayenne peppers very finely diced, seeds removed. The pancetta also needs to be very finely diced, you should find that the pancetta fat will dissolve during cooking and leave curious air pockets in the bread. We do not "knock back" the dough nor do we use specialist bread flours or improvers. This recipe can be made in a kitchen aid mixer with a dough hook.

800g 00 grade white flour 
200g strong flour
350mls water
350mls full fat milk
20g fresh yeast
20g sea salt 
4 cayenne chillies
100g pancetta

  1. Sift the flour into mixer bowl and add fresh yeast, leave machine running.
  2. Heat the milk in a pan, bring to boil. then add this to cold water, this will give a good temperature to activate the yeast.
  3. Add this to the flour in mixer.
  4. Add finely diced (brunoise) of chilli and pancetta
  5. Finally add salt and leave to mix in machine for around 20 minutes.
  6. Pre heat your oven to  280 -300 c, if your oven has a fan its better to turn off or simply block it with a baking tray.
  7. Remove dough from mixer and leave covered to prove for around 45 minutes, ideally you could leave this overnight in the fridge to prove, a slow overnight prove will ensure less yeasty flavour.
  8. No need to knock back just roll into your desired shapes and leave again to prove for 45 minutes.
  9. After proving, the bread should be misted with cold water (we use a plant mister)
  10. Then in the oven at highest temperature possible (280c domestic oven) turning the oven down to around 200c.
  11. The bread should sound light and hollow when gently tapped.

Should you wish a darker loaf you could substitute the strong flour with rye flour. There is no sugar in this recipe as it is simply not needed. It is important to heat milk thoroughly, as this will affect the texture.



If you make this recipe regularly you soon notice how the yeast in the dough makes the skin on your hands very soft and healthy.