Pitta ‘mpigliata
This week in Kitchen Chemistry we made Pitta ‘mpigliata, a bread filled with nuts, lemon, and dried cranberries. The recipe was as follows:
for the dough…
1/2 pound (about 2-1/4 cups) of cake flour
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup red wine
1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg yolk (save the egg white to brush over the ‘roses’ while they are baking)
3/4 tsp baking powder
for the stuffing…mix all of these ingredients together:
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tsp cinnamon, plus more for sprinkling
1 zested lemon peel
1 cup of finely chopped nuts
1/2 cup of chopped raisins or dried cranberries
We began our cooking process by making the dough with a stand mixer and adding the ingredients one at a time. During the dough making process, we had a lot of trouble making it smooth and elastic without it being too sticky. It took us time and lots of extra flour to get the right texture. Once the dough was fully formed, we began making the roses which consisted of rolling out the dough to a thin and rectangular shape. We added the stuffing to four different strips and rolled them up. My lab partner and I also had difficulty during this step because our dough was very thin in some places and stuck to the table while trying to roll it up.
If we redid this recipe, we would definitely be more careful when adding the liquid ingredients for the dough. We would make sure we did not pour too much liquid in so we could avoid the extra flour we had to use for the stickiness of the dough. We would also be careful as to not roll the dough out too thin so it is thick enough to hold the contents of the stuffing without falling apart.
The protein content of cake flour, 3 grams, is important because the more protein there is in the flour the more gluten is formed.
The chemical effect of adding the olive oil before kneading the dough prevents the formation of gluten. If the oil were added after the dough was formed, there would be more gluten in it.
The baking powder produces CO2 which results in leavening of the bread. If the baking powder were taken out of this recipe, the bread would take longer to rise.
Attached please find our videos reflecting on our Pitta ‘mpigliata.
Stay tuned for our next adventure in the lab!
I like that you put the recipe in the blog, helps make the idea of a food as uncommon as pitta ‘mpigliata more footing for someone who may not know what it is. I think your ideas for how to do something better for if you were to do it again are well thought out. Rolling dough too thin can be a big struggle. I know my lab partner and I struggled a bit with the same thing. I am wondering also if it was the speed or the amount of liquid to dry ingredients that made your dough sticky, because that seems to have been a commonality between a few groups. Very well written blog! Good job!
Your photos are super thorough and it was easy to follow along with. For future, maybe embed the videos into the blog post, because the first time around I completely missed them. Great job!
This is really easy to follow and the pictures are very clear and detailed. I had a little bit of difficulty finding your video but I found it!! Great work!
your post is super easy to follow, and the photos are really nice and in high quality. I think it would be better if you put the questions at the end of the post above your answers. Overall, I really like your work!
I really liked the photos you included in your blog post especially the first picture of the Pitta at the very beginning of the post! They all were so clear and really added to the post. I also found your post to be very easy to follow and understand. Next time I would make the video link more prominent so people don’t miss it!
Nice job! I like how you talked about what you and your partner struggled with and how you’d fix the problem were you to attempt the recipe again. Even with the difficulties, the end product looked like it came out very well!
The recipe/instructions are really thorough, but I think the questions at the end could have been clearer – perhaps if you included the questions or worked them into a paragraph. Also, if you can figure out how to embed the videos I think it would be a nice touch.