Portuguese Corn Bread

I found the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes cookbook from a friend who referred it. I was always cautious around bread baking. By this point I had mastered pizza dough and that was good enough for me.

This time I decided to try a recipe out of the book that seemed a little out of the ordinary, to me. It's called Broa or Portuguese Corn Bread. You are basically substituting Corn Meal for 1 1/2 cups of flour from the original bread recipe in the book. I had bought some locally grown and milled corn meal and thought it would be perfect for this recipe.

If you don't have this book I still highly recommend it. Because on a weekend when I'm running around doing chores and fixing things around the house and I'm too tired to bake or make an overly special dinner, I can go to this book on a Sunday afternoon and take a few minutes and have bread rising while I relax for a few precious moments.

And while the smell of baking bread fills the house I can relax with my food magazines and make plans for when I have more time and more energy.

Here's hoping.

Broa Portuguese Cornbread 

3 cups lukewarm water

1 1/2 tbsps granulated yeast (2 packets)

1 1/2 tbsps Kosher Salt

1 1/2 cups stone ground or standard corn meal

5 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

Corn meal for pizza

Combine the ingredients and stir with a spoon or combine in your mixer with a dough hook (only until incorporated) the mixture will be sticky (use wet hands to put it in a lightly oiled bowl to rise) and then let rise for 2 hours. Then in the fridge if you don't want to make it all at once. And tear off and bake as needed.