Gastronomous

Panini are delicious Italian sandwiches made with a TASTY bread and is stuffed with thin layers of meats (salami, prosciutto and peperoni)  and vegetables. They can be either toasted or not and contain cheese ( or not)  

The key flavor in all panini  is the TASTY bread!! Tired of tasteless Italian breads, we decided to take a shot to develop a panino ( little bread in Italian) that was so good we did not need the filling! After several tries and many too-hard/ too-heavy breads we came up with these delightful buns.

Our take on panini bread are light and slightly sweet breads that are delicious for Italian panini, but are also great for serving at the dinner table instead of a sweet roll, and made extraordinary hamburger buns!  We made our breads square and measured 5×5 inches, but you can shape to your liking.

At one point we had some extra dough, so we placed it in a traditional rectangular bread loaf. What came out “disappeared” promptly with a tad of sweet butter and marmalade.  

INGREDIENTS ( for 12 panini)

1 cup milk 

1/4 cup canola oil

1/2 cup warm water 

 2 TBLS sugar 

2 (.25 ounce) packages instant yeast 

2 teaspoons salt 

4 cups all-purpose flour, or as needed 

Mix the water with the milk and heat to lukewarm temperature, dissolve the sugar and the yeast and let stand for about 5 minutes. It should be foamy due to the yeast. If not foamy, discard and try again with new (fresh) yeast.

Mix in the oil and the salt, and gradually stir in the flour until you have a soft dough. Divide into 12 pieces, and form into balls. Place on slightly greased baking sheets ( or use a silkpat) so they are 2 to 3 inches apart. Let rise in a draft free place for 45 minutes. At this point breads should be spongy and almost touching.

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees .If desired, brush the tops with milk or egg-wash for extra color and shine before placing in the oven, then bake for 15 minutes or until golden. Remove from oven, let cool for 10 minutes and enjoy!

The panini breads will keep for 2 days, but around our place, they never last that long!