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Sicilian brioche dough is a very easy and very useful basic recipe for preparing soft and delicious rustic products, called “pezzi di rosticceria“(rotisserie pieces or small bites) such as calzones, rollò, ravazzate or simple buffet pizzas.
If you walk into a rosticceria in Sicily, don’t go looking for rotisserie chicken or other roasted meats. This is obviously what you would immediately think from the given name, but in reality it refers to a brioche dough.
These dough puffs up beautifully, as you can see, and has a very soft and fluffy texture as compared to pizza dough. Perfect for making these small bites!
A very soft, tasty and very versatile brioche dough suitable both for baking and for frying, obtaining an exceptional result in both cases. You can make it by hand, or with the planetary mixer or even with the Thermomix.
It is the perfect recipe to amaze your friends, for parties and for delicious buffets, they can be made in a large or “mignon” version so as to become an excellent and nutritious snack for the little ones!
Ingredients
Base Dough Doses:
- 1kg Manitoba flour (8 cups)
- 100g lard (½ cup)
- 50g fresh brewer’s yeast (14g about 1/2 oz dry yeast)
- 100g sugar (½ cup)
- 580ml water (2 cups)
- 20g salt (about 2 tbsp)
Steps
Preparation of rotisserie dough
If you decide to use fresh brewer’s yeast, start by dissolving the yeast and sugar in water at room temperature.
If you decide to use dry yeast, start adding it to a bowl with the flour, sugar and water.
Mix for about 8 minutes until the mixture becomes coarse.
Then continue by adding the lard and salt.
Mix for another 8/10 minutes until the mixture is smooth and soft at medium speed, until it becomes a smooth and homogeneous ball.
Always remember to sift the flour before adding it to the bowl with the other ingredients.
Transfer the dough to the pastry board and give it strength with your hands by making a couple of folds, then form a ball which you will have to transfer into a bowl. Cover with cling film and leave to rise in the oven with the light turned off until it doubles in volume, for about 2 hours.
If you don’t have time you can prepare the dough, let it rest in the fridge overnight and continue working it the next day.
Portions vary based on size and types of pieces
Once the necessary time has passed, the dough will be ready to be worked into small balls to create the desired “pieces”.
To make the large rustics each ball must weigh about 80/100g, while for the “mignon” version 30/50g each.
Useful tips
To prepare the rotisserie dough you can also use just Manitoba flour or just bread or all-purpose wheat flour;
To speed up the leavening times it is possible to increase the dose of brewer’s yeast or you can use dry yeast if you cannot find fresh brewer’s yeast.
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Sicilian brioche dough
Ingredients
Instructions
Place the yeast in the bowl of the mixer, add the warm water and dissolve the yeast by mixing with your hand.
Then add the sugar, flour, lard or butter and mix with the planetary mixer.
Always sift your flour!As soon as the mixture becomes thicker, add the lard and salt. At the end of preparation you will obtain a soft and non-sticky dough.
Knead the dough a little on the pastry board.
Place the dough in a bowl, cover with cling film and let it rise for about 2 hours.
Alternatively, leave to rise overnight in the refrigerator.Roll out the dough (1 and a half cm) and shape the different rotisserie piece as you prefer, leave to rise for another 1/2 hours at room temperature and then proceed to bake.
See the post "Sicilian rotisserie" to continue with the different types of "pieces"-
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Note
To make the dough it is preferable to use a planetary mixer but you can also prepare it by hand: in this case, however, it will take longer to make a soft dough.
You can also season the calzones with salami and ricotta, with vegetables or as you like.
You can store the Sicilian rotisserie for 1-2 days well covered with transparent film or inside a food bag.
