Fugassa for the Bread Baking Day!

Questa volta in inglese, in onore del bread baking day ospitato da Wild Yeast… Fugassa è il termine dialettale veneto per “focaccia” ed è il tipico dolce pasquale di una zona piuttosto vasta che comprende anche il Friuli, dove tradizionalmente si portavano le focacce a far cuocere dal panettiere del paese.

This time in (my poor) English, in honour of the Bread Baking Day, hosted this month in the Wild Yeast’s blog…“Fugassa” is the Venetian word for “focaccia”, but it means a sweet bread with butter and eggs, not a salted flatbread as the “Focaccia Genovese”. It’s a typical Easter cake in all the Triveneto: Veneto, Trentino, and here in Friuli, too, where the housewives carried the “fugassa” to the bakery for cooking.

Ingredients:
150 g of a spare bread dough… already rised.
500 g flour (00, or all purpose)
150 g butter
150 g sugar
Finely grated lemon zest (1 lemon)
Finely grated orange zest (1 orange)
Vanilla flavour
10 g brewer’s yeast
5 eggs
Milk, salt.

For the frosting (if you like it):
50 g almond, 50 g granular sugar

(I divided all quantities in half)

USEFUL TIP: weigh the ingredients beforehand and put them aside, so you can take away the quantities for the various rise without lose the total amount!

Dissolve the yeast in a little milk, warmed, add 150 g flour and knead it together with the spare dough. Let it rise for at least 1 hour, covered.

After the first rise, add 150 g flour, 75 g softened butter, 2 whole eggs and a yolk (don’t throw away the white!) and knead it vigorously for 10 minutes (if you have a kenwood, or a kitchenaid or similar “heavy duty” mixer, that’s its time to work!!!).
Cover the dough and let it rise another hour.

After 1 hour (or so… let the dough have time to double) add all the remain ingredients and work the dough vigorously (or let the mixer do it for you… oh, I love technology!) for at least 10 minutes (the mixture must be homogeneous and stretchy). Cover the dough and let it rise for another 1½ hour (no, sorry, that’s not the last time…).

After that, break the rising, work the dough few minutes and shape it round.
Put the “fugassa” in a circular mould and cut a cross with a sharp blade. Whip stiff the spare albumen and add the almonds (I didn’t do the icing, because my husband doesn’t like almonds…). Spread the frosting on top of the “fugassa” and let it… yes, rise for 40 minutes, but I assure you it’s the very last time!

Spread the granular sugar and bake it in the oven (already hot: 180°) for 50 minutes ca.

Happy Easter!