Maritozzi (tozzi sti maritozzi!)

[spacedlaw]

Maritozzi (plural of singular "maritozzo" - you just don't make one) is a sort of small bun that can be found in Lazio and Marche areas of Italy. They can be plain or with raisins (or even chocolate chips!) and eaten as is, dipped in the morning cappuccino or sliced in two and stuffed with whipped cream. Apparently the name comes from a tradition linked to wedding festivities, being offered to guests. I will not go into what a split bun filled with whipped cream might or might not look like.

I am not terribly fond of them – being French I prefer the rich buttery taste of brioches – but my love is, so I have tried a couple of time to make them for him.
Not with much success I must say, until today.

The little buggers are a major pain to make, the recipe takes a long time – as for most yeasty bakes – and the end result must be the right type of fluffy – not too much, not too little – and just barely sweet, at least for the kind preferred by said Love, who is of the dipping-in-cappuccino persuasion.

Today I played around with this recipe.
But of course, I changed it.



450g high gluten white flour
50g rice flour
200g water
100g milk at room temperature
90g sugar
1 tablespoon of honey
1 egg + 1 egg separated
8gr fresh yeast
a pinch of salt
1 teaspoon of honey
60g butter softened
40g oil (I used evo, but peanut or sunflower are more neutral)

Crumble the yeast in a big bowl and add the teaspoon of honey.
Warm the water (tepid not more) and dissolve the yeast, adding half of the high gluten flour.
Mix (by hand or with an electric whisk) and add the milk. Cover and let the dough rise for an hour.

Go have some tea in the sun. Enjoy life; it is such a fragile thing.

After an hour, mix the rest of the high gluten flour with the rice flour.
Add half of this and half of the sugar to the dough and mix.

Hell starts there: This recipe is SO much more easier if you have something like a KitchenAid bowl mixer. As it stands, I had to make do with my faithful mixer companion. Almost killed it in the effort, poor thing...




So.
Mix until the initial dough has absorbed the first half of flour and sugar. Not an easy task, as the recipe at that stage has very little fluids in it (and I have added 200g of milk to what was originally only 200g of water). Add the egg. The mixing gets a little easier. Add the rest of the flour and sugar.

The mixing gets cumbersome once again. Add the yolk from the separated egg (keep the white), add the tablespoon of honey and the pinch of salt (original recipe calls for 8g).

Augment the speed of your mixer and churn. For about 10 minutes.
After that time, add the softened butter, a little at a time (2 to 4 times) and mix for another 5 minutes.

After that, and still mixing of course, drizzle the oil a little at a time (4 to 8 times), stopping the drizzling to let the dough absorb the liquid. This will take another 10 minutes.

After what is roughly 30 minutes of non stop mixing, cover the dough and let it rest in a warm place for about 2 hours. It must grow to double its original size.

If you are using a hand held mixer like mine and it has not succumbed to the heavy duty mixing, let it rest before taking the rods out for cleaning (otherwise you will burn your fingers the way I did). Let the motor cool thoroughly before putting away the mixer.

Have some more tea (or lunch as it was the case for me). The break is well deserved.

I wonder if anybody has ever thought about making dough mixing an Olympic sport. Still. Can't complain: At least I had a mixer...

After two hour, flour your kitchen counter top and drop the dough on it.
With your usual hand (right in my case, left if you are left handed) gently pull a corner of the dough away from the centre and then fold it back on top of the dough. The folding will have created two corners. Take the right corner and pull away again and fold the top like you just did. Then take the right to corner created by that new folds and once more. And again until you have run a full circle.

Cover the dough by reversing the bowl it sat previously in and let it rest for 30 minutes.

After that time, cut the dough in two and then each half in 6 pieces (each pieces should be roughly 80g each). Fold each piece into a ball. Let them rest for 15 minutes.

Once that time has elapsed, fold each of the balls into a longish bun form. Cover with a plastic sheet and let them rise once again – it's the last time – for about an hour.

Warm your oven to 180C.
Place the buns on a cooking sheet (silicon or parchment) or tray.
With a fork whisk the egg white and brush each bun. Cook for 12 to 13 minutes.

Once out of the oven you can glaze the buns with sugar syrup and then sprinkle additional sugar on top.
I didn't.

And they were ready just in time to go with tea at 16:30! Not bad for a recipe started around 10:00...

Let them cool before eating.