One journalist’s carb-focused journey through Europe in 28 breads

On its most basic level, bread is quite simple – water, flour and yeast – and yet there are myriad variations of this simple staple. One journalist decided to learn about all the different takes on bread across Europe by baking them all and writing a book on it.

Berlin (dpa) – Even back while he was studying in London, German journalist Georg Matthes was unhappy about the state of the country’s bread, a flabby, white doughy business barely worthy of the name.

Later, in Belgium, he was also disappointed by the selection.

Such is the lot of Germans living abroad, as their country is home to a vast array of bread types, many of which are far from white bread.

So Matthes, based in Brussels as the Europe correspondent for German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle, decided to try baking his own.

“When you’re in Brussels, at the heart of it all, then why not use the expertise of the whole EU,” he tells dpa in a recent interview.

He spent two years learning more about other countries’ bread through work trips and tutorials, as well as questioning colleagues and teasing out their secrets, from ingredients to kneading techniques.

“I tried out a new recipe almost every weekend. Some were more successful, some less,” he says. At some point, his children, ages 8 and 12, sighed to one another, “Oh no, not again.”

Many sacks of flour later, Matthes’ results are available to all in his book “Baking Bread.” It contains recipes from throughout the bloc, from pita to bread flavoured with beer and even focaccia.

Dutch Tiger Bread is his daughters’ favourite. They loved the wheat-flour bread that’s made with hemp seeds. “It’s not hash bread,” Matthes says quickly. “It’s THC neutral.” The loaf has a tiger-like pattern on the top and dates back to the Dutch colonial period in Indonesia. Made with a no-knead dough, the crust is created with a rice flour paste that’s poured over the dough before you bake it.

His research through Europe brought him up against some challenging bread traditions. Corn bread from Portugal was the toughest nut to crack, he says. The dough needs to rise three times, to become twice the original size, but that never worked out, he recalls.

He asked himself what he was doing wrong until he eventually figured out that the problem was with the polenta he was using. “I was using the regular sort that needs to be cooked first for half an hour. What I needed was instant polenta – but that’s not for sale everywhere.”

Some loaves – like the French baguette or Belgian spelt – are traditionally made by professionals, and home bakers may struggle to get the hard crust and fluffy interior. Matthes’ trick is to create steam by putting a dish filled with water into the oven as he bakes the loaf. An even better tip, he reveals: “Use five to 10 ice cubes instead of water, as that creates steam for a longer period of time.”

Europe’s fastest loaf comes from Ireland, says Matthes. Soda bread is a racer, not requiring yeast, sourdough or any waiting for it to rise. Baking soda is the secret ingredient, he says, something the Irish took on from the Americans, where everything has to be fast.

Lesser-known revelations include finger bread from Cyprus that’s made with mastic, a special gum that’s the hardened resin of pistachio trees. “It’s a spice that you have to go easy with, you can’t use too much,” he says. But once you’ve wrapped two or three crushed seeds into the dough, you immediately get the scent of Cyprus and Greece.

Despite diving deep into the secrets of bread, Matthes reckons there’s still plenty he doesn’t know.

“I have taken a few ground rules to heart though,” he says.

Those rules start with the dough – where you should begin with the water, not with the flour, so it doesn’t wind up sticking.

Secondly, if a recipe tells you to take a certain amount of water, try a little less first in case that’s enough. “You can’t really fix it if you use too much liquid,” he says. But with all the other ingredients, precision is key, which means: Use a digital scale.

When it comes to how far the dough needs to rise, you can use a finger to test it before you put it in the oven.

If you poke the dough and the dent you made has disappeared in two minutes, then let it rise a little longer. But if the mark is still there five minutes later, then your loaf can go in the oven.

You don’t want to leave your dough to rise too long though, Matthes says. Otherwise, the air escapes, and the dough breaks and loses its umph in the oven, because lactic acid produces gases that then burst.

You might otherwise wind up with flat bread – no one wants that, warns Matthes. And he should know better than most.