Cornbread (Broa)

I can’t tell you the sheer joy I felt when I baked ‘broa’. It is one of the thing I miss from Portugal (food wise off course). I was dreading making it, thinking it was super difficult, but it isn’t!! This is a very typical type of bread in Portugal, and you can also make other things with it too, such as ‘migas’ (but more on that soon). Yummy, bread is life 🙂

Time: 3h 30 min approx.

Type: bread

Difficulty: 2 pans

Serves 2 broa breads

What you need

Food:

250g rye flour

500g cornmeal flour (the polenta style one)

1 tbsp sea salt

20g easy bake dry yeast

300ml lukewarm water

400ml boiling water

All-purpose flour (enough to knead)

Utensils:

Large bowl and boiling water

Baking tray

Fabric kitchen towel

Directions:

Pour cornmeal flour and boiling water into the bowl and mix well- let it sit for about 1h;

Mix the yeast and salt with the lukewarm water- pour over the cornmeal mix and combine well;

Mix the rye flour and knead well, adding all-purpose flour as needed- the dough must be firm (but not hard) and a little sticky;

Dust some flour on top of the dough and make a cross in the centre;

Leave it to rise for 1h, placing the fabric kitchen towel on top- at the end you should be able to see slots on top of the dough;

Mould the dough into 2 balls and place into a baking tray, previously dusted with flour and bake at 200֯C for about 1h.

Note: Because there’s no preservatives in this bread, it will only keep for a few days, but you can also freeze it.