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• Recipe Overview
• Ingredients
• Processes - Utensils
• Instructions

• Cuisine

  Latin American >> Caribbean >> Cuban

• Dietary Style

• Source

  Genius Kitchen(food.com)

| 1. STARTER: The day before baking, dissolve the yeast in warm water in a nonreactive bowl. Add flour. You want a thick paste when you add the flour. Cover bowl with plastic wrap (punch a couple air holes) and place in refrigerator for 24 hours. | 2. Leftover starter can be left in the refrigerator or frozen. (You will need to maintain starter if you are going to keep it; there are several zaar recipies that describe sourdough starter care.). | 3. DOUGH: Dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water in a large mixing bowl. When the mixture is foamy (5 to 10 minutes), mix in the lard/ shortening, remaining water and starter (remember, it's 1/2 cup of starter and not the entire volume that you made the day before). | 4. Mix well with your fingers or a wooden spoon. Stir in salt and flour, 1 cup at a time. You want to get a dough that is stiff enough to knead. You can also mix and knead in a mixer fitted with a dough hook or in a food processor fitted with the double blade (the processor hook will not handle this job easily). | 5. Turn dough onto a lightly floured work surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 6 to 8 minutes, adding flour as necessary. The dough should be pliable and not sticky. | 6. Transfer to a lightly oiled bowl, cover and let warm, draft-free spot until it doubles its bulk, about 45 minutes. Punch down. | 7. To form the loaves, divide the dough in 4 pieces. Roll out each piece to form a 14-inch long tube, with rounded ends (sort of like a long meat loaf). | 8. Put 2 of the loaves per baking sheet, each loaf about 6 inches apart on the sheet. Cover with dampened cotton dish towel and let rise in warm, draft-free spot until double their bulk, about 1 hour. If you want it to rise at a slower pace, you can put it in the refrigerator for 3-4 hours. | 9. Preheat oven to 350°F. | 10. Lay a piece of dampened thick string or twine (about 1/8" thick) all along the top of the loaf. Bake until the loaves are lightly browned on the top and sound hollow when lightly tapped, about 30 minutes. | 11. Remove loaves from oven and let cool slightly. Remove the strings. They will leave a distinct little ridge on top. Transfer loaves to a wire rack for cooling. | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Estimated Nutritional Profile for Ingredients

Ingredient Name	Quantity	Unit	State	Energy (kcal)	Carbohydrates	Protein (g)	Total Lipid (Fat) (g)
yeast	3/4	teaspoon		8.325	0.9189	1.0746	0.0405
water	1/3	cup		0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
purpose flour	1/3	cup		-	-	-	-
yeast	4 1/2	teaspoons		8.325	0.9189	1.0746	0.0405
sugar	1	tablespoon		55.062	13.7724	0.0	0.0
water	1 1/2	1/2		0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
vegetable shortening	3 -4	tablespoons		0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
sourdough starter	1/2	cup		-	-	-	-
salt	1	tablespoon		-	-	-	-
bread flour	4 -5	cups		0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0

- Means that suitable USDA nutrition profile could not be mapped for this ingredient-unit combination.