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Venetians, the small ones, for a snack

Venetians, the small ones, for a snack

Mid fifties, childhood memories… a sometimes my mother, taking my sister and me to kindergarten, would stop for a moment at the bakery;
there he would take us, for a mid-morning snack, some very fragrant freshly baked Venetian cakes.

Every now and then I feel like replicating them, closing my eyes and finding myself a child.
And so I get in the kitchen and start kneading!

I use the same procedure as my very simplified version of the Venetian, a version reduced to a minimum that does not include candied fruit, chocolate chips or anything else: only the essentials.

However, it is a fairly long preparation to start in the late afternoon and which, after leavening at room temperature, must be placed in the fridge for one night.

Then it must be worked again to form the venetian blinds; which, as soon as they are done, are transferred to a baking sheet.

Here, after at least two hours of rising again (they must swell well) they can finally be decorated and baked!

No more delays and, starting as always with the ingredients, let's start kneading!

Ingredients:

Dough for: 8 pieces 16 pieces
Manitoba flour (Type 550) g. 250 500
fresh brewer's yeast (see note) g. 5 10
cup sugar g. 50 100
salted butter g. 60 110
eggs pc. 1 2
milk ml. 100 200
sale g. 3 5
Orange peel (or) ½ 1
Lemon peel ½ 1
vanilla q.s. q.s.
 - For decoration:
egg pc. 1 1
granulated sugar g. q.s. q.s.
icing sugar g. q.s. q.s.

Preparation:

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First, melt the butter in a double boiler (or in a saucepan over very low heat) and let it cool down.

Dissolve the yeast in the slightly warm milk.

In a small bowl, place the whole eggs with the sugar and whisk them for a long time (possibly with an electric whisk), as if to prepare a Genoese pasta, until doubled in volume; the ideal would be to have the eggs at room temperature and mount them by holding the bowl close to a heat source or even suspended for the first two minutes over a pot with boiling water.

Pour in the now cooled melted butter and mix again with a whisk.

Complete with the milk in which the yeast has been dissolved, mix and ...

... possibly pass into the bowl of the mixer (leaf hook) gradually adding the flour mixed with the salt and well sieved.

As soon as the flour has been absorbed, pass gradually at an increasingly higher speed (it will take about ten minutes) until the dough tends to detach from the bowl (in practice it will be well strung).

Collect the dough into a ball and put it in a bowl at least three times the volume of the dough previously greased with oil.

Cover well with plastic (I use a plastic bag sealed with a clothespin ...) and let it rise in a warm place and away from drafts for at least a couple of hours: the dough must at least double.

Put the bowl in the fridge for the night.

In the morning remove the bowl from the fridge and turn the dough over onto the work surface dusted with flour and knead it with your hands (or better with tarot cards) giving two or three turns of folds.

PHOTOS IN PREPARATION!!!

Divide it into many equal loaves, (depending on the amount of dough chosen, eight or sixteen; or six and twelve for larger Venetian blinds) and form balls taking care to close them well.

Arrange them well spaced on a baking tray covered with parchment paper, cover with plastic and place them for a couple of hours in the turned off oven. They will also rise by spreading out and forming little domes.

At this point, prepare to decorate the Venetian blinds while heating the (static) oven to 200°.

Beat an egg in a bowl and use it to brush all the dough (the leftover egg can be added to an omelette).

Cover generously with granulated sugar.
(a note: there are those who are more respectful of tradition and brush them with a glaze obtained by whisking egg white and almonds, mainly; but I keep it simple!).

As soon as the oven is up to temperature, put it in the oven, immediately lowering the temperature to 180°C.

Leave to cook for 25 minutes.

If at some point the surface tends to become too colored, place an aluminum sheet on it.

Once the cooking time has elapsed, check that the venetian blinds have taken on a nice golden colour.

Remove them from the oven and slide them onto a wire rack to cool.

(you can verify that they have been cooked by tapping lightly on the bottom: they will sound like empty.
If they still appear too moist, leave them, with the grate, in the oven that is turned off and half open for about ten minutes – never happened, so far?).

Before serving, sprinkle with icing sugar and then enjoy!

The consistency of the dough will be soft, light and spongy

Have fun and enjoy your meal!

ADVICES AND NOTES:

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  • print pdf Recipe, text only: to print or download. (in preparation)
  • Brewer's yeast: can be replaced, for better results, with 200 g. of sourdough.
  • Orange zest and lemon zest, as well as vanilla, depend a lot, as dosage, on personal taste
  • See also: The GugelhupfThe Venetian, easy and within everyone's reach.

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