What would be the best way to learn how to make Italian bakery specialties? How about spending a day together baking with Italian bakery specialists. Such a day was organized in Salpaus bakery school in Lahti Finland in May. Students teamed up with teacher Elmo Rautianen, Senson’s Arttu Ruusunen, bakery professionals Stefano Bona and Stefano Busi from company Bona Srl from Monza, Italy. Bona Srl distributes Senson’s diastatic and gluten free malt extract’s in Italy, which are one of the key ingredients in Italian bread recipes. Based on preliminary tests, also all the other local ingredients were found to be most suitable for making authentic Italian bread.
The day started with discussion about the differences between Finnish and Italian ingredients and short introduction to the baking philosophy of both countries. Due to the softness of local water, small changes were made to the original recipes in order to ensure right water/flour -ratio for each product. Products baked together were the famous Grissini al Sesamo, Ciabatta and Focaccio alla Genovese. In order to present the local baking know-how to the Italians, the Finns decided also to show how authentic Finnish rye bread is made. It was great to see how all participants were learning from each other about baking Italian and Finnish bread specialties.
Thank you team Salpaus, team Bona and above all Salpaus students for such a great day together.