In this installment

Sour Cream Coffee Cake

Paesano Bread

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Sour Cream Coffee Cake

A Zingerman’s classic and perennially our most popular gift: rich, moist Sour Cream Coffee Cake made with organic flour, loaded with Indonesian cinnamon and toasted walnuts, baked in a traditional bundt pan. It’s very impressive and extremely delicious. And it lasts…in theory a week or two on the counter, but I’ve never seen one survive that long.

Paesano Bread

Paesano comes from the Puglia region of Italy. The name itself translates to “villager” or “countryman.” Here in the US, the equivalent is something like “friend” or “homeboy.” The recipe itself came from bread baker Michael London when he first visited us here at the Bakehouse to help refine our recipes and baking techniques. And that recipe hasn’t actually changed much since we first started baking it back in 1993.

First we make a poolish which is a starter that ferments for 5-6 hours. The dough is then mixed and proofed for about 5 hours. After it proofs, our bread bakers scale and shape each loaf by hand. The bread is in the oven within the hour.

Paesano has a thin, chewy crust dusted lightly with organic cornmeal. Inside, the soft white crumb is filled with large air pockets. Those holes aren’t a mistake. These “air pockets” are really pockets of trapped CO2. So, during the 14 ½ hours of fermentation, these large pockets of ‘bread aroma’ are produced and become the wonderful open crumb of the bread. Plus those air pockets allow the bread to fully absorb the flavor of whatever you are “ripping and dipping”.