Pull-apart bread with basil pesto

Ingredients for 1 servings:

• 500 g wheat flour, at least type 550, better 812
• 200 g Manitoba flour, grind 550
• 15 g yeast, fresh
• 1 tsp baking malt (liquid malt)
• 3 tsp salt
• Water, cold, approx. 450 ml
• 1 jar basil pesto
• 20 g durum wheat semolina

Instructions

Working time approx. 30 minutes; Rest time approx. 12 hours; Cooking/baking time approx. 45 minutes; Total time approx. 13 hours 15 minutes

approx. 12 pieces

Whisk the yeast in the water, salt, and liquid malt thoroughly. The amount of water depends on the type of flour. Mix the flours in a large bowl and add the yeast water with a flourish. Knead everything for 5 minutes in a food processor on speed 1; it will take a little longer by hand. The dough should pull away from the bowl, be shiny, and nice and elastic. Let the dough stand for 1-2 hours at room temperature so the yeast starts to rise. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. The next morning, remove the dough from the refrigerator and let it acclimatize for about 1 hour. In between, you can do a round of stretch and fold. So, run a spatula under the dough in the bowl, pull the dough up, and fold it into the middle. Repeat until you have a nice ball of dough. Turn the dough out onto a surface sprinkled with durum wheat semolina and roll it out into a square. Spread this with basil pesto. Now cut strips about 5-6 cm wide, fold them accordion-like, and stand them upright in a greased dish. The cut side is facing up and down. Continue in this way until the dish is full. Sprinkle the surface with a little durum wheat semolina. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees Celsius. In the meantime, let the pull-apart bread rise again; it should increase in volume considerably. Then put the bread in the oven, steam well, and then bake at 200 degrees Celsius for about 45 minutes. Remove the pull-apart bread from the dish and let it cool. You can also use red pesto, which tastes very good too. Of course, you can also let the dough rise immediately, like any other yeast dough. However, you will probably need a bit more yeast in this case. In terms of taste, overnight proving is simply better, as the dough has time to mature.