Strong flour
One of the pleasures of Italy is having breakfast out - which means having a cappucino and a brioche/cornetto filled with apricot jam. Having seen a recipe for them in a book I got bought for Christmas I decided it would be something I could make at home. To make them you need “Strong flour” or bread flour. I have never worked out what this is in italian getting completely confused with “00″ flour, “0″ flour”, flour for pizza, flour for cakes, soft wheat, hard wheat, durum wheat etc
So the other day we were having a coffee in the “Dolce Vita”, a cafe not too far away which has delicious brioche and I asked the owner which flour he uses. He told me it was “farina manitoba”. This is flour made from soft wheat grown in more nothern climes and which contains higher levels of protein and makes better bread. Although the wheat used may come from Canada, Russia etc in Italy it has been given the name of the Canadian Province.
So yesterday in the supermarket I saw a packet of “Manitoba Flour” and the first batch of bread (not the brioche) is in the oven as I write.