First Homemade Recipe: 'Marraqueta' Bread (ENGLISH)

I’ve always had a huge obsession with bread.

When I was younger I liked all kinds of bread, regardless of the origin or flavor. However, as I grew older I discovered some are of better quality than others, that’s why I decided I wanted to learn how to make my own. Therefore, in today’s post I’m going to show you the recipe of a Chilean bread called ‘Marraqueta’, it only takes a few ingredients and it’s very easy to do, but be careful, you’ll need to follow the steps closely.

We’ll need the following ingredients:

• 350ml of warm water
• 30 gr of fresh yeast, (if you’re using fresh yeast, you’ll only need 10 gr)
• 10 gr of salt (it can be less if you don’t like it too salty)
• 500 gr of all-purpose flour.
• 1 egg (it’s not for the actual bread, you’ll see)

Additionally, we’ll need:

• A tray
• A big bowl
• A cooking brush

Steps:

• First, measure the ingredients, you can use a scale or measuring cups.

• Once everything is measured and separated, we put it in the bowl and start mixing the flour, the dissolved yeast and salt. When each ingredient is mixed, start pouring the warm water and beat until smooth.

PD: I know people say ‘salt kills yeast’ but don’t worry, nothing is going to happen to our precious yeast.

• In a floured surface we begin kneading, pulling and stretching the dough for like 10-15 minutes or until it gets nice and smooth.

Tip: use the correct measures, don’t use more water or dough, because the mixture can change.

• During this next step, we place it in a floured bowl, cover it and let it rise in a warm place (I used the oven) until doubled. Then, wait for an hour.

• After this, we turn onto a lightly floured surface and start degassing the dough with our fingers, and then knead for a little more.

• Next, we shape the dough into small balls, each ball should have approximately 150 gr, we put them next to each other in a floured tray, and then we ‘squish’ them a little bit to begin forming the characteristic form of the ‘Marraqueta’.

• Alright, at this point we have to wait for another hour for the dough to rise in its new form. Then, we grab a stick (it can be a metal or plastic one), cover it with oil and push it in the dough to form a horizontal division.

• We mix the egg with some water and use the cooking brush to apply the mix in our ‘Marraquetas’, additionally, I added sesame seeds.

• Next, preheat the oven to 200°C and put a tray with boiling water inside, to create steam.

• Bake at 200°C for 25 minutes (ten minutes with steam and fifteen without steam).

• And we’re done! The ‘Marraquetas’ are ready to be eaten.

This type of bread has a great advantage, which is that we can easily split it into four individual pieces. I ate it with some butter and honey.

All the pictures were taken by me with a Samsung A50.