Cretan barley bread "Paximadia"

Category: Special bread

Kitchen: greek

Ingredients
FOR OPARA:
rye-wheat leaven *	105 g
warm water	55 ml
wheat flour 1 grade or premium	30 g
barley flour **	20 g
FOR TEST:
all dough
warm water	145 ml
barley flour	230 g
wheat flour	115 g
sea salt	1 tsp complete
floral honey	1 tsp with a slide
olive oil	2-3 st. l.

Cooking method

"Paximadia" - in Greek "dry bread". This bread is sold everywhere in Crete in packages, you can find it in any bakery section of the supermarket. Many tourists have decided for themselves that the Cretans are drying their bread, because they have a crisis ... Well, someone, but the Cretans are still far from the crisis. In fact, the reason for the abundance of dry bread in Crete is much more prosaic: in ancient times, when men went to pastures in the mountains with flocks of sheep and rams for several days, or even weeks, they took a supply of water and food with them ... bread in such a climate disappeared very quickly, so a special bread was prepared: first the bread was baked with a whole loaf, then the finished loaf was cut into round pieces and AGAIN sent to the oven. It turned out twice baked bread. It was dry and light. Men, when they sat down to eat, soaked such dry bread with water and it became soft and was in no way inferior in quality to fresh bread.
This bread is ideal for Greek sandwich "Dakos", here is the recipe for its preparation
1) * The recipe for making sourdough can be viewed here (see point 3 "Rye sourdough"): To obtain a rye-wheat sourdough, you just need to "feed" it with half wheat and rye flour.
** I made barley flour. To do this, simply grind it in a coffee grinder.
2) For dough:
Measure out 105 g of sourdough, add warm water and leave the flour warm until it increases 2-3 times.
I have it already started to bubble in an hour,
this after 2 hours:
3) Add all the other components to the finished dough in the order indicated in the ingredients.
Mix all ingredients well.
4) Flour the dough work surface.
Put it on the table and knead it until it stops sticking and turns into smooth and elastic.
We form a ball from the dough, put it back in the bowl, cover with cling film and leave in a warm place for two hours (or until the dough doubles in volume.
5) When the dough is good enough, put it out of the bowl on a floured work surface, knead and knead for 6-7 minutes.
Divide the dough into 8 parts, and roll each into a flagellum. We roll up a tourniquet about 25 cm long and make a curl.
6) Prepare a baking sheet - sprinkle it with flour in a thin layer.
7) stick out the curls of the dough at a distance from each other.
8) Cover the blanks with a foil or a damp towel and put them in the heat for proofing until they are doubled (2-3 hours). To do this, I use the oven, setting the minimum temperature.
9) Bake in an oven preheated to 230 degrees with steam (put a pan with water in the oven first) for 10 minutes and another 30 minutes at 190 degrees without steam.