West Africa · Side
Pão de Terra (Hearth-Baked Sweetish Yeast Roll)
Golden, mildly sweet hearth bread infused with subtle notes of fennel and cinnamon, perfect for morning café.
The story
In the rural interior of Santiago and the highlands of Fogo, Pão de Terra is mixed in large wooden troughs and baked in outdoor stone wood ovens (fornos de lenha) for morning breakfast. The recipe blends European wheat bread traditions with local island spices, yielding a dense, tender crumb sweetened with unrefined cane sugar. An essential technical nuance lies in the addition of ground fennel seed and a touch of fat, which preserve the roll's soft crumb in the dry island heat.
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