Cuban bread recipe?

[Apocalypso]

I'm wondering whether anyone here has a great Cuban bread recipe to share?

 

[Becky]

I don't I'm afraid, but hopefully someone else here might. Is it the bread used to make cubanos?

 

[Apocalypso]

I don't I'm afraid, but hopefully someone else here might. Is it the bread used to make cubanos?

Si! It's a long bread shaped like a wider French baguette, with a thin crispy crust and a light fluffy crumb. In Florida it's pretty easy to find at the supermarket. (The Walmart Neighborhood Market has something called Puerto Rican Bread which is much like Cuban bread, not sure how they differ?) I made a half-batch of the recipe that Chef John made in a Food Wishes video, but I'm on the hunt for other recipes to compare to. His has a preferment, plus additional yeast added the next day (belt and braces) - and I see that authentic Cuban bread has to have lard in it, rather than butter or oil. I didn't have lard last time but had some very clean bacon fat in the freezer. I finally bought a small container of lard. I've seen other recipes without the preferment... just wondering if there's a holy-grail recipe out there. Incidentally the test bake, a month or so ago, went pretty well, and the bacon fat didn't give too much unexpected bacon taste.

 

[Becky]

The first thing that sprang to mind when you mentioned Cuban bread was the Cubanos that featured in Chef, have you seen it? Binging with Babish did a video on how to recreate them:

My brother made these once and they were DIVINE!! They are really filling (I could only manage half in one sitting), and it was a lot of work. The pork was mouth-wateringly tasty! Shame he doesn't make the bread though.

I hope you manage to find a holy grail recipe!