How to Perfectly Cook Portuguese Broa Bread

[BigFarofa]

Hello my fellow bakers,

I've been trying to make a Portuguese bread called "broa" which in a nutshell is a bread made of corn meal flour(white or yellow, but I used white), rye, strong white flower, water and yeast.

My problem is that whenever I cook it, The crust is quite and hard and slightly burnt in the middle, but very burned on the sides. However the inside is very moist, giving the feeling of being undercooked. Very mushy/moist all around even close to the crust is very mushy. Can even make a dough ball with it. I've tried 3 times, but always ends up like this.

I've attached two images that show how a "broa" should look like(broa_inside.png, broa_outside). My dough inside looks similar to the attached image named: "undercooked_inside.png". One of my guesses is also underproofing since the dough didn't rise much.


Here are my ingredients:
250g White Corn meal
half of a dessert spoon of salt
half of a dessert spoon of sugar
65g dark rye flour
5g dry east
125g Strong White Flour
380ml water

What I did:
- Boil 230ml of water and put in a bowl with the corn meal.
- Let it rest for an hour
- Mix dry yeast in warm water and put in the corn meal mixture
- Put the white flour and rye flour mixture
- MIx for around 5 minutes and put the salt.
- Mix the dough for more 15 minutes
- Sprinkle the dough with flour and let it rest for 1:30 h
- preheat the oven at 220 c
- Put the bread in a bowl with a hefty amount of white flour and toss it a few times
- Put the bread in a hot tray and let it in the oven at 220c for 40 minutes

 

[retired baker]

looks like the yeast is kaput, you might be mixing it with water thats too warm, some instant yeasts don't require dissolving in water, just add to the flour. Make sure you have good bread flour.

 

[BigFarofa]

looks like the yeast is kaput, you might be mixing it with water thats too warm, some instant yeasts don't require dissolving in water, just add to the flour. Make sure you have good bread flour.

You're right. According to the package, the yeast does not require mixing with water. I'll try next time to mix with the flour and then adding water little by little. Thank you.