Broa is a type of corn and rye/wheat bread traditionally made in Portugal, Galicia, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, and Brazil. Unlike the cornbread typical of the southern United States, broa is made from a mixture of cornmeal and rye or wheat flour, and is leavened with yeast.
When baking with corn you need to deploy different strategies. Corn flour, for instance, has no gluten. As a consequence the whole dough will not stick together as nicely as regular wheat dough. At the same time the bread is a little denser, as not as much air can be trapped inside of the dough when baking.
This recipe is only an "inspired" broa bread, as I used 30% corn flour and 70% wheat flour. Originally there would be a higher percentage of corn meal. However this way you enjoy the fluffy wheaty interior as well as the slight corn taste. To me this strategy is a great combination of the best out of two worlds, corn bread and wheat bread.
- 350 grams of all purpose flour instead of 500 grams
- 150 grams of corn flour