The savory colomba is a soft leavened bread stuffed with cooked ham, melting cheese and hard-boiled eggs, or other fillings of your choice. It’s perfect to bring to the table for Easter, served as an appetizer with drinks, or to take on a picnic, maybe for Easter Monday.
Making it isn’t difficult: you start from a leavened dough that is then rolled out with a rolling pin, filled, rolled up and baked in the classic colomba mold. I use a paper mold, in this case for 26 oz, which you can find online or in some stores, for example at the Farinarium of Molino Merano in Lana.
For the preparation I always used flour from Molino Merano, in this case Regiograno organic spelt flour, made from cereals grown in South Tyrol!
- Difficulty: Medium
- Rest time: 3 Hours 30 Minutes
- Preparation time: 40 Minutes
- Cooking time: 50 Minutes
- Portions: 1 Piece
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Easter
Ingredients
- 3 1/8 cups organic spelt flour Regiograno (Molino Merano)
- 1 oz sourdough starter ADAM (Molino Merano)
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 3/4 cup milk (plus 1 tbsp)
- 1 egg (medium)
- 1 1/4 tsp salt
- 3 tbsp butter (soft)
- 7 oz cooked ham
- 7 oz melting cheese
- 3 hard-boiled eggs
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup crushed pistachios
Tools
- 1 Colomba mold for 26 oz (750 g)
Steps
To prepare the savory colomba, put the spelt flour, the ADAM sourdough starter, the sugar and the lukewarm milk in a bowl and mix. Add the egg and the salt and knead until you obtain a homogeneous dough. At this point add the soft butter cut into cubes and knead again until the dough is smooth and elastic. You can knead by hand or with a stand mixer.
Shape the dough into a ball and let it rise covered, in a warm place, until doubled in size — it will take about 2 hours.
Meanwhile, cut the ham into small squares and the cheese into cubes. Peel the hard-boiled eggs and roughly chop them.
When the dough has doubled in volume, divide it in half and roll out one half on a lightly floured surface into a rectangle of about 12 x 10 in. For the length, adjust according to your colomba mold; it should match the central part. Spread half of the ham, half of the cheese and half of the eggs over the entire surface and roll up. Pinch the ends of the roll well so the filling doesn’t escape during baking and place the roll in the mold along the central part to form the body of the colomba.
Do the same with the remaining dough. After forming the roll, cut it in half, pinch the ends to seal them and place the two pieces in the mold at the sides of the body to form the wings of the colomba.
Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until the dough reaches the rim of the mold. It will take about 1 hour and 30 minutes, but it depends on the ambient temperature.
Meanwhile preheat the oven to 356°F (conventional).
Brush the surface of the colomba with the beaten egg, sprinkle with the crushed pistachios and bake for about 50 minutes. If it gets too dark, cover with a sheet of aluminum foil.
Remove your savory colomba from the oven and enjoy it hot or warm.
