makes about 10 pounds (4.5 kg) rusks
Paximadia—rusks—have a long and storied history in Greece. Paximadia more or less as we know them today derive from the ancient Greek dipyros, which means “twice-baked,” and were essentially a savory biscuit. The rusks are called paximadia after a first-century-AD monk named Paximus, who improved on the ancient recipe, leaving a legacy that is a living tradition to this day. Rusks are made all over Greece and come in all manner of shapes and sizes; the dough can be made from wheat, rye, barley, corn, carob, or chickpea flour, or from various combinations thereof. This recipe is from a home baker in the town of Enagron, a mountain village between Rethymnon and Irakleion. Crete, perhaps more than anywhere else in Greece, is renowned for the variety of paximadia, both sweet and savory, traditionally made on the island.
2 pounds (900 g) whole wheat flour
2 pounds (900 g) all-purpose flour
2 pounds (900 g) cornmeal
2 pounds (900 g) rye flour
2 pounds (900 g) barley flour
1 pound (450 g) sourdough starter (called prozymi in Greek and made by keeping 1 pound / 450 g of dough from previous breadmaking; (see Note)
1½ quarts (1.5 L) lukewarm water
2 tablespoons sugar
2 cups (480 ml) extra-virgin Greek olive oil
3 tablespoons salt
18 lemon leaves, if you can get them
Fire up a wood-burning oven or preheat your oven to 450ºF (230ºC).
Sift all the flours together into a very large bowl. Form a well in the center.
Dilute the starter in the well with about a third of the lukewarm water. Add the sugar on top of starter (sugar will help the starter work better). Add 1 cup (240 ml) of the olive oil and and sprinkle the salt around the rim of the flour. Add a cup or two (240 to 480 ml) more of the water and start gradually kneading to form a dense dough mass that doesn’t stick. (Local bread bakers, toward the end of the kneading process, dampen their hands with water, thus adding a little more moisture to the dough without adding so much that the dough will be sticky.)
Cover the dough with a folded white cotton bedsheet and cover that with a woolen blanket to contain the heat, which ultimately helps the dough rise. The ceramic bowl also retains heat. Let it rise for about an hour.
Shape the dough into loaves about 3 inches (7.5 cm) wide and as long as your baking sheets can hold. Score the slices almost but not all the way to the bottom. This will help you separate the slices when the dough is baked.
Lay the loaves next to one another, a few inches apart, on the baking sheets. Brush them with olive oil and place the lemon leaves, if you can get them, in a few places under the loaves, which imparts a lovely aroma and is a traditional rusk-making technique on Crete.
Put the baking sheet into the oven and bake for 15 to 20 minutes.
Remove, cool slightly, and break off the scored slices. Remove the leaves and lay the rusks on a dry baking sheet.
Let the wood-fired oven die down, or reduce the temperature on a conventional oven to 130ºF (54ºC). Return the rusks to the oven to dehydrate overnight in the low heat.
Remove from the oven, let cool, and store in muslin bags at room temperature in a cool, dry place for up to 6 months.
NOTE: To make sourdough starter, or prozymi, as it is called in Greek, you either need to be a home bread baker or have access to dough from a home or commercial (preferably artisan) bread baker. Break off a fist-size piece of bread dough and place it in a tight-lidded container in the refrigerator. It will ferment and sour. Break it into small pieces and dilute with warm water before using to make bread or rusks. You can keep this indefinitely by breaking it into small chunks, “feeding” it by stirring in a few tablespoons of flour and water each week, and using it when needed. Keep refrigerated.