Stromboli with Pesto and Sundried Tomatoes

We were all invited to bake with the Bread Baking Babes. This month, we all; the Babes and the Buddies bake Stromboli.


Stromboli is a small island in the Tyrrhenian Sea, off the north coast of Sicily, containing one of the three active volcanoes in Italy. And, looking at the pictures I found the name of Stromboli made sense. All the loaves looked like cheese erupting volcanoes.

I looked at the recipe Elle had put on her blog and soon discovered I missed most ingredients for the filling. We had no smoked Swiss cheese, no prosciutto, no pepperoni and no fresh rosemary. We did have garlic, Thai basil leaves, salt and pepper.

We thought about a Thai Stromboli, but we have delicious “Girlichef” slow roasted tomatoes with garlic and onion in the refrigerator and I could make pesto with Thai ingredients and I could make a little bit of soft goat cheese.  I found the perfect Stromboli with my ingredients at the blog of Kitchenis. And off I went to the kitchen.

That night we would have Stromboli in stead of a nice pizza.

This is what I used for the dough:

125 gr all purpose flour 

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon instant dried yeast

1 teaspoon olive oil

100 ml warm water 

For the Filling:

1 tablespoons tomato paste

3 tablespoons home made Thai pesto

3 tablespoons home made slow roasted tomatoes with garlic and onion 

50 gr of home made soft goat cheese, torn into small pieces

Some slices of Dutch Edammer cheese

1 egg, beaten  

This is what I did to make the goat cheese:
Put 400 ml of goat cheese milk in a sauce pan and heat to 62˚C. Turn the heat off. Squeeze the juice of 1 lemon in the milk. Stir gently and you see the milk and the lemon juice divide. Pour the curd into a cheese cloth and hang it above a bowl. The whey can drip into the bowl. After 1,5 hours the dripping stopped. The goat cheese is ready for use. 

This is what I did to make Thai pesto:

Take a handful of Thai basis leaves, some parmesan cheese, roasted cashew nuts and some olive oil and pepper. Put everything in the kitchen machine and blend it. 
This is what I did to make slow roasted tomatoes with garlic and onion:

I placed my oven at 100 ˚C and placed a lot of small tomatoes, cut in half, on the baking tray. I added a lot of garlic gloves and onion rings and some Italian dried herbs and drizzled all with olive oil. I left everything in the oven till the tomatoes rippled, but were still soft and moist. That’s what makes this a great recipe of Girlichef. I scooped it all in a clean jar and poured olive oil till it was all under. 
This is what I did to make the Stromboli:

I started with the dough. Mix the dry ingredients; flour, salt, sugar and dry yeast in a bowl. Add the wet ingredients over it; olive oil and the water. Mix everything until well combined. It comes together easily and is not too wet.  

Transfer the dough to the lightly floured counter and knead for 8-10 minutes. You feel the dough changing into smooth dough. Shape into a ball. Transfer to a lightly oiled bowl, cover and leave for 1 hour.

Fold the dough in the bowl, cover and leave to proof for 1 hour.  

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Place the dough on the lightly floured counter. Roll it into a rectangle of about 45 x 30 cm. 

Spread the tomato paste thinly over the surface of the dough, leave 2 cm free. Then do the same with the pesto, and scatter the tomatoes, garlic, onion and bits of goat cheese and some Dutch Edammer cheese on top.

Roll the dough into a tube. Place onto the baking sheet and shape it into a circle, fitting one end inside the other. Cover and leave to rest for 10 minutes.

With a knife to cut through all but the bottom later of dough (This is how it should have been done, I went all the way trough the dough). Gently stretch and fan each piece outward. Brush all visible dough with some of the beaten egg.

I baked the Stromboli for 30 minutes, until the crust was golden brown and the cheese is bubbling. Turn the oven off and let it in the oven 5 minutes before serving. 

We ate this, in stead of pizza, with a simple cucumber salad; delizioso. Our house smelled like an Italian pizza place.

I found this recipe at Kitchenist 

I send this Stromboli to Elle of Feeding my Kitchen 

I send this Stromboli to Yeastspotting