Prep
40 minutes, plus 10 hours rising
Cook
1 hour 10 minutes
Serves
1 very large loaf
Difficulty
Advanced
Region
Puglia
What you’ll need
Ingredients
- 5⅓ cups semola rimacinata di grano duro Semola Rimacinata →
- ¾ cup strong bread flour
- 7¾ oz active natural leaven
- 2⅔ cups water
- 1 tbsp fine sea salt
At the stove
Instructions
- 1
Combine the flours and water and rest for 45 minutes.
- 2
Add the leaven and salt and knead to a firm, smooth dough.
- 3
Rise for 5–6 hours, folding three times early on.
- 4
Shape into one large round and prove for 2 hours in a well-floured cloth.
- 5
Bake at 480°F for 25 minutes with steam, then 375°F for 45 minutes. The crust should be very dark.
- 6
Cool for several hours before cutting.
Recipe notes
Home adaptation of a traditional bakery loaf — a domestic oven cannot reproduce a wood-fired bake exactly.
Baked this dark, the loaf keeps for days and is meant to be used as it stales.
Context
Laterza in Puglia has a long-documented tradition of large wood-oven durum loaves, baked to keep and used through the week as the bread hardened.
Sources: Editorial adaptation of documented Pugliese bread traditions, Ro & Ti Kitchen
The pieces used here
From the Kitchen
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