Pane Casereccio

I’ve been experimenting with several ways to make homemade bread (pane casereccio). The one described here is the best so far. It's also the simplest because it involves no starter, no stand mixer, and practically no kneading. As you can see from the photo below, it is plenty airy.

Some recipes call for baking bread inside a Dutch oven to create the steam necessary for a good crust; however, I’ve found that steaming the oven itself works much better. Further, using a pizza steel or cast-iron pan creates a crisper bottom crust.

In Rome, we fell in love with the pane di Genzano, which has a deep brown, crunchy crust and a light crumb. Below is not a proper recipe for pane di Genzano, but the result is very close.

Note that this bread dough requires a minimum of 28 hours to rise, so plan ahead! I usually start late morning the day before, then end up cooking it late afternoon the next day.

Bread Dough Made Without Starter or Kneading:

400 g King Arthur (Organic) Unbleached All-Purpose Flour (11.7% protein, W240)

2 g active dried yeast

1 tsp malt syrup or honey

300 g warm water (100°F)

11 g salt

1. In a small bowl, mix together the warm water, yeast, and malt syrup / honey until dissolved. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit for 15 minutes. Because you are using a lot of water, do not expect it to form the usual proofing foam on top. If you want to see that because you are unsure of your yeast, you should use less water during this proofing stage.

2. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour and salt. (Other bread recipes add salt last to avoid harming the yeast, but we’ve already given the yeast a head start here.)

3. Add the yeasty liquid to the flour mixture and stir until just combined. Don’t worry about making it smooth. Do not overmix.

4. Place on a lightly floured work surface. Knead for a quick 10 seconds to get it round. Do not over-knead. It will mix itself while it's proofing.

5. Cover with an upside-down bowl and let sit for 30 minutes.

6. Do not knead. Place dough in a lightly floured bowl, such as the one that came with your mixer. Barely spraying the bowl first with a very fine mist helps; alternatively, just wet your fingers and spread a very thin layer of water around with your hand. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for 24 hours. This slow rise develops the bread’s flavor. It should double in size.

7. After the long rise, sprinkle a little rice flour inside a rectangular bread pan lined with a cotton dish towel gently transfer the dough to it. Sprinkle some more rice flour on top and loosely cover with plastic wrap and fold over the dish towel on top.

8. Let the covered dough rise (proof) for 3 1/2 hours in an OFF oven with the light on. Halfway through, do slap-and-fold on the dough a couple times, reshape, and put it back where it was. The dough should double in size, so you may need to go more than 3 1/2 hours.

9. At the end of its rise, leave the dough in the pan (on the towel), but spray the top with water and sprinkle wheat bran over the entire moist top. Toward the end of preheating the oven described below (not now), transfer this dough to a pizza paddle by placing the pizza paddle over the top of the pan, then flipping the whole thing over to transfer the dough to the paddle. Make sure there's enough wheat bran under the dough so that it can move freely on the paddle.

10. Do not make any cuts in the dough (pane di Genzano has no cuts).

11. When there’s an hour remaining in this last rise, begin this steamed cooking process:

a. Place a pizza steel or a cast-iron pan in the oven on the center rack.

b. Place two metal bread pans on the same rack, one on each side of the pizza steel / cast-iron pan. These will be used for steaming.

c. Preheat the oven to 500°F (260°C) for one hour, or whatever is the maximum temperature of your oven.

d. With 10 minutes remaining on the preheat, roll up six microfiber towels and place in a Pyrex dish of water. Microwave until boiling slightly, about 10 minutes.

e. Separately, microwave 2 cups water until it is boiling gently, about 3-4 minutes.

f. Use tongs to transfer three hot microfiber towels into each of the bread pans in the oven. Pour one cup of boiling water into each.

g. Let steam develop in the oven for 5 minutes.

h. Use the technique described above in step 9 to transfer the dough to the paddle, then reform it slightly to be more oval. Then immediately transfer the dough to the pizza steel / cast-iron pan. Minimize how long the door is open to avoid losing steam.

i. Turn the oven down to 425°F (215°C).

j. Bake bread for 40 minutes. After the first 15 minutes, remove the two steam pans. 40 minutes will deliver a deep brown crust on top, just short of starting to appear burnt (see below), which resembles that of our beloved pane di Genzano. Often I cook it for a 1-2 more minutes. Don't worry, the bread won't be dry inside even though it's so dark on the outside. I like it very crunchy.

k. Turn OFF the oven.

l. Remove the loaf and return it to the center rack. If you used the baking steel, you can either remove the steel or use a drying rack on top of it (I do the latter).

m. Leave the door ajar 3-4 inches. Let the bread cool from hot to warm there. This method prevents any released moisture from softening the crust.

12. Once the bread has cooled to warm, remove and enjoy!

13. Once the bread is completely cool, wrap it in a cotton dish towel and put the open face down on the counter. The cotton allows the bread to breath so it doesn't get rubbery or soft. If you need the bread to last more than a couple days, you can put it into a paper bag or special bread bag. You can also freeze half of it.

14. If you need to revive the bread, you can put it in an oven at 350°F (180°C) for 5-10 minutes.

Check out the crunchy deep brown crust just short of appearing burnt. This particular loaf has more holes than usual for some reason:

If you spray a very light mist in the bowl before the 24-hour levitation in the fridge, the light coat of flour will stick to more parts of the bowl, particularly if you have a tall bowl. You can also put a tiny amount of water on your fingers and spread it around the bowl with your hand:

The final 3 1/2 hours of levitation is done in a rectangular bread pan lined with a cotton towel with rice flour on it, then cover loosely with plastic and fold over the towel and put it in an OFF oven with the light on:

After the 3 1/2 hours of levitation in the OFF oven, \ go ahead and spray water on the top and coat it well with wheat bran. But don't remove it from the pan yet. We want enough wheat bran on the top so that, when we flip it over, it will not stick to the paddle:

In the meantime, after the hour of preheating the oven at 500F, we boil our soaked cloths and extra 2 cups of water, then put them into the two hot pans in the oven and let steam develop for 5 minutes:

Near the end of the 5 minutes of steaming, put the paddle over the top of the pan with the dough, then flip the whole thing over so that the top of the dough with the wheat bran ends up on the bottom. Adjust its shape to be oval. Add extra wheat bran so that the dough can slip off easily onto the hot pizza steal. Note that we do NOT cut the dough:

Here is the dough after it has been slipped onto the hot pizza steel and the oven lowered to 425F. Minimize how long the door is open to avoid losing steam. Note that the dough will rise quite a bit as the cooking occurs, so don't worry if it's low at this point as seen in the photo here. Remove the two steaming pans after 15 minutes and recenter the bread:

The bread will keep well if you wrap it in a cotton dish towel and place the exposed part facing down on the counter: