This is a recipe for a classic Neapolitan no-knead, crusty bread with a chewy crumb. You’ll want to eat immediately out of the oven. I like bread that has a significant crust and a chewy interior. It’s a standard in Neapolitan bakeries and it’s often referred to as pane cafone, meaning peasant bread.
The basis for this bread is Type 00 flour. It’s a mix of hard and soft wheat finely milled to a consistency of baby powder. While it may not contain bran, it’s a nutritious flour with a high gluten (a protein) content.
This flour is the gold standard flour with which Neapolitans make pizza. The high gluten content gives the body and chewiness to good pizzas we love. These properties also make it a terrific option for bread, pasta, and cakes and pastries, including the delectable classic Neapolitan babà.
Using Type 00 flour yields a loaf with a crunchy crust and a springy, airy crumb with a good bite. This recipe is inspired by a variety of baguette and Neapolitan bread recipes I’ve tried and combined over the last two years. In particular, the ones I kept coming back to were Miyoko Schinner’s baguette recipe from The Homemade Vegan Pantry and this recipe from La chiave nel pozzo, which a friend sent to me.
My favourite Italian Type 00 flour is from Molino Pasini. It’s not the easiest to find, especially since Brexit. I used to buy it in 10kg sacks from Feast Italy. I’ve swapped to Shipton Mill, which I also buy in bulk.
If you’re looking to make pizza, I use the dough recipe from The Sexy Vegan‘ s now out of print Seriously Legit Vegan Neapolitan Pizza.
You will need to set aside a bit of time to make this bread. It’s mostly inactive time, so you can multitask easily.
What you’ll need
- 750g Type 00 flour
- 2 teaspoons salt
- ½ teaspoon active dry yeast
- 530 ml water
- Semolina, cornmeal or whole wheat flour for dusting to assist during baking
- A deep cast iron (or cast iron and ceramic) saucepan with a lid; or Dutch oven
- A tea towel to cover the dough for the first rise
- A tea towel for lining the bowl for proving or a proper proving basket
- Cooling rack
Making the dough
Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Once you’ve done as much mixing as you can with a spoon or other implement, you’ll need to use your hands to finish the process. The dough will be sticky. Once mixed, cover and set it aside somewhere relatively warm and let it rise for at least 12 hours.
Ready for the oven
You’ll need approximately 2½ hours to complete the baking process. That sounds like alot of time, but it’s mostly inactive. So you can be doing lots of other things. Pre-heating the oven is a critical part of the process.
When you’re ready to begin the baking process, first dust a surface with whole wheat flour. Using whole wheat flour means you’ll not need another type of flour to sprinkle into the cast iron saucepan.
Prepare a proving basket for proofing (aka, the second rise) or use a tea towel generously sprinkled with whole wheat flour (or plain flour).
Pour the sticky dough onto the lightly dusted surface, using the semolina, cornmeal or whole wheat flour for dusting, and gently fold a few times, shaping the dough into a ball. With the seam side down, transfer the dough to the prepared proving basket or to the dusted tea towel. If you’re using the latter method, then just grab the four corners of the tea towel and place it all back into the bowl you used for rising. Cover and set aside to proof until the oven is ready in 90 minutes.
Turn the oven to 225C (fan assisted). For the first 45 minutes, it’ll be empty. Set the timer. When the 45 minutes is up, put your cast iron saucepan, without the lid, into the oven for another 45 minutes. Set the timer.
Heating the saucepan is critical to sealing in the moisture at the bottom of your bread. If you’ve not used whole wheat flour, keep some semolina or cornmeal nearby, you’ll need it when ready to bake.
When the timer rings again, carefully remove the super hot saucepan from the oven. If you’ve used semolina, cornmeal or whole wheat flour for proving, then you can just plop the dough, seam up, into the scorching hot saucepan. There will be enough textured flour there to prevent sticking along with the super hot pan.
If you’ve not used one of the suggested types of flour for dusting, you’ll need a generous pinch of semolina or cornmeal sprinkled into the scorching hot saucepan before putting the dough in the saucepan, seam up.
Before covering with the lid, you can use a sharp knife or razor to score the dough as you like.
Cover with the lid and put into the oven for 25 minutes. Set the timer. After 25 minutes, take the saucepan out of the oven, remove the lid. Then, place the uncovered saucepan back into the oven for 25 minutes. Set that timer one final time.
When baking is complete, take the saucepan out of the oven and tip the bread onto a cooling rack.
A few notes: each oven is different and each Type 00 flour will also be slightly different in terms of how much water it will absorb. You’ll need to get to know how your oven cooks and notice the variations in stickiness of the dough whenever you use a different brand of flour. The temperatures, timings and measurements in this recipe will broadly work, but you might have to tweak them ever so slightly
Variations
Rye
Use 300g rye flour and 450g Type 00 and 500ml water. You can also add one tablespoon rye or coriander seeds for additional savouriness. This recipe, which a friend sent, inspired me to incorporate rye bread into the Type 00 pane cafone
Barley
I’ve really come to love using Orkney beremeal. Beremeal is a type of barley grown, It’s grown and milled, as the name suggests, on the island of Orkney in Scotland. Use the same proportions of flours and water as the rye bread
Turmeric
Turmeric has a distinct flavour I very much enjoy. Combining it as above with the beremeal or simply with all Type 00 is a nice change. Add 2 teaspoons to the dry mix or a full tablespoon for more intense flavour. Adding 1 teaspoon of nigella seeds to turmeric bread is also a nice touch
“Being vegan is neither a guarantee of health nor of illness. It is an ethical choice, not a magic bullet.” From Think Like a Vegan: What everyone can learn from vegan ethics
Adding this to my recipes!
Fantastic! Let me know how it comes out or if you have any questions!
Can I ask why we bake it seam up? It seems counterintuitive… thanks!
It allows for that crust split at the top. You can also achieve that by scoring the top with a sharp knife. It gets the crust that bit extra crispy
I made the Neapolitan bread today. It turned out amazing. Great recipe. Long process but well worth it. Thanks for sharing such a wonderful recipe.
Delighted to hear this!
Yeah it’s a bit long but mostly inactive.
I’m always able to work around it. I do sometimes wake up early early to bake it and then I take advantage of that to get a yoga practice in or catch up on work, emails and that sort of thing.
If I am using a Dutch Stoneware Covered Baker. Should I still bake with it covered for 25 minutes and uncovered for 25 minutes? It seems the recipes for the stoneware bread say 30 minutes covered and 15 uncovered? What do you recommend? Thank you
Hi! I’ve never used a Dutch Stoneware Covered Baker, but I use a deep Le Creuset covered pot, which is also very heavy.
With your Dutch Stoneware Covered Baker, I’d cook it for 30 minutes, uncover it and then see what it looks like at 15 minutes.
If that’s insufficient, then I’d leave it in for longer
Thanks for asking and good luck baking!
Thank you so much for answering my question on the Dutch Stoneware Covered Baker. Another question is with the stoneware baker, do I still have to keep the oven on fan assisted (which I believe you mean convection bake right?) with the fan for 45 minutes and then put the stoneware baker in for another 45 minutes with the fan on (convection bake). Finally do you bake at 225C (437 degrees Fahrenheit) fan assisted which is convection bake or do you change it to regular bake at 225C (437 Fahrenheit).
Thank you so much for answering my questions. I appreciate it. Your recipe is the best I have seen. I love 00 flour, and love Napoli 🙂
Hi!
Good questions. I don’t know how quickly the stoneware will heat up. So I’d try it first following the 45-45 method. See how that turns out and then vary from there. That’s what I’d do.
I keep it on fan assisted (yes, that’s convection) the whole time. I’ve never tried swapping it. But swapping might reduce the temperature and evenness of heat. Convection/fan heats things up more quickly and evenly so you can generally bake at around 10-20 degrees Celsius lower than you would without fan. If you’re curious to see what happens, try it.
Try one variation at a time so you know what works and how.
Remember the initial bake with the lid essentially bakes it, whilst keeping in sufficient moisture. And the second one without it seals it with the good crust.
Forza Napoli sempre! 💙
Thank you for answering questions. I appreciate it.
1. Should the water be a particular temperature? Or is cold water from the fridge the best?
2. Since using Active Dry Yeast and not instant yeast, should you proof the yeast by putting it in water water first to have it foam, or do you just add active dry yeast directly to the flour and salt? I know the yeast is new and perfect, however I am not sure if Active dry yeast can go directly into the flour dry.
Again thank you. I appreciate your time.
Don’t use cold water. Just use warm water from the tap. Just warm to the touch not hot. Add the yeast directly to the flour. Just mix all the try ingredients, put in the water, mix well with a large spoon, and then with your hands. No need to pre-prepare the yeast. I use active dry yeast and do this.
first time I’m trying this recipe and all I had on hand was unbleached all purpose flour, so I’m using that. Hopefully it’ll be okay.
after I mixed all the ingredients together I realized my dough wasn’t sticky at all, so I just added warm water and mixed until my dough started to stick to my hands. would it be possible for you to post a Pic of what the sticky dough should look like for reference, please?
it’s currently taking its 12 hour rest on my dining room table. can’t wait to bake it tomorrow!
Hi Justine
how did the bread come out?
Stickiness will depend on the flour. Using Type 00 gives you one thing and using other flours gives you other outcomes.
And how much you hydrate the flour – how much water to flour – will also have different effects.
But the method in general is a good base to use. You just have to play around with the ratio of water/flour depending on the flour.
Anyway, I hope it came out well!! And if not, it’s just a lesson learned. It took me a while to get it right.
Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with me. I appreciate it. Best Regards. Denise
I followed your recipe to the letter and the bread came out amazing. WOW. I am a beginner. I used a stoneware 3.1 quart dutch enamel baker, and heated it for 45 minutes. I used the convection oven that made a big difference. Thank you for amazing recipe. I have a couple of pictures but not sure how to attach or get them to you.
That’s fantastic news!!! If you use social media, post them and tag me on Insta at emi.leese or FB at Emi Leese. I’m looking forward to seeing them!!
EMI,
I did research on whether or not stoneware can be preheated. The answer is NO. There is a good chance stoneware will crack. I want to let you know in the event other readers ask about using a dutch oven stoneware. Here is link to Pampered Chef https://www.pamperedchef.com/iceberg-ca/original/pdf/p8539-022015cne-stoneware-qa.pdf
I also researched other websites regarding stoneware. They say the same thing that it cannot be preheated and the stoneware should be at least 2/3 full when cooking or eventually you will have hairline cracks and breakage of the stoneware. I will try the bread again without preheating and if does not come out well, then I will purchase another vessel for properly cooking my bread. Here is another link to a stoneware website that again says you cannot preheat: https://www.marketsatshrewsbury.com/blog/stoneware-care/#:~:text=At%20the%20same%20time%2C%20that,place%20it%20in%20the%20oven.
I was fortunate to not have an accident with my stoneware and wanted to share this info.
Good to know about stoneware. It’s not something I use and I’ve no experience with it
Thanks for coming back and letting us know!!
Your recipe is the best I have ever found to make bread Love it. I also appreciate you answering my questions as I certainly learned from you. Is there something other than a tea towel I can use for the second rise? It seems impossible to get the dough out of the tea towel after washing it. Can I use parchment paper to wrap the dough in for the second rise, and put it in a large pot with lid on? Or will proofing in parchment vs tea towel ruin the recipe. Secondly is bread flour that has protein 4G better than pizza flour 00 with protein of 3G for this recipe? I have King Arthur Unbleached Bread Flour or King Arthur 00 pizza flour. Bread flour has Unbleached hard red wheat flour and enzyme in it, and 00 Pizza flour has hard red wheat flour and soft wheat flour with NO enzyme. Thank you again for sharing your knowledge.
Hi!
I’m delighted to hear this. As for the tea towel – alternative is to get a proofing basket or to ensure you have sprinkled enough flour on both the surface when you take the dough out to fold and then on the tea towel so that it doesn’t stick. You should use a smooth rather than textured tea towel. Or try parchment paper – I’ve not done that, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. Give it a go. I like 00 flour. I use it alot, so I use it for this bread too. I buy it in bulk. I would definitely try the other type of flour and see how it goes. You might have to use a little bit more water, but maybe not. You’ll have to see how the flour responds. Try it with the usual amounts first. And on both things – please let me know how it goes. I’m curious to know.
I prepared the dough and letting it sit overnight on counter for the 12 hours. That seems like a long time, should it be refrigerated?
As long as you cover the container holding the dough, it’s fine. Don’t refrigerate it. That will slow fermentation and that’s not what you’re going for.
Thank you for getting back to me so quick, WOW! It’s rising perfectly and can’t wait to get it in the oven and smell that delicious aroma of fresh bread! Have a great day!!! My house is going to smell fantastic!!!
Do you have to knead the dough? Is it supposed to still be really sticky after the first proof? Thanks!
No need to knead. And yea it’ll be a bit sticky Just follow the directions for flouring your surfaces
Maureen
I made your Neopolitan bread and loved it. I don’t have a convection oven so I set my oven on 450F and it worked well. My dough did stick to on side of my cotton tea towel so I will try to get a large round proofing basket. Even though I had to pull it off that side and remove some remaining dough, it still turned out great. I only had a Lodge cast iron Dutch oven with no enamel coating. I just cut out a small circle of parchment paper and put it in the Dutch oven just before adding the dough. my lame wasn’t good enough to slash the top, but that also didn’t affect the quality of the bake. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe.
That’s fantastic!! Delighted to hear this. And good on you for making all the little adjustments to suit the equipment you have
Thanks for all these lovely recipes. How come there is no oil or sugar needed for the Neapolitan loaf please?
Thanks! Because there’s never any sugar or oil in this bread
Hello! I’m excited to try this recipe! Quick question, when I normally make crusty bread in my cast-iron, I use parchment paper. Is that something I could use instead of the semolina or wheat flour?
Hi! This dough is very sticky. I don’t know how parchment paper will react with that. Try it and report back what happens please, that way we all learn something new.