Pane di Altamura
The first bread in Europe to receive DOP protected origin, baked in Altamura in Apulia. Local bakers like to recall that Horace praised the bread of these parts in the 1st century BC. It is made solely from durum wheat semolina, water, salt and sourdough, and looks like no other: folded in half like a book, with a thick crackling crust and a golden-yellow crumb. Thanks to durum and the thick crust it stays fresh for a week — shepherds took it to the hills for days.
Your own work in that: 45 min.
- Feeding the starter 480 min
- Mixing 45 min
- Bulk fermentation 210 min
- Proving 90 min
- Baking 60 min
- Cooling 120 min
Step by step
0 / 8 doneFeed the starter the night before
In the evening feed the starter: mix 40 g starter with 80 g semolina and 80 ml water and leave 8 hours (150 g goes into the dough, keep the rest). By morning it should have doubled, be full of bubbles and smell pleasantly sour. A weak starter will not lift a heavy durum dough.
Ingredients: 750 g durum semola rimacinata · 510 ml lukewarm water · 150 g active wheat sourdough starter · 15 g salt
Mix semolina with water
Mix the semolina with 460 ml of water and leave 30 minutes. This rest, the autolyse, matters especially with semolina: durum semolina, even finely milled, absorbs water more slowly than ordinary flour.
Ingredients: 750 g durum semola rimacinata · 510 ml lukewarm water · 150 g active wheat sourdough starter · 15 g salt
Add starter and salt, knead
Add the starter, salt and remaining water and knead 12–15 minutes, until the dough is smooth, springy and golden-yellow. Durum dough is heavier and stickier than one made with common wheat flour — do not add flour, just wet your hands.
Ingredients: 750 g durum semola rimacinata · 510 ml lukewarm water · 150 g active wheat sourdough starter · 15 g salt
Golden-yellow, springy — wet hands, not flour.Bulk ferment with three folds
Cover and leave 3.5 hours somewhere warm. In the first 1.5 hours fold the dough three times, every half hour: stretch a side and fold it to the centre, from four sides. Folds build a structure durum lacks on its own.
Ingredients: 750 g durum semola rimacinata · 510 ml lukewarm water · 150 g active wheat sourdough starter · 15 g salt
Shape like a book
Shape the dough into a round, flatten slightly and fold in half so the top half sits 3–4 cm back from the bottom. This is the traditional ‘accavallato’ shape (locally u sckuanéte), folded over on itself like a book — one of the two DOP forms; the other, lower one is the ‘priest’s hat’. Set on a board dusted with semolina.
Ingredients: 750 g durum semola rimacinata · 510 ml lukewarm water · 150 g active wheat sourdough starter · 15 g salt
In half, offset — the book shape.Prove an hour and a half
Cover and prove 90 minutes, until the loaf has grown by half. Meanwhile heat the oven with a stone or tray to 250°C for at least 45 minutes — a heavy loaf needs a strong blast of heat from below.
Ingredients: 2 tbsp semolina for dusting · 200 ml water for steam
Bake with steam, then long and lower
Slide the loaf onto the stone, pour boiling water into a tray on the oven floor and bake 15 minutes at 250°C, then lower to 210°C for 45 minutes. The crust should be dark, thick and sound hollow when tapped underneath. Do not take it out early — a pale crust means a damp crumb.
Ingredients: 2 tbsp semolina for dusting · 200 ml water for steam
A hot start with steam, then long and lower.Cool at least two hours
Cool the bread on a rack for at least 2 hours. A durum crumb only finishes setting as it cools — cut hot, it is gummy. Keep in a linen bag; it stays good for a week.
Ingredients: 750 g durum semola rimacinata · 510 ml lukewarm water · 150 g active wheat sourdough starter · 15 g salt
Before you start
Semola rimacinata
You need semola rimacinata, durum semolina milled a second time to flour-fine consistency. Ordinary coarse semolina or pudding semolina will not form a dough. Look for it in Italian shops.
With yeast instead of sourdough
Without a starter make a preferment: 150 g semolina, 100 ml water and 1 g dried yeast, for 12 hours. The bread will be less sour and stale faster, but the shape and golden crumb remain.
What to do with Altamura bread
In Apulia it is cut thick, drizzled with oil and rubbed with tomato and salt. Great for bruschetta and soups, and when stale for pancotto or frittelle. Croutons from it crunch like no other bread's.
