Pizza di Pasqua

A tall savoury cheese bread risen in a mould, which is not a pizza at all.

Egg. Not vegetarian — contains parmesan whose rennet the source does not name, pecorino whose rennet the source does not name.

Ingredients

• 500 g strong white flour
• 150 g pecorino, grated
• 100 g parmesan, grated
• 100 g pecorino, in small cubes
• 5 eggs
• 100 ml olive oil
• 12 g fresh yeast
• 120 ml warm milk
• 2 teaspoons coarsely ground black pepper
• 8 g salt

Method

1. DESPITE THE NAME THIS IS NOT A PIZZA. It is a tall enriched cheese bread baked in a deep mould, closer to a savoury panettone, and it is eaten at Easter breakfast with salami and boiled eggs.
2. Make a starter with the yeast, milk and 100 g of the flour and leave it 1 hour until foaming.
3. Beat the eggs with the oil, the grated cheeses and the pepper, then work in the rest of the flour, the salt and the starter. Knead 12 minutes to a smooth, heavy dough.
4. Fold in the CUBED pecorino last and by hand, so it stays in pieces that melt into pockets.
5. Prove 2 hours, knock back gently, then put it into a deep buttered mould filled no more than halfway.
6. PROVE IT UNTIL IT CROWNS THE RIM, 3 to 4 hours. It is heavy with cheese and egg and rises slowly; taken to the oven early it stays dense.
7. Bake at 180C for 50 minutes, covering the top if it colours too fast. Cool it in the mould 15 minutes before turning out.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Italy · All recipes