Neapolitan Easter Bread: recipe of the casatiello from Naples

The casatiello is a Neapolitan Easter Bread with cheese and salami to be made for Easter. It’s a really traditional recipe just like the pastiera or every other recipe you can find by clicking here. It’s prepared on God Friday to be eaten the days after and it also nice to be eaten for Easter Monday when people gather for a day together with an insane amount of food and wine.

The recipe you’re going to read doesn’t use some of the typical products you can find in Italy like the provola cheese or the Neapolitan sausage but it uses ingredients you can find everywhere in the World.

You need to use a round pan with hole to make sure you’re making the perfect recipe and in this way you’ll have a perfectly shaped casatiello, easy to be cut and to be eaten with your hands!

Neapolitan Easter Bread: ingredients for a 22cm round tin

For the dough
17g fresh yeast
175 ml lukewarm water
300g flour
1 teaspoon salt
60 grams butter (or lard)
Black pepper

For the filling
75g sausage or Italian salami
35g grated pecorino cheese
100g diced bacon/lard
200g cheddar cheese
4 hard boiled eggs
Salt

Neapolitan Easter Bread: recipe

1. Mix the flour with yeast, black pepper, butter/lard and salt by adding the lukewarm water as the water is absorbed until obtaining a compact and smooth dough.
2. Pour the mixture into a bowl and let it rise for at least 2 hours in a warm environment.
3. Cut the ingredients for the filling and hard boil the eggs.
4. Take the dough, roll it out on a floured board and knead it for a few minutes; take a bit of dough on a side to secure the hard-boiled eggs.
5. Sprinkle the pastry with pecorino cheese, sausage/salami and diced bacon/lard.
6. Roll the pastry on itself and arrange it into the round tin.
7. Add the hard boiled eggs on the surface of casatiello by pressing slightly and secure them using the dough. (At this point you can let the casatiello rise for 1 hour more if you want a softer bread)
8. Bake the Neapolitan casatiello at 180°C/356°F on a preheated oven for about 1 hour or until the surface is golden brown.
9. Allow to cool or to cool then serve by cutting into slices.

Preparation time: 3.5 hours

Neapolitan Easter Bread: video recipe

[Pics by Giuseppe]