Cacio e Pepe Bread

I, like the rest of the world, have come around to the idea that these two flavors should be together forever and in true American fashion, applied (or misapplied in some cases) to everything. It all started where most of it starts with a humble bowl of pasta. I will freely admit that my first interaction was with a non-standard, almost heretic like bowl that had the addition of lemon and argula in it. Oh yeah, and pancetta. It was fantastic. I know, I know, that is not REAL cacio e pepe as it would be served in Rome, but the underlying addictive flavor is there, and having now had the simple original version I can attest it is still in the vein of cacio e pepe and in my book still qualifies.

Maybe because I was introduced to a variant as opposed to the canon of cacio e pepe I felt free to play around. I am clearly not the only one, as chefs and home cooks alike get in on the trend. I really think it was just a matter of time before someone decided it was time to swap one glorious carb (pasta) for another (bread).

This bread is the bomb. I know, super unbiased. But it really is. It has the sharp bite of the pepper, the great salty umami-ness from the cheese, and it gets so lovely when toasted. I haven’t gotten to make a grilled cheese with it yet, but toasted with butter, or, as pictured above, with avocado and or a runny egg. Please. It is out of this world. Please note it is not a mild mannered bread. It is loud and proud bossy. Enjoy.

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Cacio e Pepe Bread

These loaves make wonderful sandwich bread and are based on the very lovely peasant bread by Alexandra Stafford.

Ingredients

  • 6 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 tablespoon of kosher salt I use Morton because that is what we have around here
  • 1 tablespoon of sugar
  • 1 tablespoon and a rounded 1/4 teaspoon of yeast
  • 3 cups warm water
  • 1 to 1 1/2 cups grated cheese 1 cup Pecorino Romano or 1 1/2 cups Parmesan
  • 4 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper medium grind works great

Instructions

  1. Mix all of the dry ingredients together, flour, salt, sugar, yeast, cheese (reserve 2 tablespoons for sprinkling on top of the loaves before baking) and pepper. Pour in your warm water. Stir till all the flour is incorporated and behold the shaggy mess. Don’t stress. Cover it and let it sit someplace warm until it is double in size. It should definitely look wet and full of bubbles at this point.

  2. Preheat your oven to 425 F. Generously butter two standard size loaf pans all the way to the top and make sure you hit the rim too–this bread rises dramatically. Then take two forks, and separate and deflate your dough. Spill/lift a half of the dough into each loaf pan. The dough has a very high water content, so it will be quite sticky. I find it easiest to lift the dough and plop it into the pans. Don’t worry that it looks lumpy. Let it sit in the pans for about 20 minutes, till it rises about even with the top/slightly over. Sprinkle about 1 tablespoon of cheese over the top of each loaf. Put your dough into the oven for about 15 minutes, then turn down the oven to 375 F, and bake for about 15-20 minutes more.
  3. You want a golden brown top, and a crazy good aroma coming from your oven. If you take the loaf out and tilt the pan on its side till the bread falls out, you can thump lightly on the bottom and it sounds hollowish. There, it is done. You can put the bread to cool on a rack, out of the pan. BUT, don’t you dare eat it yet! Nope. You can’t. Sorry. This baby needs to rest for about 30 minutes at least. Warm bread is amazing. Hot bread is a mess. Trust me on this one.

Recipe Notes

I have given the option here for Pecorino Romano (traditional) or Parmesan (not traditional). Pecorino tends to be much more assertive and saltier, so definitely use less Pecorino than you would Parmesan. If you really wanted to go with 1.5 cups of Pecorino, you could lower the salt in the bread, but I don’t have ratios on that, I would say play with it. While I do realize that Parmesan is not traditional and misses a bit of that sharp sheep’s milk flavor, it still produces a fabulous bread and most people already have it in their house so would rather you make it with what you have then not make it at all. I think you will enjoy the bread either way.

Also, I call for grated cheese, and I generally mean the kind they sell in a clear plastic tub at the store (I buy mine at Trader Joe’s) that is not long shreds, but more of a fine/powder like consistency.  Please note that it is not necessary to have a super-aged hunk of Parmigiano Reggiano (if going Parmesan) for this recipe–save that for an amazing cheese board.  I have made the recipe both ways, by grating it myself or using the pre-grated/plastic tub kind (not a shelf stable shaker style), and I find the store grated is fine for this application, baked in bread.  The pre-grated stuff is more compact than hand grating is, so make sure if you hand grate it, you compact it some to get the same amount of flavor.