Craftsmanship

At Panificio Perrone, craftsmanship is not a slogan, but an everyday working method. It is made up of carefully repeated gestures, respected timings, selected flours, sourdough, and expert hands that accompany every stage of breadmaking.

Every loaf of bread is born from a precise balance of knowledge, experience, and respect for tradition. There are no shortcuts: quality takes time, attention, and the ability to interpret the dough at every moment of its transformation. This is why our work still follows a traditional, slow, and controlled artisanal process, where the baker's hand remains fundamental.

Our bread is distinguished by specific characteristics. The crumb has a straw-yellow color, while the crust has the typical almond-skin hue, thick, crispy, and fragrant.

The internal structure is characterized by high porosity, with irregular air pockets ranging from a few millimeters to several centimeters. This cellular structure is the result of well-executed natural leavening, correctly worked dough, and slow baking capable of developing aroma, consistency, and structure.

Our bread has an unmistakable smell and taste. It comes in the traditional croissant shape or the panella shape, also known as tall bread.

Those who wish to taste this traditional shape can discover our tall Pane di Matera, prepared with the same artisan method that guides every phase of our production.

The process begins in the early hours of the night. It is a precise process, where every step is fundamental.

To the flour mixture, we add water, salt, and sourdough, matured for 72 hours. This ensures a natural, fragrant, and complex dough.

The dough is kneaded with a diving arm mixer for approximately 45 minutes, maintaining elasticity and structure.

This is followed by a rest period of about two hours, during which the leavening begins. When the first bubbles appear, the dough is divided and worked by hand.

The loaves are manually formed and left to rise on cotton cloths in wooden crates for about an hour.

The oven is prepared and cleaned. The bakers shape each loaf and bake it by hand, giving it its traditional form.

Baking takes about two hours. It is during this time that the bread develops its crust, aroma, and structure.

One of the fundamental elements of our bread is the flour blend. The choice of flours is never random: it determines the aroma, color, texture, flavor, leavening capacity, and shelf life of the final product.

Our special blend is largely composed of Senatore Cappelli durum wheat flour, alongside re-milled durum wheat semolina. This combination is designed to achieve a bread with a strong character, an aromatic crumb, and a substantial crust.

Senatore Cappelli flour comes from an ancient durum wheat, considered one of the great protagonists of the Italian cereal tradition. It is often called the king of Italian wheat due to its organoleptic and nutritional characteristics and its history.

It is a wheat that requires attention, respect, and appropriate cultivation methods. Its deep roots allow it to absorb nourishment from the richest layers of the soil and to better resist weeds.

Compared to many modern flours, it has interesting nutritional characteristics, with a good presence of proteins, amino acids, lipids, B vitamins, vitamin E, and mineral salts. It also has a generally lower gluten content than some modern varieties, which helps make it more balanced and appreciated in baking.

We choose it because it allows us to obtain fragrant bread, rich in character and consistent with our idea of an artisan product: bread that comes not from standardization, but from the quality of the raw material and the ability to process it correctly.

Ancient grains retain characteristics that make them particularly suitable for quality-conscious artisanal baking. As they have not been modified to achieve high yields, they maintain a more authentic identity and a more interesting aromatic profile.

Their lower yield compared to modern grains is compensated by a superior raw material quality. They are often processed using more respectful methods, such as stone grinding, which produces less refined flours that are better able to preserve the nutritional characteristics of the grain.

Another important aspect is the balance between starch and gluten. In ancient grains, this ratio tends to be more harmonious, making the flours more interesting for those seeking a less standardized product that is closer to tradition.

Alongside Senatore Cappelli flour, we use semolina flour, recognizable by its amber-yellow color. This hue comes from the natural presence of carotenoids, substances that contribute not only to the flour's color but also to its nutritional profile.

Semolina has a granulier, coarser, and rougher texture compared to more refined flours. It is precisely this structure that contributes to giving bread greater character, consistency, and personality.

From a nutritional perspective, it contains fiber, minerals such as potassium, iron, and phosphorus, as well as vitamins and antioxidants. In baking, it gives bread a full flavor, a crumb with an intense color, and a particularly fragrant crust.

Sourdough starter is the living heart of our bread-making. It's not just an ingredient, but an element that requires care, continuity, and knowledge.

To produce our sourdough starter, our bakery refreshes a mother starter culture every night, allowing it to mature for 72 hours. Only after this time is the culture used in the dough, when it has reached the right vitality and can contribute to fermentation in a balanced way.

Sourdough starter gives bread aroma, aromatic complexity, structure, and better natural preservation. Its slow action allows the dough to mature deeply, developing characteristics that could not be achieved with rushed processes.

Working with sourdough starter means accepting longer times and greater complexity, but also obtaining a more authentic bread, with a richer flavor and a more distinct personality.

In our work, technology is a tool, not a substitute for experience. The mixer, steel tanks, and laboratory instruments help ensure consistency and precision, but the final quality still depends on the baker's sensitivity.

It is the baker's hand that recognizes when the dough is ready. It is the baker's eye that assesses bubbles, consistency, tension, and development. It is the baker's experience that decides when to shape, how to arrange in the oven, and how to control the baking.

This is our idea of craftsmanship: a balance between method, experience, and respect for natural timing.

Our bread is not made in a hurry. It requires a refreshed and matured sourdough, long processing, controlled resting, manual shaping and slow baking.

Each stage needs its own time and none can be considered secondary.

For us, craftsmanship means this: respecting the bread, respecting the raw materials and continuing to work every day with the same care that has made the Perrone name recognizable over time.