Our stylist Beatrice Prada’s recipe to preparing delicious Neapolitan pepper taralli step by step. The steps photographed by Giandomenico Frassi show the manual process to make the beautifully woven dough shapes as tradition dictates!
How to make neapolitan pepper taralli
Neapolitan pepper taralli: ingredients
The ingredients for the yeast: 3 oz water, 4 oz flour, ⅛ oz brewer's yeast, 1 teaspoon sugar
The ingredients for the dough: 1 lb flour, 4 oz water, 5 oz lard, 4 oz almonds, 4 spoons black pepper, ½ oz salt, qb almonds to decorate
Method
Line two trays of about 50 cm x 30 cm with baking paper. Prepare the yeast by dissolving and mixing the yeast in water at room temperature in a glass, pour the flour into a bowl and add the mixture of water and yeast, knead until you obtain a fairly liquid mixture like a batter, cover and leave to rise for about an hour in a warm, dry place until it has doubled in volume. Heat the oven to 350°F, coarsely chop the almonds with a knife, pour the flour into the stand mixer bowl, add the chopped almonds, pepper, salt and slowly start the mixer adding spoonfuls of the lard. Then pour the water a little at a time, add the yeast and continue kneading for a few minutes until the mixture is smooth and homogeneous.
Pour the taralli dough onto a work surface, take portions of about 3 oz at a time and form two bigoli of about two centimeters in diameter each, keeping the two ends together and intertwine them
then close the ends to form a ring, pressing the ends down to secure the shape.
Repeat until the dough has been used up and place the taralli on the trays, decorate each tarallo with three almonds pressing lightly on the dough so they stick properly.
Bake in the oven at 350°F for about 90 minutes until they’re nice and golden.