recipe-help Need Pizza Dough Recipe

The Hot Pepper

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I need a tried-and-true or basic Neapolitan dough recipe for some margheritas. Light, airy, chewy, a tad salty, large air pockets... thank you!
 
method: electric convection (optional), 1/4" baking steel
 
tctenten
FreeportBum
PIC 1
essegi
 
all welcome to post.... :D
 
Here ya go!  From "the bread bible" by Rose Levy Beranbaum.  ALL of her recipes are precise, and successful.  This pizza dough recipe is the best, and one of the easiest and most flavorful, recipes I've come across.  It has been successful in my convection oven using a stone intended for use in a Big Green Egg.  Obviously, the stone needs heated for a good amount of time.  The Alsatian Onion pizza is one of my favs.  Her recipes are spot-on. 
 
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Unfortunately i completely dropped making Neapolitan...
One of the most standard recipes for 10 pizze on the italiano forum:

Cold water 950g
Flour, medium strength 1500g
Salt 40g
Fresh beer yeast 1-3g (depends on temperature and time)

20 hours of fridge, make balls, 5 hours ouside fridge...

Then it can be tuned to the infinite (for example with oil), with an infinite skillcap.
The bad is that needs ideally 450°C.

For standard ovens i prefer much more pizza in teglia (tray, i`ve posted somewhere the process, i search and edit).
 
The Hot Pepper said:
I need a tried-and-true or basic Neapolitan dough recipe for some margheritas. Light, airy, chewy, a tad salty, large air pockets... thank you!
 
method: electric convection (optional), 1/4" baking steel
 
tctenten
FreeportBum
PIC 1
essegi
 
all welcome to post.... :D
`
 
I learn something new here almost everyday...

 
The Hot Pepper said:
I need a tried-and-true or basic Neapolitan dough recipe for some margheritas.
A pizza made with tomato, mozzarella cheese, and basil.
 
I've been buying a round - baked - dough thingy since the 60's that has tomato/mozzarella cheese/Italian seasoning (Which includes basil.)... Never knew I was so upscale!

And so happy I didn't pay premium upscale prices! 
 
`
 
Upscale pizza has black truffles and kobe pepperoni, a margherita is the most rustic of rustic. But glad you learned the term, it ain't got no limes or tequila. ;)
 
this is the style of pizza i favor making above all others.
 
are you willing to put in the time and work for best flavor? are you willing to bother with real (sourdough) starter?
this is the best approach i've tried:
https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,20477.msg202047.html
 
to summarize, maintain a sourdough culture (like baking in the old days).
use legit '00' flour.
use a low initial culture concentration and slow ferment for two days (let it ferment in bulk for a day, split it up into individual dough balls, and then let the balls ferment another day). imo this develops good extensibility and more importantly flavor.
 
here is a nifty dough calculator you can use. i have inputted a reasonable recipe for you (essentially the recipe i linked to above).
https://maybepizza.com/calc/?ballCount=4&ballWeight=280&waterPercent=63&saltPercent=3&wholeWheatPercent=0&oilPercent=0&yeastPercent=0&leavenPercent=1.3&sugarPercent=0&otherPercent=0&notes=neapolitan%20example%20for%20THP
 
note that neaplitan dough should be relatively high hydration (high % water). this yields superior crumb i.e. cornicione alveare ("beehive crust" as they call it) at the expense of ease of handling. wetter dough is stickier and harder to work with.
 
happy to go over any of it in as much detail as you wish. good luck with your neapolitan pizza endeavors. cheers!
 
i added more to my post above since your reply, but see if you can at least find 00 flour.
 
if you just want to get started with neapolitan style pizza, really anything will work for you. i've used premade grocery store / bakery pizza dough (sold in bags in the fridge case) many times and it turns out alright, but really IME the biggest pain with that is low extensibility. this means that the dough resists 'opening up' and springs back to its original size and shape as you try to work it. if you watch youtube vids of pros making neapolitan pizza, you can see the dough they work with is super extensible and goes from dough ball to pizza shape with virtually no time and effort.
 
ok one more thing
 
if you keep reading about this shit, eventually you'll begin losing your mind and consider getting a pizza oven. my advice about that is... it's fun as hell and totally worth it. pizza steels are not the same. don't let the multivolume modernist cuisine 'bible' fool you into thinking they are. if you get an oven, you'll be cranking out badass pizzas and will have at least a handful of fun as fuсk pizza parties every year with your friends and family. the downside is you can easily gain 5lb or more in pursuit of 'perfection'.
 
i researched ovens a lot when i got into the hobby, and i settled on 'pizza party':
 
https://www.pizzapartyshop.com/en/gas-pizza-oven/
 
i highly recommend this thing, and i feel it's very reasonably priced for what it is. i didn't find anything else like it for the price. roccbox and uuni are toys in comparison.. you can get ok results with them, but they don't match the fun of larger ovens and the heat gradient that comes with them. the burner position and ample floorspace allow you to move your pizza around and adjust cook temp on the fly (closer or further from burner). you can also lift the pizza up to 'dome it' as needed.
 
i have the 'passione' model. a lot of people keep them on the balcony. this is the slightly larger oven (the smaller one is about $300 cheaper), and it's gas fired. you can pick propane or natural gas. i did NG and just plumbed up a new gas line for it. very convenient. if you wanna wood fire it, just pull out the burner.
 
for those curious, here was the price breakdown when i ordered:
 
'Passione' gas/wood oven: $1,680
aluminum stand with wheels: $192
4 bricks of BISCOTTO SAPUTO*: $108
shipping (italy -> usa): $144
total: $2124
 
*special handmade floor bricks with lower thermal conductivity (optimized for very high oven temp so the bottom of pizza doesn't burn before the topside is cooked)
 
edit: sorry for getting excited and going a little offtopic
 
Here's one:

Tony Gemignani's Authentic Neopolitan Pizza Dough




Ingredients:

 









Caputo

"oo"

"Pizzeria" Flour in the Blue Bag 780g



Ice

Cold

Water 450ml



80

degree

water 20ml



Dry

Yeast

6g



Salt 20g

 

 



 








Instructions:
Mix yeast into warm water. Put flour in a large bowl and make a well in the center. Pour cold water and yeast/water mixture into the bowl/flour and begin to mix using a spoon/etc. Mix for 5 minutes, then feel dough. If dough is dry add a little more water, if too wet (real sticky) add a little more flour. Mix for 2 more minutes then "turn out" the dough onto a work surface and begin to incorporate the salt. Continue kneading for 5 minutes until dough feels smooth. Form into a large ball and cover dough with plastic or moist towel and let sit for 10 minutes before "balling". Cut into 3 or 4 pieces and form into balls. Let sit, covered with plastic etc. for 8 hours at room temp before using or better yet, put balls in oiled plastic bags or sealed containers and refrigerate overnight. On day you want to use the balls, remove from refrigerator at least 3 hours before spreading, dressing and baking.
"official" ball size is 280g to 300g for "authentic" Vera Nepolitana pizza.



 
I have a wood fired oven, but I haven't mastered how to use it yet. In the meantime, I have been turning out pretty good pies on my Green Mountain Pellet Grill with the pizza oven insert.
 
The Hot Pepper said:
Probably not...

just need dough bro u know
Weel, i still try to elaborate, maybe someone will find useful. I hope to explain well, some terms maybe are not so easy to translate....
That is pizza in teglia alla romana alta idratazione no knead.
Roman pizza on tray high hydration no knead.

Check again here, images are useful:
https://laconfraternitadellapizza.forumfree.it/?t=75899874

PRO:
you don't need thermonuclear ovens (still 280°C would be nice... maybe are 250 enough tho. Some use 300 but it's easy to burn).
it's the best method i know for standard oven
it's very good and has room for improvement
it does not need strange equipments
it’s not that hard to do
it’s doens’t require that much work
once you get the hang on it, you can be creative with flours

cons
it requires some pratice, especially to stretch and transfer dough on tray
even if active working isn’t much, you do lose time
you need proper flour
often pizza in teglia is considered cheap, and that's wrong
neapolitan is still better

some lexicon:
panielli: balls of dough
staglio: when you form panielli
appretto: time that passes after wheh you knead and before staglio
puntata: time that passed after staglio (after that, panielli should be ready)

Hydration should be 80-85%. Usually…It’s a lot of water and dough is not easily handled
Aimed rise time depends on flour: usually the strongest flour, more time.

An important stuff: quantity!
General rule: (area in cm^2)/2 + 0~10%= weight in gram
So, for example, for a 30*40cm tray a paniello should weigh from 600 to 660g

About flours: there’s a parameter called forza (strength), its symbol is W. Now maybe it’s not the only parameter but is the most considered. Higher W, higher gluten usually, absorbs more water, rise more end needs more rise time…
You can read something here: http://www.perteghella.it/en/news/strength-flour-index-capacity-bread-making-w
It’s measured with that machine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chopin_alveograph
A flour with W350-400 is good and needs about 2 days of rise for example...
[SIZE=11pt]You can mix 00 with farro, with grano duro, with whole flour (10% of that is good), use type 0, 1 or 2, full farro, full grano duro, use manitoba...[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]A nice mix is: 40% medium flour, 30% manitoba, 20% grano duro, 10% whole and 1-2g of sugar per kg of flour... You can be creative.[/SIZE]
 
Now i follow some numbers found on confraternita della pizza threads…
 
Recipe
Panetto of 650g (1 tray 30*40cm)

Strong flour 361g
Cold water 289g
Fresh beer yeast 2g
Salt 8g
Oil 7g

Fold 4 times waiting 30 minutes after each folds
I usually wait 1 hour then i wait 15 mins after each fold...
You can try both methods and choose the one you like most
I’ll return to folds later.

Wait 44h in fridge (puntata)
Staglio, then appretto of 4 hours (make panielli then wait 4 hours outside fridge… If it’s summer 4 hours can be way too much btw, dough must have some tenacity, higher temp less time needed)

Here an omnicomprensive video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=62&v=Yia0E_Iqtoc
But with some italian to read...

How to no knead:
I admit that i don’t follow that, i have some clots so i mix well flour with a spoon… But in that way it’s harder to make well panielli. Maybe next time i should try proper method!
The important is to avoid salt and yeast to touch, so you can melt yeast on water, add flour, then salt and oil (you can leave some flour after those 2)

How to fold:
1st time
2nd
3rd
4th

Now that’s cool to follow to check how dough changes. If you see, only third fold is different.

Now you put in fridge, wait your time and you make panielli.
See here.
Different methods, the one from 9:15 should be the best

After waiting proper time (2-4hours) you need to stretch and put on tray and it’s the hardest part:
You should put a bit of oil on the tray.
And a bit of oil above stretched dough, as in video.

Cooking!
On a normal oven probably you want max temp. Needless to say, preheated and at max temp.
A trick is to reach the minimum step below the max then increase to max, so you have resistances working while you insert dough, so you have the maximum heat possible.
First, cook just dough as low as possible (tray can touch floor if there are no controindications). In my oven i cook it for 9 minutes.
Then top it and put on an high (try even the highest possible) point.
Cook until done.
 
I hope to have not forgotten something and that this is undersandable...
 
I recently stumbled upon this one from the NYT....
 
ROBERTA'S PIZZA DOUGH 
 


INGREDIENTS
153 grams 00 flour
153 grams all purpose flour
8 grams fine sea salt (1t)
2 grams active dry yeast (3/4 t)
4 grams extra-virgin olive oil (1t)
 

PREPARATION
1. in a large bowl combine flours and salt
2. in a small bowl mix 200 grams lukewarm tap water, yeast and oil. Pour int flour mix. Knead until combine approx 3 mins, then let res 15 mins.
3. knead 3 mins. Cut into 2 shape into balls. Place on heavily floured surface, cover with dampened cloth let rise 3 to 4 hours or longer ( in fridge for 8-24 hours). Remove from fridge 3 -45 mins.
4. 4place each ball on heavily floured surface and use fingers to stretch to shape into squares or rounds. Top and Bake 4 to 8 min at 500 (preheated for one hour) 
 
 
 



 
 
Thanks!

That's what I need to start off with, something easy and clear-cut.

Great thread, will have to look back but this one may work for starting out...
 
midwestchilehead said:
Here's one:
Tony Gemignani's Authentic Neopolitan Pizza Dough Ingredients:   Caputo "oo" "Pizzeria" Flour in the Blue Bag 780g Ice Cold Water 450ml 80 degree water 20ml Dry Yeast 6g Salt 20g      
Instructions:
Mix yeast into warm water. Put flour in a large bowl and make a well in the center. Pour cold water and yeast/water mixture into the bowl/flour and begin to mix using a spoon/etc. Mix for 5 minutes, then feel dough. If dough is dry add a little more water, if too wet (real sticky) add a little more flour. Mix for 2 more minutes then "turn out" the dough onto a work surface and begin to incorporate the salt. Continue kneading for 5 minutes until dough feels smooth. Form into a large ball and cover dough with plastic or moist towel and let sit for 10 minutes before "balling". Cut into 3 or 4 pieces and form into balls. Let sit, covered with plastic etc. for 8 hours at room temp before using or better yet, put balls in oiled plastic bags or sealed containers and refrigerate overnight. On day you want to use the balls, remove from refrigerator at least 3 hours before spreading, dressing and baking.
"official" ball size is 280g to 300g for "authentic" Vera Nepolitana pizza.
 
I have a wood fired oven, but I haven't mastered how to use it yet. In the meantime, I have been turning out pretty good pies on my Green Mountain Pellet Grill with the pizza oven insert.
 
This one looks simple enough thanks!
 
The Secret to good Dough is TIME, its like chemistry, you cant rush it. First the dough needs to hydrate so that takes several hours at least then the amalgamation of the contents.
For a great dough many professionals leave the dough for 72hours, and their usually around 80% hydration. When you leave it it naturally starts to combine and become "doughee", very little kneading is required because time has already done the job.
 
This guy has been in the fridge for over three days, will be baking him tonight.
KpUz0kq.jpg
 
All these look good. My idea is try the Roberta's first and alter if needed, using this as reference. :cheers:
 
Keep posting!
 
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