INGREDIENTS: Serves 4
- 1 kg Italian 00 flour
- 650 ml water
- 4 g brewer’s yeast
- 25 g olive oil
- 25 g salt
METHOD
- Pour half the water into a jug and until the yeast has dissolved.
- Place half the flour into the bowl of a stand mixer and add the water with the yeast.
- Add the rest of the flour.
- Add the salt to the remaining water and stir until it dissolves completely.
- When the mixture comes together as a soft dough, add the salt water and knead until smooth and elastic.
- Finally add the olive oil and keep on kneading.
- Turn the dough out onto a pastry board and shape it into a ball.
- Leave it rise for about 12 hours at room temperature covered with a tea towel.
- Divide the dough into 250 g balls and wait for them to double in size (about 4 hours).
- Stretch and press the dough ball with your fingertips until it forms a 30-cm diameter disc.
- Add the toppings of your choice and bake.
COOKING
Wood-burning and gas-burning ovens are much of a muchness in terms of cooking. We bring the oven up to maximum temperature and bake pizza in 60-90 seconds, rotating it twice. The high temperature reached by wood-fired or gas fired-ovens keeps toppings from burning and pizza crust from tasting like a biscuit. In a nutshell, it bakes a proper Neapolitan pizza.
MAYBE YOU NEED SOME TIPS
- Before you start, allow the hook to only mix the flour into the bowl to incorporate more air and to cause dough to rise. If you don’t have a stand mixer, never mind! Start kneading in a bowl and keep doing it on a pastry board, as per instructions.
- The choice of flour is key to make a good pizza dough. You’d better go for a flour with a strength (W) between 260 and 350.
- Salt kills yeast, so place salt on one side and yeast on the other and mix each of them into the flour separately.
- This pizza dough has a 65% hydration level, close to that of the best pizzerias.
- Add the olive oil only in the final stage when the dough is fully formed.
- You can add 2 to 4 grams of brewer’s yeast but remember, the less yeast you put in, the more digestible your pizza will be!
- Let the dough rest from 12 to 20 hours We recommend making pizza dough the day before baking it to have an easily digestible, soft dough. In winter, you can keep the dough at room temperature. Instead, in warm weather you’d better use ice water to make dough and keep it away from heat sources.
- The weight of the dough varies according to the size of the pizza. Normally each dough ball weighs 250-280g.
- When making pizza dough, be careful not to tear it; use the palms of your hands and the fingertips to flatten it into a disc.
- To top the pizza, don’t use fresh mozzarella or, if so, drain it beforehand.
