Ingredients
- 500g (4 cups plus 3 tablespoons) strong white bread flour
- 325g (1 cup plus 6 tablespoons) water, at about 20C / 68F
- 10g (1 3/4 teaspoons) fine sea salt
- 2g (2/3 teaspoon) instant dried yeast for a cold ferment, or 5g (1 1/2 teaspoons) for same day
- 15g (1 tablespoon) olive oil, optional (not in the original notebook, not needed for a Neapolitan base, but it softens the crumb and helps a home oven base brown)
- Semolina or fine polenta, for the peel or the tray (not in the original notebook, used for shaping and launching the base)
Equipment. Digital scale, Large mixing bowl, Stand mixer with a dough hook, optional, Dough scraper, Lidded containers or a tray with clingfilm, for proving the balls, Baking steel, stone or a heavy upturned tray
Method
- Weigh the flour into the bowl and stir the salt through it. Stir the instant yeast through too, because it does not need dissolving.
- Pour in the water and mix until there is no dry flour left and you have a shaggy mass. Add the olive oil now if you are using it.
- Cover the bowl and leave it for 20 minutes. The flour takes up water during this rest and the kneading that follows takes less effort.
- Knead for 8 to 10 minutes by hand on a bare worktop, or 5 minutes on medium in a mixer with the dough hook. Stop when the dough is smooth, springy and pulls back when you stretch it.
- Check it with the windowpane test. Pull off a piece the size of a walnut and stretch it between your fingers. If you can see light through it before it tears, the gluten is ready.
- Round the dough into a ball and put it in a lightly oiled bowl. Cover it and leave it at around 21C / 70F for 1 to 2 hours, until it is puffy and half again its size.
- Tip it out and divide it into four pieces of about 210g. Shape each into a tight ball by folding the edges into the middle and rolling it seam side down under a cupped hand.
- For same day pizza, cover the balls and prove them for another 1 to 2 hours until slack and pillowy. For a cold ferment, put each ball in its own lidded container and refrigerate for 24 to 72 hours. Take them out 2 to 3 hours before baking.
- Shape by pressing from the centre outwards on a semolina dusted surface, leaving the outer inch untouched. Do not use a rolling pin. It flattens the gas you have spent two days making.
- Bake as hot as your oven goes, on a steel or stone preheated for at least 45 minutes.
What goes into pizza dough?
Flour, water, salt and yeast. Oil and sugar are optional, and neither belongs in a Neapolitan dough.
500g strong white bread flour, which is 4 cups plus 3 tablespoons. 325g water, which is 1 cup plus 6 tablespoons.
10g fine sea salt, about 1 3/4 teaspoons. That is 2 per cent of the flour weight.
2g instant dried yeast, about 2/3 of a teaspoon, for a cold ferment. Use 5g, about 1 1/2 teaspoons, to bake the same day.
15g olive oil, 1 tablespoon, if you want it.
Weigh it if you can. A cup of flour varies by up to 20 per cent depending on whether it was scooped or spooned. That is the difference between a dough at 65 per cent hydration and one at 78.
What hydration should pizza dough be?
Hydration is the weight of the water as a percentage of the weight of the flour. 325g of water into 500g of flour is 65 per cent.
65 per cent is the useful middle for a home oven. Below about 60 the dough is stiff and bakes denser and crisper. Above about 70 it is slack and sticky, and it wants the very high heat of a wood or gas oven.
The flour matters as much as the number. Bread flour at 12 to 13 per cent protein takes 65 per cent water and stays workable. A soft plain flour at 9 per cent turns into a puddle.
If your kitchen is dry or your flour is old, hold back 20g of the water and add it while mixing. Adding water to a stiff dough is far easier than adding flour to a wet one.
Do you need to activate the yeast first?
Not with instant yeast. It is milled finer than active dry yeast and it is made to be stirred straight into the flour. This recipe assumes instant.
Active dry yeast does need waking up. Proof it in water at 105 to 110F for about ten minutes.
Use water at room temperature or a little below for this dough. A dough that goes into the fridge warm takes hours to cool down and over-proves on the way.
If you are not sure the yeast is alive, proof it whatever type it is. Warm water, a pinch of sugar, ten minutes. No foam means dead yeast.
How long do you knead pizza dough?
8 to 10 minutes by hand, or 4 to 7 minutes in a stand mixer with a dough hook.
Rest the dough for 20 minutes between mixing and kneading. The flour takes up water and starts forming gluten on its own, so the kneading is shorter and easier.
Judge it by the windowpane test rather than the clock. Stretch a small piece thin, and if you can see light through it before it tears, the gluten is ready. If it tears at once, knead for two more minutes and test again.
A long fermented dough does not need to pass that test on day one. Gluten keeps building in the fridge, so knead until smooth and springy and stop there.
How warm and how long should the dough prove?
Around 21C / 70F for 1 to 2 hours, until the dough is puffy rather than doubled. Most kitchens sit between 18 and 24C, which is fine.
Yeast works about twice as fast for every 8 to 10C you add, so watch the dough and not the clock. A well proved dough holds a shallow dent for a second before easing back.
The balls need their own prove after dividing, another 1 to 2 hours at room temperature. Underproved balls fight you and spring back into a small thick disc.
Do not prove pizza dough in a warm oven or an airing cupboard. A fast prove gives you volume and almost no flavour, and the dough goes from underproved to collapsing in about twenty minutes.
Same day or cold ferment?
Cold ferment if you can plan two days ahead. Same day works, but the difference in taste is not small.
In the fridge at around 4C / 39F the yeast almost stops while the enzymes in the flour keep working. They break starch into sugars and gluten into shorter chains and amino acids, and those are what brown in the oven and taste of something.
Use 24 to 72 hours. Under 24 hours you have mostly just chilled the dough. Past about 72 hours the dough starts tearing when you stretch it.
Cut the yeast to 2g for a cold ferment. The 5g you would use for a same day dough will have the balls climbing out of their containers by morning.
Bulk prove for 1 to 2 hours at room temperature first, then ball and refrigerate. Take the balls out 2 to 3 hours before you bake, which is when they become stretchable.
Same day is the right call when you decided at four o'clock that you wanted pizza. Use 5g of yeast, prove for 1 to 2 hours, ball, prove for another hour, and accept a plainer flavour. A tablespoon of olive oil softens the crumb and helps cover for it.