Mastering Pizza

That pizza dough cooks in just 90 seconds. There’s less water in the dough, and the water evaporates quickly at that high temperature: the dough firms up fast, creating a nice, crisp yet foldable crust. At the other end of the spectrum, pizza al taglio usually gets baked in electric ovens at a much lower temperature of 450° to 500°F (232° to 260°C)

It turns out that adding the salt in the second round of folding the dough was the perfect timing. The dough told me that this was the right way.

Hotter ovens cook dough more quickly, giving water less time to evaporate, resulting in a softer overall texture in pizza. Cooler ovens cook dough more slowly, giving water more time to evaporate, resulting in a crisper overall texture in pizza.

Stefano’s dough is almost 70% water (relative to the flour), which is pretty high for Naples-style dough. That amount of water, gives the dough a lot of bubbles and a big lift, which makes Stefano’s crust light and airy. His pizza oven is about 800°F (427°C) on the floor, which puffs up the dough pretty fast and makes the bottom crust nice and cris

you’ve never made pizza dough before, I highly recommend starting with Bonci-style Al Taglio Dough (this page). I’ve fallen in love with this kind of dough recently, and the basic recipe in this book couldn’t be simpler. It calls for dry yeast and store-bought bread flour. You don’t need a mixer. Just stir everything together in a bowl with a spoon

As Dr. Jones explains, better-tasting pizza can be as simple as adding fresh-milled, whole grain flour to your dough. You might think, “Why not just add some store-bought whole wheat flour?” Well, store-bought whole wheat flour gives you the nutrition but not the flavor—because it’s not fresh! For flavor and nutrition, fresh-milled stone-ground flo

For the Naples-style pizzas at Pizzeria Vetri, we actually let our mozzarella chill for a bit to keep the cheese from leaking out too much moisture when it cooks. We also found out when testing Naples-style pizzas in home ovens that fresh mozzarella sometimes overcooks and separates from the long cooking time under the broiler. With that method, de

For every 500 grams of flour called for in any of my dough recipes, you can use about 200 to 250 grams of active Whole Grain Sourdough Starter at 100% Hydration (this page) instead of the yeast that’s called for. To account for the flour and water already in the starter, reduce the flour and water in the recipe by 100 to 125 grams each. For instanc

Why? Oil makes the dough richer, softer, and easier to stretch thin. It also makes the crust crunchier. That’s what I’m going for in a crisp pizza Romana (this page and this page).