To shape the dough balls: 1 Take a piece of dough and stretch one-third of it sideways until it resists, then fold it back over the main piece of dough. Repeat, working your way around the dough and forming it into a round. The emerging dough ball will develop tension and form a smooth outer skin as you repeat this folding action. Stop when the

Cooking the sauce to thicken it before making pizza removes the freshness of flavor and is rarely done in Italy, although it is not uncommon in New York pizzerias.

GLUTEN’S ROLE IN PIZZA DOUGH Strong flours are high in protein, up to 14 percent as measured by flour weight, and have long been thought of as ideal for bread making. In fact, they’re really ideal for industrial bread baking, but not so much for high-quality breads. The high protein level works best with the intensive mixing and fast rising

A long fermentation of the bulk dough is better for bread dough than it is for pizza dough. This is about the difference in the end products. For a loaf of bread you want maximum volume, and to achieve that you need enough organization in the dough’s gluten to hold onto all the gas that its fermentation produces. Bread dough has its gluten network

Here’s the basic drill for the five categories of pizza in this book. NEAPOLITAN, ROMAN THIN CRUST, AND NEW YORK PIZZAS Preheat the oven to its maximum temperature—550°F (290°C) is very common—with the pizza steel or stone set on an upper rack about 8 inches below the broiler coil, for 45 minutes total. This timeline allows the oven to be fully

At Ken’s Artisan Pizza, we have been using the low-gluten flour from Shepherd’s Grain, a product of the Pacific Northwest, since we opened in 2006. The results are excellent. Dough made with Shepherd’s Grain flour stretches well, has excellent flavor, and has a protein content between 10.5 and 11.5 percent, depending on the previous year’s

When it comes to pizza, I depart from the current bread trend of using whole grain flours. I adore these in bread, but I do not use whole grain flours in hearth-baked pizzas because the crispness and delicate lightness of texture in the crust go away. When making pan pizzas, however, I do sometimes like a blend of white flour with whole wheat,

You want a wooden peel measuring about 14 inches wide with a short or medium length handle. I find the dough is more likely to stick to a metal peel.

Di Fara’s pizza on Avenue J in Brooklyn is nothing like the pizza at La Notizia, Salvo, or Da Michele in Naples, which are nothing like Frank Pepe’s in New Haven, Patsy’s in Harlem, Buddy’s in Detroit, Totonno’s on Coney Island, Delancey in Seattle, Anthony Mangieri’s Una Pizza Napoletana in San Francisco, or Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix.