The Pizza Bible

These peels are an awesome innovation, but maneuvering a fully loaded unbaked pizza on and off a perforated peel can be tricky because unless you work very quickly, the dough can settle into the holes, causing the pizza to grab. So for home cooks, I recommend building your pizza directly on a wooden peel. Once you get proficient, you can reward you

A small amount of malt added to your dough will help it brown and will give it a subtle nutty-caramel sweetness in lower temperatures. If you’re planning to bake your pizza on a grill, in a wood-burning oven, or using the broiler method (see this page)—all of which can give you temperatures higher than 650°F—you should omit the malt from your dough

The two most famous types of Neapolitan pizza are marinara, with tomato sauce, garlic, oregano, and olive oil, and margherita, with tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, basil, and olive oil. Da Michele, one of the city’s oldest and best-known pizzerias has served only these two varieties since 1870, referring in their promotional materials to all other

I love that effect, and so do most pizzaiolos and bakers. It’s why a lot of recipes out there recommend hydration levels way up around 85 percent. But there’s a huge trade-off. The higher your hydration, the less workable your dough will be. Above 70 percent hydration, dough becomes increasingly unmanageable, especially for a home baker. It’s soft,

Palm scale (sometimes referred to as a pocket scale) that registers to 0.01 grams (optional, but helpful)

Press down the surface of the dough with your fingertips to flatten it slightly, being careful not to press down the rim 1. Now, you’re ready to start stretching the dough. Here’s the key. You want to stretch the outside of your circle while leaving the middle alone. The middle will take care of itself as you do this. But if you stretch too much to

Every dough in this book, except Chicago Deep-Dish Dough, follows the basic sequence you’re about to go through: • Weigh out ingredients • Activate yeast in warm water • Combine flour and malt (if using) • Hydrate flour with ice water • Add yeast and water • Add starter (if using) • Add salt • Add oil or other fat (if using)

You’ll need to start making the dough at least 2 days before you want to bake and eat the pizzas. That’s counting time to let the dough rise as a single mass (bulk ferment) in a bowl for 24 hours in the fridge and then shape it into balls, which will rise for another 24 hours.

As a general rule, the higher the hydration of your dough, the lighter, puffier, more tender, and more crisp the dough is likely to be. That’s right, more crisp. You might think more water would make a dough soggier, but (at least up to a point) what it does is create steam that helps the dough expand during baking, giving the crust a crisp exterio