I’ve been trying a bunch of dough recipes that have kind of turned out but not really. I also want a recipe that doesn’t require special order flours. I keep making tweaks and this seems to have come out the best. It’s technically 66% Hydration. But I found going higher with local flours just is too sticky.
Ingredients
Poolish
- 200 Grams Tipo (Anna Napoletana Tipo)
- 200 Grams Water
- 5 Grams Dry Active Yeast
Dough
- 500 Grams Bread Flour (I used King Arthur Bread Flour)
- 400 Grams Water
- 20 Grams Salt
- 200 Grams Tipo
Dusting Flour
- 50 Grams Semolina Flour
- 50 Grams Tipo
Instructions
- I mix the poolish the night before I want to make pizza. I put my Kitchen aid mixing bowl on the scale. measure all ingredients out and do a quick mix with a fork. Then I cover with plastic wrap and leave it on the mixer till the next day.
- Next day about and hour or 2 before we want to eat pizza, I add the dough ingredients to the bowl with the poolish. I use the dough hook and mix on low for about 10 minutes scraping the bowl down after ingredients are incorporated. Let rest in bowl covered for 15min. For a slightly smoother dough, you can add a couple teaspoons of olive oil, mix until well combined.
- I pull out the dough onto a wood cutting board and let it rest again covered by the mixing bowl for about 15 minutes.
- Stretch the dough repeatedly breaking the gluten. Then cover and let rest again.
- Pinch / Cut balls that are about 250-270 grams for large crust napoletana 12" pizzas, 180 grams if you want less crust. Roll balls and place on box/ baking tray with cover to rise for 1-2 hours.
- To form pizza. Remove dough with spatula from container. Place immediately into bowl that contains the dusting flour 50/50 Semolina Flour and tipo "00" Flour. Coat Both sides well.
- Place dough on wooden cutting board or on a wooden pizza peel. Press the dough ball in the center pushing the air and dough to the edges.
- Stretch the dough. There are a few methods, it's common to see the hold pull and flip method on places like Youtube (I did not personally witness this technique used in Italy, but I have not been to everyplace in Italy, not even close). I mostly saw three ways of stretching in Italy. Most that I saw used a rolling pin. There's the two handed stretch where the dough stays flat, You roll it out with a rolling pin then take your two hands and just gently push your hands apart for final stretching of the dough while turning. Then there is the gravity stretch which was pretty common, where you lift the dough with both hands and slightly stretch with the hands, let gravity do its work, rotate and repeat. Ready for toppings.
