Recipe: Delicious Neapolitan Pizza Dough

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Neapolitan Pizza Dough. True to Italian tradition, Neapolitan pizza dough is made up of very few ingredients, water, salt, yeast and all-important flour. The taste and crunch make all the difference, so watch as we pair it back and respect the simplicity of this fine dough. This is the first episode in a series completely dedicated to pizza.

Neapolitan Pizza Dough Scrape the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and form it into a large ball. Transfer the dough to the prepared bowl and cover the bowl securely with plastic wrap so that it's airtight. After this, it is kneaded for an additional minute or two which makes it elastic and smooth. You can have Neapolitan Pizza Dough using 4 ingredients and 7 steps. Here is how you achieve that.

Ingredients of Neapolitan Pizza Dough

  1. Prepare 165 grams of Flour (Caputo 00 flour is best, bread flour is good).
  2. You need 3 1/5 grams of Salt (Kosher or Table).
  3. You need 2 2/5 grams of Instant Yeast (I use Fleischmann's quick-rise).
  4. Prepare 104 grams of Water.

After this, the dough is ready to be shaped. To learn more about Neapolitan pizza, read Learning from a Maestro: Enzo Coccia's Neapolitan Pizza Traditions. Not that drab, everybody eats around it stuff. And it starts with the dough.

Neapolitan Pizza Dough step by step

  1. Note for bakers: The weights in this recipe can be represented as ratios for easily calculating required ingredients for large batches. The salt, yeast, water, are represented as percentages of the initial weight of the flour used. The ratios are as follows: Flour: 100% Salt: 2% Instant yeast: 1.5 % Water: 65% For example if you want 10 pizza's, multiply the 160g of flour per pizza by 10 (equals 1,600g). Then multiply 1,600 by 0.02 to find the required salt, 0.015 for the yeast, 0.65 for the water..
  2. Combine flour, salt, yeast in a large bowl and mix until homogeneous..
  3. Add water and incorporate into dry ingredients using hands or mixer on slow speed until no dry flour remains on bottom of bowl..
  4. Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap and allow to rise at room temperature for 8 to 12 hours..
  5. Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface and divide into 270g even balls. Place each in a covered quart-sized deli container or in a zipper-lock freezer bag. Place in refrigerator and allow to rise at least 2 more days, and up to 4..
  6. Remove from refrigerator, shape into balls, and allow to rest at room temperature for at least 2 hours before baking..
  7. Bake as hot as possible (if you have the right equipment, 900-1,000 Fahrenheit) until crust is darkened and toppings bubble (2-3 minutes if cooking at 900 Fahrenheit)..

So it is with Neapolitan pizza dough. Consisting of only flour, water, salt and yeast, this dough is the most basic of all formulas, and the most challenging to get right. To get to the heart of Neapolitan dough, Jonathan Goldsmith, padrone of Spacca Napoli — Chicago's groundbreaking Neapolitan pizzeria — agreed to share his thoughts. It makes for a beautiful, supple and fluffy dough. You can find it at your local grocery or online.

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