Pizza Napoletana - Maggie Glezer's dough with modifications
Three months ago, I made pizzas using Maggie Glezer's recipe for the dough. (See Pizza Napoletana [1]) It made the best thin, crisp pizza I'd ever had. My blog on that pizza elicited many useful comments and suggestions. I incorporated some of them into the pizza I made this weekend. Thanks to Ross for the prompt to make sourdough pizza dough and to Sylvia for the mention of using a combination of bread flour and durum flour in the dough. I have taken Stan's noting the lower hydration of authentic naples-style pizza dough under advisement. I would note that, using bread flour rather than Italian Typo 00, my effective hydration is lower. (Higher protein flour absorbs more water than lower protein flours like Typo 00.)
Final Dough Ingredients | Wt. | Baker's % |
KAF Bread Flour | 375 g | 88 |
KAF Fancy Durum | 50 g | 12 |
Active Firm Starter (50% hydration) | 75 g | 18 |
Instant yeast | 1/8 tsp | 0.1 |
Salt | 10 g | 2 |
Water, lukewarm | 305 | 72 |
Note: Since I calculated baker's percentages the “old fashioned way,” with the levain factored in as just another ingredient, the numbers are misleading. There is a total of 500 g of flour, really. Fifty grams of the flour is in the starter. The starter also contains 25 g of water, so the total water equals 330 g. Thus, the true hydration level of the dough is 66%. And, therefore, the durum flour and the pre-fermented flour are each 10% of the total flour.
So, a true representation of the Total Dough (ignoring the fact that the 50 g of flour in the starter consists of 35 g of AP, 10 g of WW and 5 g of rye flour), would be:
Total Dough Ingredients | Wt. | Baker's % |
KAF Bread Flour | 450 g | 90 |
KAF Fancy Durum | 50 g | 10 |
Instant yeast | 1/8 tsp | 0.1 |
Salt | 10 g | 2 |
Water, lukewarm | 330 g | 66 |
Total | 840 g | 168.1 |
Method
In a 6 qt mixing bowl, disperse the starter in the water. (Suggestion: Break the starter into marble-sized pieces and let them soak in the water for a few minutes to soften them. This will make dispersing the starter a lot easier.)
In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the flours, salt and yeast.
Add the dissolved levain to the dry ingredients and mix with the paddle on Speed 1 for 1-2 minutes until the dough forms a shaggy mass on the paddle.
Cover the mixer bowl and let it stand for 20-30 minutes.
Switch to the dough hook, and mix for 3 minutes at Speed 2. The dough should clear the sides of the bowl but stick to the bottom. The dough will be tacky on the verge of sticky but will form an early window pane.
Transfer the dough to a lightly floured board. Do a stretch and fold to strengthen the gluten a bit more, if needed. Round up the dough then flatten it into a rectangle.
Divide the dough into 4 equal parts, and form each piece into a ball.
Smear about a tablespoon of olive oil on the inside of four 1 qt. ZipLoc bags or other containers that can be sealed air-tight, and place a ball of dough in each. Close the containers tightly.
At this point, the balls of dough can be refrigerated for 1 to 3 days before use or frozen for later use.
If refrigerated, the dough balls should be allowed to warm to room temperature (about an hour) before use. If frozen, they should be thawed overnight in the refrigerator the day before use, then warmed on the bench for an hour before shaping.
An hour before baking, preheat the oven to 500ºF (or hotter, if your oven goes higher). Have your baking stone in place.
Remove one ball at a time from its container and shape it into a 10 inch round by your method of choice. (Optionally, brush the entire surface of the dough with olive oil. This will protect it somewhat from sogginess from wetter toppings.)
Top the pizza as desired. (Note: Very light toppings will result in a crisp crust. Heavier toppings will result in a soft center crust. Yet heavier toppings will result in a soggy center crust.)
Immediately transfer the pizza to your pre-heated baking stone and bake for 8-10 minutes, more or less until done.
Remove the pizza from the oven to a cutting board. (Optionally, brush the exposed crust with olive oil to make it shiny or drizzle olive oil over the pizza for flavor.) Cut as desired and serve.
Repeat steps 12-15 for additional pizzas.
I made substantially the same pizza as last time – olive oil, slivered garlic, chopped rosemary, sliced tomato and parmesan cheese added half way through an 11 minute bake at 500ºF on a pizza stone.
Ready to bake
Ready to slice and eat
The dough stretched thin enough to see through without tearing. It baked crisp with more chewiness to the crust than the original version. The center was crisp and rigid enough to support the toppings. It was delicious.
Thanks to Ross, Sylvia, Stan and all the others who offerred suggestions the last time I made this pizza dough.
David
Submitted to YeastSpotting [2]