Great pizza starts with the right dough. Brian, our wholesale manager, has spent countless hours developing his special dough recipe and has been kind enough to share his secrets. Featuring Caputo 00 Flour, Brian’s dough provides the perfect canvas for any pizza.
From the dough, to the sauce and the toppings, shop all of Ditalia's Pizza Essentials Here!
INGREDIENTS
250 grams Caputo 00 Flour (about 2 cups)
1/4 cup warm water
1/2 cup cool water
1/4 tsp Active Dry Yeast
1 tsp Fine Sea Salt
1/2 tsp Granulated Sugar
PREPARATION
Dissolve the yeast in warm water with the sugar. In a standing mixer bowl, add the cool water and dissolved yeast.
With the mixer on slow speed, using the paddle blade, add about 1/3 or so of the Caputo 00 flour and mix (increasing the speed) for a minute or two, until a smooth “batter” forms. This helps to develop the gluten in the dough.
Add remaining Caputo 00 flour and salt. Once the dough comes together, switch to a dough hook and use a slow/med speed to kneed the dough for 8-10 minutes.
First Proofing
Form dough into a ball and transfer to a bowl lightly oiled with extra virgin olive oil and cover with plastic wrap until rested and has slightly grown in size (approx 1.5 hours). Since very little yeast is used, the dough shouldn’t double in size, as is common for bread recipes.
Second Proofing
Remove dough from bowl and portion into two dough balls. Place on floured sheet pan, cover well with plastic wrap and a towel to make a tight seal, and refrigerate for 24 hours.
Remove dough balls from fridge 1.5 hours prior to making pizza. This allows the dough to reach room temperature, making it more workable.
HELPFUL TIPS
An alternative / quicker method is to forgo the 2nd long proof in the fridge and instead proof the dough the 2nd time at room temp (approximately 4 hours) Care must be taken so that the dough balls do not over proof (ie more than double in size). If it appears the dough would be ready too soon, it can simply be put in fridge to slow down the growing dough a bit. The goal is to have the dough “rise” in the oven – and making sure the dough doesn’t “over proof” is key!
The longer (refrigerated) second proofing yields a more favorable crust that tastes less “yeasty” & is definitely worth the extra preparation day.
The sugar simply helps with the browning of the crust in a conventional oven that tops out at about 500 degrees.
Use a baking stone or baking steel. Preheat oven for an hour at the maximum temperature prior making pizzas.
PIZZA ESSENTIALS
From the dough, to the sauce and the toppings, shop all of Ditalia's Pizza Essentials Here!
46 comments
First time using the Caputo four. Will let you know!
Erich, I have been using Caputo 00 in my dough in my humble home oven with great success, using a baking steel. On the top rack, at 550F, pre-heated for 1.5 hours, the baking steel produces “leopard spots,” a crispy crust, and a wonderful cornicione. Re sugar, the recipe I use calls for honey and as I said, the crust is perfectly delicious. Totally agree w/you that Cento San Marzano tomatoes are the only way to go, but after I use the stick blender on the tomatoes, I add — GASP! — a little kosher salt, garlic powder, onion powder and oregano. So I suppose this makes me a heretic. ; )
There are a few rules working with Caputo flour. The first is, you should always cook this dough in high temperatures-usually 90 seconds at 900 degrees F. Second is, sugar is not used with this flour. Using ice cold water and warm water is usually for Mondako or pizza blend doughs and is not really good for Caputo flour. The salt should ALWAYS be dissolved in water before being added to the flour. Of course, you never allow salt and yeast to come in direct contact. The one thing I do like about this recipe is, the dry yeast. I’ve used both fresh yeast and dry yeast and I prefer the dry yeast.
This flour does not work well with home ovens. The best flour for that is Power Flour-which is makes a great crust.
The one thing you should always use with Neapolitan style pizzas is a DOP whole peeled tomato like Cento or Strianese tomatoes. You NEVER add anything to the tomatoes. You take a hand held mixer and mix them until you have a puree consistency. The DOP tomatoes are from a certain part of Italy that are grown in a volcanic area which adds a sweetness to the tomato-which is why you don’t add anything to them.
If you’re looking for a pizza that sticks to tradition, the Neapolitan pizza is the way to go. The ingredients are:
Caputo 00 flour
DOP tomatoes – puree (some pizza makers will even cut the top and bottoms off and wash the seeds out – see YouTube videos by Tony Geminani)
Parmesan or pecorino cheese
Buffalo or mozzarella cheese
Olive oil
Basil (I personally do not use Basil, but the Neapolitan pizza is like the Italian flag: Red, white, green. Sauce, cheese, and basil)
Happy baking!
To Julie. I have used other similar recipes with up to 72 hours in fridge and turned out great
Would it work to keep the dough in the refrigerator for 48 hours? Or you do think it will change the final result?
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