Pizza Dream, a Slice of Life

Discover tips for perfect dough, classic and creative topping ideas, and best baking techniques. Beginners and seasoned pros alike will find the tools to level up their pizza-making game.

 Pizza, the ultimate comfort food, the star of countless parties and a staple in many homes. Whatever you love a classic Margherita, or a loaded Capricciosa, there’s a pizza for everyone. You'll explore the wonderful world of pizza, sharing my favorite dough recipe, tips for making a perfect crust.

The story of how the humble pizza came to enjoy such global dominance reveals much about the history of migration, economics and technological change.

It was in late 18th-century Naples that the pizza as we now know it came into being. Under the Bourbon kings, Naples had become one of the largest cities in Europe. Always rushing about in search of work, people from Naples needed food that was cheap and easy to eat. Pizzas met this need. Sold not in shops, but by street vendors carrying huge boxes under their arms, they would be cut to meet the customer’s budget or appetite.

For a long time, pizzas were scorned by food writers. Associated with the crushing poverty.

All that changed after Italian unification. While on a visit to Naples in 1889, King Umberto I and Queen Margherita grew tired of the complicated French dishes they were served for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Hastily summoned to prepare some local specialties for the queen, the pizzaiolo Raffaele Esposito cooked three sorts of pizza: one with lard, caciocavallo and basil; another with cecenielli; and a third with tomatoes, mozzarella and basil. The queen was delighted. Her favorite – the last of the three – was called pizza margherita in her honor.

This signaled an important shift. Margherita’s seal of approval not only elevated the pizza from being a food for the poor to being something a royal family could enjoy, but also transformed pizza from a local into a truly national dish.

There are 7 types of Pizza that I can count made in Italy, Pizza Napoletana, Pizza Alla Pala, Pizza al Taglio, Pizza alla Romana, Pizza fritta, Pizza focaccia and Pizza alla Siciliana

Pizza Napoletana is one of the most famous types of Italian pizza. Protected by a Traditional Specialty Guaranteed (TSG) certification, this style must be made in a very particular way.

The dough is comprised of wheat flour, yeast, salt, and water and is left to rise for up to 24 hours. It's shaped by hand into a flat, round disk, about 3 millimeters thick. After that, it's topped with ingredients and baked for 90 seconds in a blisteringly hot (around 480°C) wood-burning oven. The result is a soft, elastic heart with a tall, fluffy crust called the “cornicione” in Italian.

Pizza Alla Pala, meaning "paddle pizza", originated in Roman bakeries as a way to use up leftover bread dough. Bakers would stretch the dough lengthwise, top it with fresh ingredients, and serve it by the slice on a wooden paddle. This style has a highly hydrated dough (about 80% water) and is cooked in an electric oven around 580°F. The dough is denser and rises for a long time, giving each slice a soft, fluffy interior and a crispy exterior.

Pizza al Taglio literally meaning "pizza by the cut," and it is the perfect pizza to enjoy on the street, especially during festivals, concert and even at the beach. It's baked in a large, rectangular pan before it gets cut into squares or long strips. Price of each slice is often determined by the weight and customers can decide how big of a slice they want when ordering.

Pizza alla Romana is a variety of pizza from Italy's capital city. This variety is flat, and round and it has a very thin crust. Unlike Pizza Napoletana, this style is crispy and has an almost cracker-like crust! This style is also what I love doing it and especially eating it.

Pizza fritta is a classic Neapolitan Street food, it literally is a fried pizza dough. It comes in many different shapes and forms. For example, Montanara is round while calzone is shaped like a half-moon.There is also another type of pizza fritta: PANZEROTTI, my favorite. Shaped like half-moons, panzerotti is pizza dough stuffed with ingredients like mozzarella, tomato, and ricotta, then deep fried until golden. They are often served as street food in Puglia (where I come from) but become a popular tradition in many regions throughout Italy today and all over the world.

Pizza Focaccia, I learned this at early stages of my career in Puglia, is a type of pizza that's baked in small, round and cast-iron pans. Think of it like Italian-style "deep dish." It goes from a thick, soft crust, that gets slightly browned on the outside when baking. there are many variations in the dough process, some families prefer to use water, other as liquid prefer beer (I believe it is the best). People also add potatoes in the dough to keep it soft, and moist over time.

Finally, la Pizza Siciliana, also known as “sfincione”, Sicilian-style pizza has a thick crust with a fluffy, sponge-like consistency. It is baked in a rectangular shaped pan, topped with tomato sauce, anchovies, onions, oregano, and a hard sheep's milk cheese. For the final touch, the pizza is covered in breadcrumbs which help absorb some of the oil from the ingredient. Sfincione is often served in bakeries rather than pizzerias as a snack or street food.

There are different ovens and technique to bake the perfect pizza, it all depends on the result that you want to achieve. Off course if you like a Napolitan style you will need a wood-fire oven, where high temperature will play the magic during the cooking process, using particular stones that retain and cook evenly the pizza also from the bottom. Using electric or gas oven are not wrong, on the opposite, while using wood fir oven requires years and years of experience in learning fluctuation of temperature, the gas or electric oven give consistency, definitely easier for beginners and also for people that would like a nice and crispy crust. This is what I like to use, and sometimes in the oven I burn a bit of spices like rosemary, sage or thyme, to impregnate the chamber of the oven with a bit of smoke which it will give same flavor profile of a wood-fire oven

Perfect sauce and amazing toppings are the cornerstones of a perfect pizza, but the real star behind each slice is the crispy, chewy crust holding it all together. The key to a great crust is all about the stretch—no spinning required, that is just a show.

Pizza dough is a leavened wheat-based dough rolled out thin and shaped into a disc or rectangle. Some pizza dough recipes call for bulk fermentation, which is when yeast cells consume carbohydrates and expel carbon dioxide gas, causing the dough to rise.( if you tried my famous stone baked bread , this is the science behind that ) . The fermentation process creates air pockets in the dough, resulting in a textured, flavorful crust. After fermentation is complete, the dough is shaped then proofed which refers to the final rise before baking.

Handling dough can be a temperamental challenge. Here are some tips for facilitating the dough-stretching process:

Bring the dough to room temperature. Bringing the dough to room temperature before the shaping process makes it easier to stretch and less likely to tear.

Prepare your surfaces. Pizza dough can be sticky, so coat your countertop or pizza peel with a thin layer of flour. Avoid using all-purpose or 00 flour because adding too much will make the dough tougher and harder to work.

Avoid rolling pin. Using it to flatten pizza dough may appear easier than shaping it by hand, but it can knock out air bubbles and lead to tearing, stodgy texture, or make the dough shrink and refuse to take shape, what chefs called nervous

Pat and knead the dough. Pat the dough ball into a disc. Using your fingertips, begin lightly from the center of the dough outwards. Rotate as you press to create an even circle and define the edge of the dough using the outside edges of your fingers

Begin stretching. When the dough has grown in diameter but isn’t too thin, it’s time for the stretching process. Place one hand on the center of the disc, and use the other hand to gently guide the edge as you flip the palm holding the dough. You can also stretch the dough by holding one edge and allowing it to hang down (usually works faster when using this technique, as it can lead to tearing). Always work from the center making sure the edge of the pizza stays thick and untouched, this will give the crust. When the dough looks to be about 33 cm in diameter (if you use a 300-gr ball dough), add your favorite toppings and proceed with cooking

When cooking , wherever oven you use , wha t is important is that at the bottom of your pizza there s no excess of flour, this will burn quiclkly in the oven. Pizza need constant turning inside the oven, this will help cooking evenly on every side of it. If you want a crispier and well-cooked pizza,the secret will be to give it a quick heat at the back of the oven then pull it at the fron , or as we call it “a bocca di forno”, here it will continue to cook a lower teperature , water will evaporate without burning topping or bottom

here below find one of my most loved recipe

Ingredients

Flour 00 25 kg W300-320

Crushed ice 2 kg

Fine salt 700 gr

Water 13.5 lt

Yeast 25 gr

Method

In a bowl dissolve the yeast with 200 ml of water at room temperature

In a mixer add the crushed ice, the water, and the yeast mixture.

After mix for 15 seconds add the flour gently.

Mix it for 5 minutes then add the salt.  Rest the dough for about 20 minutes then mix it again for 8 more minutes until everything is nice and smooth.

Take the dough and start portioning in 280°gr each piece then dispose them in a tray separated by 4 cm each to each other.

Start rolling each individual piece forming a ball, making sure there is not hole at the bottom.

Keep covered and refrigerate for 36 hours (1 day and half ) before using it

To stretch the pizza dough, make sure you use a bit of flour underneath to help creating the shape.

Dress as you like.

Cooking in gas oven usually is around 350°C, turning constantly for about 3-4 minutes

If using woodfire oven time will be less, approx. 90 seconds

The strength of the flour is the capacity of the flour to absorb water or liquids and keep Co2 during the levitation.  This is defined from the quantity of protein inside the composition of the gluten .