Soft and supple: here’s how to make authentic Neapolitan pizza dough and where to cook it
Do you dream of becoming a professional pizza-maker? Neapolitan pizza is a symbol of Italy’s food all over the world, and making it is a real genuine art form, with secrets that are kept and passed down from generation to generation.
The heart of this dish is undoubtedly the dough, which must meet specific characteristics. That’s right: not all pizzas are equal and if you want to make it following tradition you have to know how to make genuine Neapolitan pizza dough.
What are the “rules” to follow?
To be RNP, no imitations are allowed: real Neapolitan pizza is the one protected and promoted by the “Real Neapolitan Pizza” Association, which for this purpose drew up real genuine International Rules which, without leaving any room for doubt, describe:
- The ingredients to use
- How to knead the dough
- The steps of preparation
- How to cook the pizza
- The characteristics of the final outcome
How do you make real Neapolitan pizza dough?
Ingredients
To bring to life round, soft, supple crust with the famous high “cornicione” (end crust), you have to use these simple but precious ingredients (preferably from the Campania Region):
- Water
- Salt
- Active dry yeast
- Flour
Preparation
You can choose whether to knead the pizza by hand or use the kneading machine:
- Mix flour, water, salt, and yeast.
- Pour the water, melting the sea salt, and add 10% of the the total amount of flour required.
- Melt the active dry yeast and knead the dough until its consistency is supple but not sticky.
- Knead the dough for another 20 minutes at low speed.
- Leave the dough and let it rise for about two hours.
- Hand-shape the dough (make dough balls.
- Let them rise for about six hours in a food crate at a temperature of about 25°C.
How do you roll the dough?
Once ready, you have to roll the real Neapolitan pizza dough by making a circular movement from the middle outwards, pressing with both hands without using tools.
The time has come to top it. Choose high-quality raw ingredients, perhaps choosing from among the approved suppliers of the association, which suggests who to turn to for fresh peeled tomato, olive oil, fiordilatte mozzarella cheese, and so on.
… As for the cooking?
To perfectly cook your pizza, you need an adequate tool. But what is the most suited oven for Neapolitan pizza?
Cooking following tradition requires you take various factors into consideration:
- Choice and blend of ingredients.
- Cook plate.
- Technical options in terms of quality and safety.
Why choose the Napulé oven for your pizza?
Precisely to combine tradition and innovation, Marana Forni breathed life into an oven that is the outcome of its intense partnership with master Neapolitan pizza-makers.
This tool certified by the Real Neapolitan Pizza Association both in the gas and wood-burning version is the Napulé oven, which has certain characteristics:
- Capacity of five pizzas for the wood-burning version and seven pizzas for the gas one.
- Covering with personalizable or colored dome
- Stones with extremely high performance in transferring and recovering heat.
- Automatic maintenance of the temperature in the gas-burning model with five cooking flame levels and a smart system that lowers the flame but never puts it out
- The flame has a long, bright wood-effect.
Like all Marana products, Napulé is Made in Italy and follows the legal regulations in terms of quality and safety.
Choose the tradition that marries the innovation to cook real Neapolitan pizza dough! Contact us for a quote or come and test the quality of our ovens at the company. You’ll have to bring the dough and you can put your pizza in the Marana oven to see exactly what the final result is like!
