Newbie help

[San Jose Dale]

You all probably get this question frequently, but I am new to this forum, and it's a bit intimidating for me, as I am not very computer savvy. Anyway, I am "curing" my brand new wood burning oven this weekend (Mughnaini). On Monday, I will have be able to put my first pie in it. I know that I will eventually wish to become proficient with a Neapolitan dough, but for now I just want to start simple. I do have some bread flour around here, or could but some King Arthur, but can someone point me to a good dough to start with. I will need to mix by hand, (my kitchen aid is in storage) and can make the dough a day ahead of time, so the short "emergency" recipe isn't requited.

Thanks much,

Dale

[RobynB]

Dale:  are you San Jose, CA?  If so, we're almost neighbors - I'm in Scotts Valley.  You can find a zillion formulas in the Neapolitan section of this forum, but to start, you might try downloading the free pizza tutorial from Forno Bravo.  There's lot's of good info there on firing your oven and heat management, and a lot of good tips.  Start with the basic dough recipe here:  http://www.fornobravo.com/pizza/pizza_dough.html  You can get Caputo 00 flour at Whole Foods (at least you can in Santa Cruz) but if you are in SJ, CA, Lunardi's in Los Gatos is a great resource.  They carry Italian flours, and also fresh yeast, which is often used in Neapolitan dough, and an amazing selection of imported Italian canned tomatoes, and all sorts of other wonderful things. 

If you are not used to handling this type of dough, I suggest you start with something easier to handle.  I speak from experience, we just fired our new WFO a month ago for the first time.  This recipe is not Neapolitan, it's NY-style, but it is really easy to work with, I've had consistently good results, and it makes a nice pizza in the WFO.  It calls for a food processor but there are ways around that if you don't have one handy, and it just uses bread flour and dry yeast, which are easy to find:    http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/10/new-york-style-pizza.html  I've been experimenting with Neapolitan doughs with mixed results - that NY dough is my go-to when I'm having people over or just want to make pizzas that I know will come out good.  It's nice to have a fall-back like that. 

[San Jose Dale]

Thanks Robyn, Whole Foods and Lunardi's are both right around the corner from me, in Willow Glen. I give this a try.

Dale