Verace Pizza Napoletana Home 00 Dough/Margherita Pizza Recipe

[Pete-zza]

I stumbled across a new page at the Verace Pizza Napoletana (VPN) website that includes a recipe for a 00 pizza dough intended for home use. It is at http://www.verapizzanapoletana.org/vpn/ricetta.htm. I have cut and pasted the page below (with some reformating) for convenience. For those who are interested, I calculated the baker’s percents for the dough ingredients and noted them parenthetically in italics. I calculated a thickness factor for the dough (255 g. of dough for a 11-inch pizza) of 0.095. I assume that brewer’s yeast in the recipe means fresh, or cake, yeast.


We receive a lot of requests from people who would like to make VPN style pizza at home. They often request the recipe. We decided, therefore, to create this page with the basic recipe for a pizza Margherita.

The Dough
00 Flour 15 lb. or 6.8 kg (100%)
(We recommend Caputo flour if you can get it)
Water 4.23 quarts or 4 Liters (58.7%)
Salt 6 oz. or 170 grams (2.5%)
Brewer's Yeast 3 oz. or 85 grams (1.25%)

Mix by hand or in low speed mixer. Form into 9-10 oz. or 255 gram dough balls. The recipe makes enough for about 40 pizzas. Stretch dough on marble worktop to about 11"

The Sauce
Ground plum tomatoes (preferably San Marzano)
2 Fresh Basil Leaf hand shredded into large pieces

The Cheese
Fresh Fior-di-Latte or Bufala Mozzarella cheese only partly covering the surface. Before cooking, apply a light drizzle of extra virgin olive oil on the surface of the pizza

Cooking
Cook the pizza in a wood oven, if possible, for 2 minutes at 850° F, turning the pie every 30 seconds or so.

Peter

[zappcatt]

Thanks Pete-zza,
Is there any way that you could scale that recipe down to a single 14" inch pizza?

I have not gotten my head around bakers percents yet.

Is there a "rule of thumb" for us normal home bakers(those who don't have an oven that goes up to 850F) to cook these in a regular oven?

p.s. I found it funny that they said this recipe was provided by people who wanted to make the pizza at home, yet the recipe makes 40 pizzas!!!! and needs to be cooked in an 850 oven.

[ebpizza]

someone check my math

I broke it down, but the pizza size remains 11 inches



look for my new calculations below.

thanks for checking the math

[Pete-zza]

I don't get the same gram values for the salt or yeast as ebpizza. The gram values in the VPN formulation for those ingredients, as well as for the flour, are correct. I used 8.33 ounces/cup to convert the water from quarts to ounces, which I converted to grams also. On this basis, for total weight for the 40 pizzas, I get 389.94 ounces and 11,050.90 grams (389.94 x 28.35).

I will set forth the formulation for a 14-inch (below), but I'd like to mention that the VPN recipe is not particularly well adapted to the standard home oven. For use in a home oven, you will want to lower the amount of water a bit (e.g., lower the hydration baker's percent by a few percent) and you will want to add some oil to the dough (about 1 to 2% by weight of flour). Otherwise you are likely to get a crust that is cracker-like. In most instances you are also likely to get a very light colored crust. When I make a Neapolitan style pizza in a home oven, I usually use a 500-degree F preheated pizza stone (sometimes even two stones) in conjunction with the broiler. I have also started adding dried dairy whey to the dough to improve the browning. A good part of the work that people on this forum have done has been to try to adapt the classic Neapolitan dough/pizza to the standard home oven. It's been a real challenge.

With that said, here's the formulation for the 14-inch you requested.

100%, Caputo 00 pizzeria flour, 9.00 oz. (255.21 g.), (2 c. + 2 T. + 2 t., all level measures)
58.7%, Water, 5.28 oz. (149.81 g.), (2/3 c.)
2.5%, Salt, 0.23 oz. (6.38 g.), (a bit over 1 t.)
1.25%, Cake yeast, 0.11 oz. (3.19 g.)

If you wish to use IDY, the amount to use is 0.04 oz. (1.07 g.), or a bit more than 1/3 t. The IDY can be mixed in with the flour. If you wish to use ADY, the amount to use is 0.06 oz. (1.60 g.), or a bit less than 1/2 t. It should be proofed in a small amount of warm water (about 105 degrees F).

Peter

[ebpizza]

updated numbers

[Pete-zza]

Another "problem" with the VPN recipe is that the instructions don't tell you what to do between the time the dough is made and the time that it is used to make pizzas. There is a room-temperature fermentation in between, the duration of which can depend on the particular 00 flour used, room temperature, dough temperature, etc.

Peter

[Brian83]

would anyone know roughly how long to let this rise assuming a 75 degree room temperature?

[Pete-zza]

Brian83,

Would you be planning to make just a single dough ball or a larger dough batch that will be divided at some point into several dough balls?

Peter

[Brian83]

I'd be making a larger batch and then dividing into two or three dough balls...basically I just bought some fresh yeast and I want to compare my usual overnight cold rise pizza (which I'm very satisfied with) with an all-day room temperature rise pie (which I would make using the recipe in this post)...I've always stuck with the cold rise so I really have no idea about warm rise timing.

[Pete-zza]

Brian83,

The amount of dough you are talking about would be considered very small. I should have asked you what size pizza you would like to make. However, if you know how to work with baker's percents, and with the thickness factor I calculated (0.095), you should be able to easily scale the recipe to whatever size and number of dough balls you want. The dough formulation I posted in Reply 3 of this thread is for a 14" pizza, which is larger that what is typically used for a Neapolitan pizza. However, the amount of dough for the 14" size can be used to make two roughly 10" pizzas. You can also conveniently use the table set forth by ebpizza in Reply 4.

Based on your room temperature you mentioned, and assuming that you will be using the Caputo 00 Pizzeria flour, I would try 2-3 hours at room temperature for the bulk rise, and then divide the dough into the desired number of dough balls, which should then be wiped with a bit of oil or covered with a damp cloth or an oiled sheet of plastic wrap to prevent a crust from forming. I would then subject the dough balls to about 4-6 additional hours of fermentation/maturation at room temperature. The dough will hold for a few hours longer at that point, so the second "window" can be fairly wide.

Good luck, and please report back with your results and any comments that you feel would be useful to the membership.

Peter

[Brian83]

Thank you Peter, I really appreciate and am impressed by your wealth of knowledge and great efforts on this site. It's really helpful for new users.  I'm going to try it out tonight.