I've made this 100 times or so. It's great as far as I know but any ideas for improvement would be welcome!
I have a specific wish, for more bubbles in the dough, and to be sure this is as tasty as it can be.
I live in Tokyo and recently while in the middle of some international moves have ended up in a place that has no oven and I don't have my KitchenAid mixer. I tried a toaster oven and found the results were BETTER than the last electric oven I had, though, and while that means I have to make a lot of pizzas to feed the fam its not bad at all. I may stick with the toaster even even after I get a real oven again. Also use a 0.1g Tanita scale.
Caputo Sacko Azurro Tipo-00: 330g
Yeast: 6.0g
Salt: 3.0g (plus I scatter a tiny bit of margerita salt on the bottom of the pan before cooking.)
Water: 200g, cheap bottled stuff, microwaved to as hot as I can stand my finger in
Sunflower oil: 10g
Yeast is dissolved in water (I didn't used to do this and it didn't make a difference that I recall). I measure the others into a bowl, then add the dissolved yeast water. Stir with spatula until it's mostly one unit.
Then knead (I think this is kneading??) for 10 min, folding in half from top; flattening; folding from right; flattening; folding from bottom; flattening; folding from left; flattening. I use a dough scraper in one hand. I don't need flour or oil on hands or the counter.
Then break into 5 pieces (107g each; I guess 15g is lost?!). The cutting process results in little pieces being added when my initial guess is too low, and I want the dough to be one unitary piece. So I'll repeat above "knead" procedure 3-4 times, then bring all the seams down to a single point leaving the outside crevice-free except for one "pucker." I roll that smooth 2-3 sec between my palms then put each ball in an individual sunflower-oiled plastic container in the fridge two days. (Sometimes one day, but the taste is FAR better after two.) The containers are less than half-full even once the thing grows.
I take those out and sit 15-30 minutes to warm and (I think the term is) relax. At that point I turn them around thining and stretching the edge (no cornicione) as the middle kind of takes care of itself for the most part. When it's about 70% of the size of my little baking sheets, it goes on there. I stretch it out and bring up the edges about 1cm or 1/3". (The lip is actually designed to keep the toaster oven clean! but tastes good too!) At 60% hydration I don't need flour at this stage but at 65% (trying this week) I might need a bit.
The pans are 17x24cm (6 3/4x9 1/2") stainless steel (I wanted aluminum but couldn't find the size) and fit my oven almost exactly. I lube them with a small grape's worth of lard, and give a very light sprinkle of margarita salt.
I then par-bake 4:30 or so at 1300W, and remove from the pan. It isn't quite bread yet but is quite stiff.
A pepperoni/sausage/onion/green pepper load-out would be: 24g tomato paste straight from a can, 60g mozzarella (hard-cured, not the wet kind; I didn't see much difference at all in some comparisons; should I retry?) 60g pepperoni, 60g "pizza sausage chunks", "lots" of sliced onion and green pepper. Cheese is half on top of the pepperoni, to cement the sausage in place.
A Diavola would be: no tomato paste, 60g mozz, 90g pepperoni, lots of onion, a couple thinly-sliced cloves garlic, several thinly-sliced Thai chilis, and a fair amount of mild gorgonzola.
Quattro Formaggi would be: just 4 cheeses. 60g mozz, then substantially less taleggio, smoked provolone, and mild gorgonzola. Mozz is evenly spread. Other three are just chunky enough that each bite won't taste quite the same.
A final sprinkle of Italian Seasoning.
Then bake with no baking sheet for 5:00-6:00 at 1300W.
The result is quite good and we don't get tired of it even after years. We have lots of things in our "family cookbook" and complain we can never make anything often enough, but let other faves come around only once a month while pizza's weekly. But I'm left wondering if it could be better? My big sadness is that the crust never has big bubbles in it.
My big wonder is whether I should re-form it after the refrigerator, in effect punching it down, fold it a few times, produce a new smooth ball, and let that grow a bit before stretching?
Should I cut the yeast and do three days in the fridge?
Should it sit out hours?
Am I even kneading right?
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My experiments have been:
-- trying to cook with toaster oven was a HUGE win
-- adding the sunflower oil was a win, but 20g was too much. 10g seems good. Olive oil was bad. Canola so-so.
-- I've tried 65 and 70% hydration in the early days and found it unmanageable. I've gotten it down now so am trying 65 again this week. 65 kneaded well (trick seems to be to move fast, almost slap it instead of push it and it won't stick) but still sticky enough at the end it was hard to get the dough balls as pretty as usual. (Results not clear, because in addition to changing hydration I accidently used canola AND the dough balls sat for 90 min not the usual 30, so there are too many variables.) At 60% I need no additional flour when shaping; with 65% it's a necessity.
-- I used to put the dough in 1-2 containers and found out that by the time I got it all unstuck from each other it just never wanted to fully cooperate again. Individual containers has been a MASSIVE improvement in the shaping/stretching phase. I don't end up with holes that need patching, or tough "sinews" between paper-thin spots. More generally, shaping those dough balls before refrigerating just seems absolutely key.
-- I originally got the recipe from a site offering it as no-knead dough and I found that it wasn't crisp enough even cooked to browning.
-- sprinkling some salt on the baking surface is a trick I got at Pizza Studio Tamaki in Tokyo, a Neapolitan place I love. Cutting the salt in the dough keeps it from being overly salty.
-- I used to use 300g for 5 17x24cm (6 3/4x9 1/2") pizzas. I upped it to 330g at the same time I added a vertical edge. I tried upping further to 360g but a HUGE step down.
-- letting the dough sit 30 minutes after removing from the refrigerator seems super-key.
-- I tried 10% semolina one time, was a major step down.
