pizza napoli - step-by-step with lots of pix

[tasunkawitko]

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[ronp]

Looks yummy to me, thanks for the recipe and Qview.

 

[tndawg]

That looks really good!!!! Nice job!!!

 

[beer-b-q]

Looks Great, thanks for sharing...

 

[rivet]

Darn nice looking pizza! Like your wooden paddle too, that's cool. Excellent toppings and you won't get any arguments from me on the anchovies....

 

[alx]

Looks great.I have come to point i make 4 crusts and freeze the other 3.

for drool factor/post.

 

[fire it up]

Now that is one fine looking pizza!

 

[tasunkawitko]

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[tasunkawitko]

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[mballi3011]

Man that looks great and thanks for the recipe and is it really that easy.

 

[tasunkawitko]

yep, it really is that easy. too often, we make things more difficult than they need to be; i'm learning altely that the more i get back to basics, the better my food is.

 

[brucebenjamin]

That's some good looking pizza! I would like to make a comment about the temperature of the water though. 110 to 115 is the correct temperature for the water to activate the yeast but be sure you don't go over that temp. If a thermometer isn't available it's a good idea to get a cheap instant read dial thermometer. I've used dozens of them over the years in restaurants and even the inexpensive ones have always been accurate to within a couple of degrees.

You can guesstimate by just feeling the water but water that's neutral feeling to the hand is not 110 to 115 degrees. That's closer to about 100 degrees, or body temperature. An example of this would be a hot tub. Get into a 110 to 115 degree hot tub and it will feel pretty hot.

Yeast will activate fine at cooler temperatures but it's easy to kill it with too much heat. The cooler temperature will just slow down the rising process. I use yeast from a local flour mill with 110 degree water and it usually doubles in bulk in about 45 minutes. Sometimes sooner. For anyone who doesn't have an instant read thermometer I highly recommend getting one.

Bruce

 

[alx]

Bruce your addition to post is what makes this a great site.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge...

 

[tasunkawitko]

hi, bruce - i agree 100% - when i transcribed the words in the redcipe, the temperature range seemed a bit high to me, as well. i've alwas used the "neutral-feeling" test exactly as you described and it hasn't steered me wrong, yet ~

thanks for your comments!

ron

 

[tasunkawitko]

i tried this again last night using unbleached bread floour rather than all-purpose flour. i also made a double batch, making half of that a day beforehand and suing it as a preferment for added flvaor and depth to the dough. i also used my salsa di pomodoro siciliana with excellent results.

i'll spare everyone the dough pictures, but here's how it went down:

i took half the dough put it in a freezer bag that i had sprayed some olive oil into - squeezed out all air and got it as flat as i could filling the bag, then into the freezer.
the other half, i divided into four equal portions and we made pizza. here's mine before the oven and pizza stone:

and after about 8, 9 minutes at 500 degrees:

as you can see, i probably could have gone another half-minute, maybe even a minute. also, i think i would have had a little more success if i would have baked it at around 425 or 450 instead. the reason for this is that the crust could have baked and finished right in time with the extra moisture cooking off. as it was, the very center of the pizza was jsut a little wet from sauce, toppings etc., even though the crust was done all the way through.

the bread flour was definitely the way to go for a chewy texture and crisp-outside-soft-inside crust. there are a few advantages to using both foulrs, and for experiement's sake i will try half bread flour, half all-purpose flour next time - having said that, if it comes down to one or the other, bread flour is the preferred choice.

using the preferment worked very well - it definitely adds a layer of rich flavor to make half the dough the night before and let it "blossom" for 24 hours or so.....

 

[rivet]

That's a beautiful pizza!

 

[beer-b-q]

Looks Delicious to me...