Dough Ingredients:
- Cotswold Pizza Flour: 1000g
- Water: 620g (62% hydration)
- Salt: 30g (3%)
- Fresh Yeast: 0.7g (Instant Dried Yeast 0.3g)
Rich's Signature Neapolitan Pizza Dough Recipe
Master Neapolitan Pizza Dough Recipe
Rich's Signature Neapolitan Pizza Dough Recipe
This is Rich "dough and behold" Payne's Signature Neapolitan Pizza Dough Recipe, you can use this for a tonne of his pizza topping methods. Watch the video below now to get the full walkthrough, and scroll down further to see the steps for Rich's method.
Happy Pizza Baking!
- Baker: Rich Payne / Dough & Behold
- IG: @dough_and_behold
- Makes: 6 x 275g dough balls
- Prep time: 20 hrs room temp (21ºc) total proving time.
- Bake time: 60 - 90 seconds in pizza oven @450ºc
- Flours used: Cotswold Pizza Flour
- Equipment used: Ooni Halo Pro Spiral Dough Mixer, Ooni Dual Platform Digital Scales, Ooni Dough Boxes
Signature Pizza Flour Dough Method
This recipe is specific to these timings and temperatures. 20 hours at room temp (RT) 21°c - start mixing at 8pm the day before, to bake between 4-6pm the following day (20hrs in total).
- First off, add 90% of your water to the bowl.
- Crumble all your Fresh yeast into the bowl (Or dried yeast) and whisk gently to dissolve.
- Add all your flour to the bowl.
- Turn your mixer on to a slow mixing speed (30-40%) and wait for the ingredients to combine and mix until there are no dry bits. I usually set a timer for 5mins for this.
- Add a little bit more water but not all of it whilst these mixes.
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Once there are no dry bits of flour, cover the bowl and let it rest for 30-45mins. This allows the dough to absorb the water properly and let the gluten begin to develop.
- After around 45 mins, add all your salt into the mixer and all the remaining water.
- Mix at a slow speed to start with while to salt and water is mixed in and then increase the speed a little for a minute or two. When it looks like the dough is becoming smooth, stop the mixer and let the dough rest for about 10 mins.
- After 10 mins, give the dough another mix for around 5 minutes. If at the end of this your dough feels nice and smooth, then take it out of the mixer.
- If the dough still looks a bit lumpy, let it rest and repeat this process one or two more times until you are happy. You will notice how the dough becomes smoother as you let it rest.
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Once happy with your dough, place it onto a clean work surface and gently shape it into a ball. You can use a dough scraper to kind of push it along your work surface to develop surface tension, so you end up with a nice, tight, smooth dough ball.
- Place this Dough ball in a lightly oiled container with a lid.
- Leave out at room temp overnight to bulk prove.
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At 8am the next morning, empty the dough from your container out onto a work surface and divide it into 6 x 275g dough balls.
- Weigh the doughballs to make sure they are all even weights.
- To shape the dough ball grab, it in one hand and fold it into itself a few times to make a tight, smooth ball.
- Once you are happy your dough balls have enough surface tension place them into either a small dough tray with a lid, or for best results at home, I oil an individual breakfast bowl and place the Dough ball inside and cover it with cling film (or even better you can get silicon covers online that mean you use less cling film plastic).
- Once your balls are in the bowls and covered, leave them out at room temp for another 5 hours and you are ready to bake. You can ball up the night before you go to bed if you want to give your dough balls even longer time to rest. Both methods work well.
Opening out your dough balls:
- So, you’re ready to make pizza! You will need a separate bowl or dinner plate with two or three handfuls of fine Semola/Semolina flour. This is to drop your dough ball into before you open it out.
- Gently place your doughball into the floured bowl and turn it a few times in the Semola flour making sure it is completely covered in flour and there are no sticky bits of dough remaining. This is important as it will stop your dough sticking to your pizza peel once you have stretched your dough ball.
- Once your dough ball is completely covered in Semola flour, gently remove it from the bowl and place onto your clean, dry, working surface. Bring your hands together to form a “V” shape and gently press down into the centre of the dough ball. Your aim here is to push down on the dough ball and press the trapped air in the dough all the way to the very edge. This is what gives you a light and puffy crust.
- Don’t press all the way to the very edge of the dough ball, give yourself an edge room of 1-2cm. Once you have made your first set of presses, turn the doughball over and press your fingers into the centre of the dough ball, pushing all the air to the other edge of the dough ball. You will begin to see your pizza base take shape.
- Repeat this process a few times until you have a 7-8inch circle with a defined puffy edge. Now pick up your semi stretched out dough ball and rest it on your knuckles, you want the very edge of the dough to be resting on your knuckles and then gently rotate the dough ball in a circular movement, almost like you are holding a steering Wheel of a car.
- As you make each turn the dough that is hanging down will stretch a little and your pizza base will increase in size as it stretches. The more you practice this, the more it will become second nature to you, and you will get a good feel for how strong your dough ball is. When you have stretched it to around 10 inches, you are ready to top your pizza. It’s important not to stretch your pizza base any larger at this stage, as, once you have topped it you then slide it onto your pizza peel and give it a final shape.
- Slide your pizza onto your peel and give it a little shimmy to check the dough isn't sticking at any point. If it is sticking, don't panic, just slide it back onto your work surface and toss a little bit of flour underneath the offending sticky areas and then slide it back onto your peel, give it another shimmy, and check it's all good.
- Now, your pizza probably won't be looking very round at this stage, so now is the time to give it a final shape. Making sure you don't squeeze any air out of your crusts, gently place your fingers underneath the crust at the top and with your thumbs, gently pull the dough out a little to the edge of the peel. Imagine the pizza is a clock face, start at 12 o'clock and work your way around the whole pizza, gently pulling it into a circular shape that fits the whole of your pizza peel, when you are happy with the shape, you are ready to launch.
- Then you just need to top your pizza with your favourite toppings, cook it, cut it and serve!
You can watch the whole process for my Signature Neapolitan Dough Recipe above (on Matthews Cotswold Flour's YouTube channel). It’s tricky to explain this process fully, so watching the film will be a great help!