Naples and everywhere with a home oven · 2010s

Contemporary Neapolitan

Canotto, the dinghy

The rim that ate the pizza

The modern Neapolitan, pushed for a taller, hollower rim. More water, stronger flour, a preferment for flavour the short bake cannot build on its own. This is the formula that works in a small outdoor oven at 400-450C, and the one to use if your dough keeps coming out flat.

Method

Mix the poolish the night before: equal flour and water, a pinch of yeast. Ready when it domes and smells of cider.
Add the remaining water, then the poolish, then the flour. Hold back 5% of the water.
Mix to a shaggy mass and rest 20 minutes before the salt goes in. The autolyse is what makes 70% water manageable.
Work the salt in, then the last water a splash at a time. Knead or slap-and-fold to a smooth, tacky dough at 24C.
Three sets of coil folds, 30 minutes apart, then bulk until 50% risen.
Ball at 320 g, keep them apart in the box, and give them five hours warm before the bake.
Open gently. All the gas you leave in the last 2 cm becomes the rim.

Fermentation

Stage	Time	Temperature	Notes
Poolish	16 h	18°C / 64°F	Until domed and just starting to fall.
Bulk	2 h	22°C / 72°F
Cold rest	24 h	4°C / 39°F	Optional but it is where the flavour is.
Balls, warm	5 h	22°C / 72°F

Times are a guide. How to read the dough instead of the clock →

The bake

Oven430°C806°F

Time90 seconds

Surface. Small gas or wood outdoor oven, or a steel under the broiler

Home oven route: steel on the top rack, oven at max for an hour, broiler on for the last ten minutes, bake 4-5 minutes with the broiler cycling. Not the same pizza, but a very good one.

On top

Sauce: Raw tomato, hand crushed, salt.
Cheese: Fior di latte, torn and drained.
Toppings: Light. A wet, heavy pie will not puff.

You got it right when A rim you can see through when you tear it, full of uneven windows.