AVPN's True Neapolitan Pizza

AVPN Guidelines:

1. Temperature and Time:
   When making pizza, temperature plays an incredibly key role. The oven stone temperature should be 380-430°C (720-810°F). The temperature in the oven dome should be around 485° (900°F). The baking time should be 60-90 seconds.
   
2. Maturation time:
   The dough should ripen for a minimum of 8 to 24 hours. Preferably at a temperature of about 23°C (73°F).
   
3. Appearance:
   The finished pizza should be a disk about 32 cm in diameter, with a center about 0.25 cm thick, and the edges should be airy and 1 to 2 cm high. The texture should be soft and elastic.
   
4. Salt & yeast:
   The flour, water, salt and yeast are mixed together, starting with the water, making sure that there is no direct contact between the salt and the yeast. Personally, I prefer to add salt at the very end, but this is not an officially recommended AVPN procedure.
5. More official guidelines can be seen on the AVPN association website.

Making the dough:

1. Measure all the dough ingredients. Use 0.7 g (0.025 oz.) of fresh yeast if you want to make the dough in 12 hours, or 0.3 g (0.01 oz.) for 24-hour maturation. Longer maturation will make the pizza crispier, tastier and easier to digest.
2. The water should be ice cold, mix it thoroughly with the yeast.
3. Kneading the dough by hand, slowly add flour to the water, and about halfway through add salt. Knead the dough for 10-15 minutes.
4. When kneading the dough in a mixer, start with the flour. Then slowly add the water with the yeast, and finally the salt. Knead for about 15 minutes.
5. While kneading the dough, check its temperature. It should not exceed 25°C (77°F). At higher temperatures, gluten bonds begin to break down.
6. After kneading, transfer the dough to a countertop greased with a bit of olive oil. Turn the dough over, folding under itself, and form a ball.
7. Cover the dough with a bowl and leave to rest for 30 minutes.
8. Then fold the dough again and transfer it to a bowl.
9. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let rise for 4 or 18 hours, depending on the amount of yeast used (the ideal temperature for rising dough is 20-23°C (68-73°F)).
10. Then divide the dough into 4 balls of 270 g (9.5 oz.) When forming the balls, try to stretch and wrap the dough under itself.
11. Put the balls into bowls greased with olive oil. Wrap tightly with plastic wrap and let rise for 8 hours (12-hour process) or 6 hours (24-hour process), respectively.

Baking:

1. Prepare the sauce by crushing the tomatoes into small pieces along with salt and a few basil leaves.
2. Slightly drain the mozzarella and cut it into cubes of about 1x1 cm (0.5x0.5 inch).
3. True Neapolitan pizza should be baked at a temperature of over 400°C (750°F). Check the AVPN guidelines for more information.
4. If you only have a regular home oven, preheat it with the grill function to maximum temperature. Preferably using a pizza steel or stone. Remember that pizza from a home oven will no longer follow traditional guidelines.
5. Form the risen balls of dough one at a time and stretch them on a baking sheet generously sprinkled with semola (start from the center of the ball, forcing air into the edges with your fingers).
6. Spread each pizza with about 3 tablespoons of tomato sauce (70 g /2.5 oz.).
7. Put a few basil leaves on top, grate about 5 g of pecorino cheese, put 70 g (2.5 oz.) of mozzarella cheese, and pour 5 ml (1 teaspoon) of olive oil over the whole thing.
8. If you are using a professional oven, bake the pizzas for 60-90 seconds. If you are using a regular oven, bake each pie for about 4 minutes.
9. It is best to transfer the baked pizza to a griddle and let it cool for about 2 minutes.
10. Neapolitan pizza is difficult to prepare. In this recipe, I was not able to explain all the concepts and methods in detail. Feel free to comment if you have any questions.

Recipe prepared in cooperation with Kuchnie Świata