Dough
13 guides tagged Dough
Explainer
Cold Ferment vs Same Day Pizza Dough (2026): What the Rules Actually Say
Neither governing authority for Neapolitan pizza endorses the long cold ferment the internet treats as gospel. Commission Regulation (EU) No 97/2010 specifies a two hour first rise plus a four to six hour second rise, six to eight hours in total at a specified 25°C, which is a same day dough. AVPN's own published recipe says minimum 8 and maximum 24 hours. Neither document describes 48 or 72 hours in a refrigerator. That does not make cold fermentation wrong, but it does mean it is practitioner consensus rather than specification, and this page is honest about which is which.
Read the guide →~12 min read
Explainer
Pizza Flour Protein Content: The Published Numbers, and the Two We Could Not Get
King Arthur publishes a protein ladder running from 8 percent for pastry flour to 14.2 percent for high-gluten, and Commission Regulation (EU) No 97/2010 specifies Pizza Napoletana flour at 11 to 12.5 g percent protein. But the Italian system specifies strength, not just protein, which is why an American protein number alone cannot tell you what a flour will do. Below: both specifications in full, Caputo's own figures, and two numbers we went looking for and could not find.
Read the guide →~11 min read
Explainer
Pizza Dough Salt and Yeast Ratios: Both Published Figures, and the Thirtyfold Gap
Commission Regulation (EU) No 97/2010 specifies 50 to 55 g of sea salt and a flat 3 g of brewer's yeast per litre of water. The AVPN's own website recipe specifies 40 to 60 g of salt and 0.1 to 3 g of fresh yeast, which is a thirtyfold range for the yeast inside one document family. Below: both figures converted to baker's percentages with the division shown, what salt is actually doing, and why the yeast range is that wide.
Read the guide →~11 min read
Explainer
How Much Dough Per Pizza: The Weight Table, With the Arithmetic Shown
Roughly 1.2 to 1.7 g of dough per square inch of finished pizza, which puts a 12 inch pizza at about 137 to 190 g. That band is our own arithmetic, derived from Commission Regulation (EU) No 97/2010, which specifies dough balls of 180 to 250 g for a pizza of no more than 35 cm. Below: the full table by size with the area column visible so you can check the working, plus the disagreement between the EU regulation and the AVPN's own recipe.
Read the guide →~10 min read
Explainer
Pizza Dough Hydration Explained: The Sourced Numbers, and What Each Band Does
Neapolitan dough runs 55.6 to 62.5 percent hydration, a figure derived from the AVPN's specified ratio of 1 litre of water to 1,600 to 1,800 g of flour, while Commission Regulation (EU) No 97/2010 fixes a single 55.6 percent by specifying 1 litre of water to 1.8 kg of flour. Hydration is nothing more mysterious than water weight divided by flour weight. Below: the division itself, a sourced hydration table by style, and the part that actually helps, which is what each band does to your bake.
Read the guide →~11 min read
Explainer
Why Does My Pizza Dough Spring Back? (2026)
Dough that shrinks back is elastic because the gluten is still tight, and the cure is a rest, not more force. Gluten strands held under tension pull themselves back toward their relaxed length the moment you let go, and the only thing that lets them settle at the new length is time. That balance between stretchiness and snap is measurable, which is why Commission Regulation (EU) No 97/2010 specifies a P/L ratio of 0.50 to 0.70 for Pizza Napoletana flour and Mulino Caputo publishes P/L 0.50/0.60 for its Pizzeria flour. Springback is partly a flour property, not only a technique problem.
Read the guide →~11 min read
Explainer
Why Does My Pizza Dough Tear When I Stretch It? (2026)
Dough that tears is almost always underdeveloped, underproofed or too cold, and the fix is time rather than force. A gluten net that has not been built, has not been allowed to relax, or is still chilled has nothing to give when you pull on it, so it splits instead of spreading. Commission Regulation (EU) No 97/2010 is a useful anchor for how much time the dough actually wants: 20 minutes of kneading at low speed, a two hour first rise, then four to six hours of second rise at room temperature. This is the diagnostic walkthrough, in the order the causes actually occur.
Read the guide →~11 min read
Review
Ooni Halo Pro Review (2026): The Pizzeria Spiral Mixer, Shrunk to a Countertop
The Ooni Halo Pro is the pizza company's answer to the question every serious dough maker eventually asks: why does my KitchenAid struggle with stiff pizza dough? Its listing states a 7.3 quart capacity and 58 speed settings around true spiral kneading, live-verified in stock at $799.00 on July 22, 2026. Here is why spiral geometry matters, and when a $499.95 planetary mixer is honestly plenty.
Read the guide →~10 min read
Buyer's Guide
Best Bread Machines for Pizza Dough (2026): The Set-and-Forget Dough Cycle
The most underrated dough machine is not a mixer. A bread machine's dough cycle kneads and runs the first proof unattended while you are at work, and the field runs from $74.99 to the $454.95 Zojirushi. Six live-verified machines, ranked purely on how well they make pizza dough.
Read the guide →~12 min read
Buyer's Guide
Best Kitchen Scales for Baking (2026): Gram Precision for Real Dough
A cup of flour can vary by 25 percent; 2 grams of yeast cannot. We ranked six live-verified scales from $9.98 to about $63 for dough work: the 0.1 gram precision that makes yeast and salt repeatable, the bakers math scale that computes percentages for you, and the honest budget picks.
Read the guide →~11 min read
Buyer's Guide
Best Flour for Pizza Dough (2026): Caputo vs King Arthur, Verified Live
The $6 to $65 question under every pizza on this site: which flour. We ranked six live-verified bags, from the $33.97 Caputo Pizzeria 11 pounder that Neapolitan purists buy on repeat to King Arthur's $6.18 American-grown 00, and matched each to the oven temperature it actually performs at.
Read the guide →~12 min read
Buyer's Guide
Best Stand Mixers for Pizza Dough (2026): KitchenAid Tiers vs Bosch vs Spiral
Pizza dough is the hardest thing most home mixers ever touch: stiff, low-hydration, and long-kneaded. We ranked seven live-verified machines from $139.99 to $799.00 on the only test that matters, gluten development in a real pizza batch, and explain when a $399.95 KitchenAid is plenty and when a spiral mixer earns its price.
Read the guide →~14 min read
Buyer's Guide
Best Pizza Dough Tools (2026): Ranked & Compared
A 900°F oven can't fix bad dough. The crust that pros chase, light, blistered, properly fermented, is made on the counter, in a proofing box, hours before the oven gets involved. These are the unglamorous tools that actually decide your pizza: proofing boxes, bench scrapers, and dough pans. We ranked five, judged on build, usability, and value.
Read the guide →~9 min read