Recipes

Neapolitan Pizza Dough (AVPN Method)

Pizza · Pizza Oven · Italian · Breads

Neapolitan Pizza Dough (AVPN Method)
Prep 30 min, plus 12–24 hr
Cook 90 sec per pizza
Serves 6 dough balls
Level Medium

A lean Neapolitan dough of “00” flour, water, salt and a very little yeast, fermented for a full day — built on the rules of the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana. No oil and no sugar, because both burn at Neapolitan heat.

Untested: I have not cooked this one yet — the pizza oven has not been bought. It is here for the Pizza Ovens dive, and it is adapted from the source named in the Notes.

Ingredients

  • 600 g (2½ cups) water, cool (16–22 °C / 61–72 °F)
  • 30 g (1 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons) fine sea salt
  • 1 g fresh yeast (or 0.35 g instant dry yeast — a small pinch)
  • 1,000 g (about 7¾ cups) “00” pizza flour
  • Semolina or flour, for the bench

Directions

  1. Mix. Pour the water into a mixer bowl (or a large bowl). Dissolve the salt, then the yeast; don’t leave the salt and yeast in direct contact for more than a few minutes.
  2. Add the flour. With the mixer on low, add the flour gradually over about 10 minutes until the dough comes together. Knead up to about 20 minutes more on low, until smooth. (By hand: work the flour in, then knead until smooth.) Don’t over-knead.
  3. First rise. Leave the dough on the bench under a damp cloth for about 2 hours.
  4. Ball it. Divide into 6 pieces of about 270 g and shape each into a tight ball. Put them in a lidded dough box or on a tray, covered.
  5. Second rise. Let the balls ferment until the total time since mixing is 12–24 hours, ideally at 18–20 °C (64–68 °F). In a warmer room, use less yeast or refrigerate part of the time.
  6. Shape each ball by hand only: dip in flour, press from the centre outward with the fingertips to push the air into the rim, then stretch — no rolling pin. Bake on a stone of 750–850 °F for 60–90 seconds, turning.

Notes

Source Scaled from the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana’s Disciplinare (2024), which gives quantities per litre of water: 40–60 g salt, 0.1–3 g fresh yeast, and 1,600–1,800 g flour, fermented 12–24 hours in total. This batch (600 g water, 1,000 g flour, 30 g salt, 1 g yeast) was chosen within those ranges; the AVPN does not print it. Hydration is 60%.

The rules “Never add any fat or sugar to the dough.” The AVPN allows sourdough under 10% of the flour in place of yeast (see Sourdough Pizza Dough).

Ball size AVPN: 200 g for a 22–24 cm (9-inch) pizza, 280 g for 28–35 cm.

Temperatures are for the oven floor (stone), read with an infrared thermometer. A pizza oven’s built-in gauge reads the air, which runs much hotter.

The Pizza Ovens dive on the Food site covers the oven, the fire and the dough in depth.