The two kind of pizzas that are most popular in Italy are the standard round one, and the one made "in teglia", which means cooked in a deep-pan or a tray. This is our easy version (and yes, there is a guru version as well) for a delicious and beautifully soft deep-pan pizza to die for. Preparing pizza might seem a bit scary at first, but the reality is that once you have a bit of knowledge about it, you’ll be able to make it without even having to weight the ingredients first, which is how pizza is made in professional Neapolitan-style pizzerias all over the world. Enjoy the preparation (and the video) and please let us know what you think about this recipe by leaving a comment.
For a 4-hour pizza:
2⅛ cupwater (17.6oz)
3 tspsalt (0.6oz optional)
1 tspfresh yeast (0.2oz)
6¾ cupall-purpose/plain flour (1lb 15oz)
Instructions
- Place the salt and three tablespoons of the flour from the recipe into a small bowl and stir to combine them.
- Pour the water into a bowl large enough to accommodate all the ingredients and dissolve the yeast into the water by rubbing it between your fingers. If using instant yeast, add it into the water and whisk it until it dissolves. If using active dry yeast, activate it as instructed on the packet.
- Add the flour-salt mix into the bowl and whisk the ingredients to dissolve the salt.
- You can now start adding the flour into the water three tablespoons at a time, and whisking vigorously to incorporate it. Keep adding the flour in batches making sure to disperse it before adding more.
- When the mixture becomes too hard to be managed with a whisk, swap it for a spatula and keep adding flour and stirring it in.
- Once the mixture becomes too hard for the spatula, transfer the soft dough onto a working surface and start kneading it by hand, adding more of the flour every time it becomes sticky. The entire process of making pizza dough should last for about 15-20 minutes and the kneading process can be brought to an end as soon as the dough becomes soft and elastic to the touch, but not sticky.
- Divide the dough into portions of a size appropriate for the trays you are going to use. We are using a scale to get perfect results and we recommend you to do the same. To help you better understand how much dough to use, we’ve created an excel spreadsheet that will help you with the math. You can download it by following the link below.
- After the dough has been divided, the portions of dough need to be rounded, which is a process difficult to explain in words. For this reason we recommend to watch our video on how to make pizza to see how to shape the balls.
- Spray a bowl with some water, dust a piece of greaseproof paper with some flour, place a rounded portion of dough onto the flour, and use the bowl to cover the dough. Repeat the process for the other portion of the mixture. The small amount of water in the bowl will prevent the surface of the dough from drying out during the process.
- Let the dough rest for 30 minutes before moving on. During this time the gluten will relax, yielding a softer and easy to roll final dough.
- Once the time has elapsed, the relaxed portions need to be rolled down using a rolling pin, so dust a surface with some flour, place the dough onto it, add some more flour onto the dough and start rolling it down. You want to obtain a flat dough that matches with the size of the tray you are going to use.
- Grease an oven tray, move the dough onto it, and gently stretch by hand until it perfectly matches with the surface of the tray. Do the same for the other portions of dough.
- To keep the surface of the pizza moist, you can spray the internal surface of a second tray with water and use it to cover the tray containing the pizza. Another option, is to brush a thin layer of oil onto the surface of the pizza or use once again an oil spray to obtain the same result. If using the oil methods, you won’t need to cover the pizza.
- Pierce the entire surface of the dough using a fork, place the trays into the cold oven and leave them there for approximately 3 to 8 hours, depending on which one of our recipes you decide to follow.
- 30 minutes before the rising time has elapsed, remove the trays from the oven and preheat it to 250°C (480°F) for 30 minutes.
- Once the rising time has elapsed, the pizza are doubled in size and the oven ready, you can begin with the cooking process.
- Uncover one of the trays (if it was covered), place it into the hot oven and cook the pizza for exactly 4 minutes.
- Once the time is up, remove the pizza from the oven and add a good layer of pizza sauce on top of the base and some vegan cheese. You can use any sauce and cheese you desire for the pizza. However we strongly recommend to try our own pizza sauce and mozzarella cheese.
- You can now add your favorite toppings. Some classic options are: grilled vegetables, olives, fresh tomatoes, dried tomatoes, pesto sauce, capers, garlic, onions, basil, artichokes, fresh or dried chillies and cooked spinach.
- Once all the toppings have been added, place the tray back into the oven and bake the pizza for an additional 5 minutes to complete the dish.
Substitutions and Tips
- The fresh yeast can be substituted with 2g of active dry yeast (¾ tsp).
- If you want to obtain the best possible pizza use a flour specifically designed to make pizza, such as “Antico Molino Caputo 00 pizzeria flour”. If you can’t find a pizza flour, the second best option is simply to use all-purpose/plain flour, which still yields good results.
- The perfect rising temperature is anywhere between 21 and 27°C, or 70° to 80° F.
- The perfect temperature for the water to be used in this recipe is 20°C or 68°F.
- Salt can be avoided if you want to. However, we wanted to note that salt in bread making is not added merely for taste. In fact, the presence of salt effects dough in multiple ways, such as preserving the colour and flavour of flour, tightening the gluten structure, indirectly contributing to crust colouring and it also has a retarding effect on the activity of the yeast.
- The exact amount of flour cannot be specified as they all yield different results. However, make sure to use always the same kind so to achieve consistent results.
- The exact amount of yeast needed depends upon the temperature of the environment and the quantity of salt used. Use less yeast during the summer and more yeast during the winter. Therefore, used more yeast if using salt and less if not using it.
- If any of the links stop working, please let us know and we will do our best to fix them as soon as possible. We have no affiliations with the eBay sellers we are proposing, so if you find a different way to source the flour, let us know and we’ll add the links to the description.
- If you find any problem in the spreadsheets, please let us know and we will fix it as soon as possible.
Yield, Times and Info
Makes: 1.4kg - 3lb 1oz of pizza (4 - 6 servings)
Preparation Time: 35m
Resting Time: 30m
Rising Time: 4h (3 to 4½ hours)
Cooking Time: 9m
Total Time: 5h 14m
Cooking Temperature: 250°C - 480°F
Storage Times: Keeps for 2 days in the fridge. To reheat the pizza, preheat the oven to 100°C (210°F), wrap the pizza into some kitchen foil and place it into the preheated oven for 10 minutes.
Preparation Time: 35m
Resting Time: 30m
Rising Time: 4h (3 to 4½ hours)
Cooking Time: 9m
Total Time: 5h 14m
Cooking Temperature: 250°C - 480°F
Storage Times: Keeps for 2 days in the fridge. To reheat the pizza, preheat the oven to 100°C (210°F), wrap the pizza into some kitchen foil and place it into the preheated oven for 10 minutes.
Nutritional Info
Serving Size: 280g (⅙ of the recipe) Calories: 514kcal Carbohydrate: 108g Fiber: 4.4g Fat: 1.4g Saturated Fat: 0.2g Unsaturated Fat: 1.2g Protein: 14.8g Sodium: 700mg Water: 120g
