I’ve spent the last several weeks chasing small wins in a quest for the perfect NY-style home oven pie.
I initally drew a lot of inspiration from Charlie Anderson's NY Pizza recipes, even reengineering his calculator to make it work, but I've felt that 100% bread flour (plus the additional vital wheat gluten) resulted in a crust that was very tough as it cooled.
Recently, I started experimenting with Julian Sisofo's NYC Poolish Pizza but found the 12 min par-bake initially made for a very crisp, cracker-like bottom. From there, I tried bringing more AP flour back into the mix for tenderness, skipping the par-bake, and being cooking more intuitively, rather than by the timer.
I wanted:
- Thin, almost shatteringly crisp, micro-blistered exterior
- A soft airy interior (chasing l'industrie, Joe's, etc.)
- Crisp undercarriage with minimal to no flop
- More tender crust with still a little chew
Last night's pie finally felt like a breakthrough on many fronts. While perhaps more of a hybrid-style pie, it's something we were very pleased with.
Some things I might try a little different next time:
- Pushing the bake to 7-8ish minutes on the steel before broiling (my oven maxes out at 500)
- Could maybe be a little more aggressive with the degassing and balling if I wanted to lose the larger bubbles, but I think they were l'industrie-esq
- Will try diastatic malt if I ever get around to picking some up, doing 5g sugar, 5g DM
- Maybe bring back a little par-baking but don't think it was totally necessary
- Drop the hydration slightly
I'm sharing the recipe below because I would love to hear feedback and keep pushing this endless pursuit along!
Makes two 14" pizzas
1. Poolish
- 100g Bread Flour
- 100g Water
- 1g Instant Yeast
- 1g Sugar or Honey
- Let sit at room temp for 12–16 hours until bubbly and doubled in size.
2. Dough Mix
- All of the Poolish
- 150g All-Purpose Flour
- 150g 00 Pizza Flour (Caputo)
- 175g Water
- 10g Kosher Salt
- 10g White Sugar
- 12g Extra Virgin Olive Oil
3. Method
- Initial Mix: Whisk together water, poolish, and sugar. Add the flour blend. Mix on low until a shaggy ball forms.
- Autolyse: Cover and let rest for 20–30 minutes.
- Knead, Add Oil & Salt: Add the salt. Start the mixer on Speed 2. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil, to ensure it is emulsifying into the dough
- Stop the mixer when the dough becomes relatively smooth and completely pulls away from the sides of the bowl (typically 5–7 minutes). Tiny lumps are fine.
- Bulk & Strengthen: Gently shape and transfer to clean bowl. Let rest at room temp for 90 minutes, performing 2-3 sets of stretch and folds spaced 20 minutes apart.
- Balling: Divide into two 350g portions. Tuck into tight balls.
- Cold Ferment: Store in individual airtight containers in the fridge for 72–96 hours.
4. Bake
- Temper: Remove dough from the fridge 2 hours before baking.
- Preheat: Steel on the middle rack at 500°F for 1 full hour.
- The Stretch: Shape and lightly brush the rim with olive oil.
- Stage 1: Launch on the steel (middle rack) and bake for 5-7 minutes.
- Stage 2: Move the pizza to the top rack and switch the oven to Broiler. Broil for ~2 minutes until the cheese is bubbling and the rim is blistered.
- Cool: on a wire rack for 60 seconds before slicing.
by pikeachu