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How to Make Pizza Bianca at Home

Posted by foolishpoolish, August 25, 2009 at 6:30 PM

Note: Due to pilot error, this recipe post crashed sometime Saturday night after I fiddled with it—only a few hours after taking flight. I just worked with FoolishPoolish to restore it and am bumping it back up in the queue here today for those of you who missed it. —AK

A recent poll on Slice posed the question "Crust, Sauce, or Toppings?"

After much deliberation, I came to my own conclusion that crust is the defining component of pizza. Fitting, then, that my next pizza culinary adventure would be making "Pizza Bianca." In its traditional form, this popular Roman flatbread has no toppings other than oil and salt—just six feet of crisp, chewy, flavorsome CRUST!

Now, I'll confess I have never visited the legendary Antico Forno Campo de'Firori in Rome, or such New York bakeries as Grandaisy or Sullivan Street—or even Spianata & Co. in London. However, if Jeffrey Steingarten's pursuit of the perfect pizza bianca is anything to go by, the results would be worth it. In his book It Must Have Been Something I Ate there are details of his obsessive quest, including measuring oven temperature with an infrared thermometer, laboratory analysis of flour samples, and traveling to Rome to observe bakers practicing their craft before returning to New York to consult with baker Jim Lahey at Sullivan Street Bakery.

My far humbler efforts, on the other hand, consisted of 2 weeks researching drooling over Flickr pictures of prime specimens of pizza bianca and getting covered in flour while trying to stretch insanely wet dough in my home kitchen.

I did look at a few published recipes from bakers such as Daniel Leader and Lahey, but all these sources described a method of intensive (machine) kneading. This posed a problem, since I didn't have a mixer (not part of a luddite philosophy, I've just never used one).

Additionally I had reservations about the possible negative impact on flavor that excessive dough oxidation might have due to the intensive mixing process. Being the lazy efficient person that I am, the solution was simple: stretch and fold, a technique which I often use to make ciabatta or focaccia.

I'll leave it to baking guru Peter Reinhart to demonstrate the magic of "stretch and fold." Please note that in the video, Reinhart uses an oiled work surface. You can use either oil or flour, but I prefer to use flour for this particular recipe.

With this simple but remarkably effective technique, working with the incredibly wet dough becomes relatively easy.

The result? Pizza bianca can be made with hardly any kneading at all!

Pizza Bianca

- makes two 16-by-10-inch pizzas -

Equipment and Tools

• Baking stone (I used a 16-by-11-inch granite slab)
• Baking parchment
• Bench and dough scrapers also come in handy when handling the dough

Ingredients

• 550 grams strong bread flour (If you can't find King Arthur Bread flour—or similar—a 50/50 mix of all-purpose and high-gluten would be about equivalent to a strong bread flour. I wouldn't recommend 100% all-purpose, though. 100% high-gluten would work, but the amount of water should increase to about 523g (95% hydration. In fact, the first photo is of an earlier batch made with high-gluten flour)
• 505 grams water
• 1/2 teaspoon instant dry yeast
• 16 grams salt (crush coarser salt crystals into a finer powder)

For finishing:

• Extra virgin olive oil
• Coarse sea salt
• Fresh rosemary orgrated pecorino cheese and breadcrumbs

You'll also need additional flour for work surfaces and olive oil for greasing bowls and dough containers.

Procedure

1. Pour all the water into a mixing bowl.

2. Mix flour and yeast in a separate bowl.

3. Beat the flour-yeast mixture into the water, a half cup at a time.

4. Rest for 30 minutes.

5. Sprinkle the salt over the rested dough and mix evenly. The dough is still very loose at this stage and I recommend mixing by continually lifting the dough from the side of the bowl and folding across the center. Rotate the bowl as you continue to lift and fold for about 3 minutes. Try to squeeze out or remove any remaining lumps of flour.

6. Transfer the folded dough to an oiled bowl to rest for a further 10 minutes.

7. Empty the dough on to a well-floured surface, and perform the first stretch and fold.

8. Rest the dough for another 10 minutes in an oiled bowl.

9. Perform one more stretch and fold.

10. Rest the dough in a bowl for a final 20 minutes.

11. Empty the dough on to a well-floured surface and divide into two equal portions.

12. Stretch and fold each piece of divided dough as before.

13. Transfer each portion of dough to a separate oiled container, cover and leave to rise in the refrigerator (about 40°F) for about 12 hours or until roughly tripled in bulk.

14. During refrigeration, stretch and fold the dough 2 more times at regular intervals (remove from fridge, stretch and fold, return to fridge). If you're making the pecorino version, sprinkle grated pecorino cheese over the dough during the last stretch-and-fold.

15. Gently empty each dough portion on to a piece of floured baking parchment (16-by-10-inch).

16. Drizzle about 1 tablespoon of olive oil over the top of each piece of dough.

17. Use your fingers to create dimples and gently stretch the dough to cover most of the baking parchment. By carefully sliding your (floured) hands under the dough you can also carefully stretch from underneath.

18. Proof the stretched dough for 2 hours (1 hour if not using refrigerated dough). Preheat the oven (with baking stone) to 480F for at least one hour towards the end of the proofing time.

Proofed dough dressed with breadcrumbs and grated pecorino.

19. Dress the proofed dough with a sprinkle coarse sea salt and fresh rosemary (or breadcrumbs and grated pecorino) and another drizzle of olive oil.

20. Using the back of a large baking sheet or pan, transfer the proofed dough, parchment and all, on to the baking stone to bake for about 10 minutes or until the top starts turning golden brown.

Other Notes

• I've included a 12-hour refrigerated rise in the recipe. If you are in a rush and don't mind compromising a little on flavor, you can leave the dough to rise at room temperature for about 2 hours. Don't forget to include the stretch-and-fold process in this accelerated fermentation
• The leavening in this recipe is instant dry yeast but you can use sourdough starter instead. However, this can result in a very chewy pizza (pizza jerky, anyone?) I recommend using a relatively small amount of (very active) starter and a long fermentation time (about 12 hours at room temperature)
• I may be stating the bleeding obvious but domestic ovens aren't usually 6 ft deep.The pizzas in this recipe should measure just over a foot in length

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Tags: baking, bread, pizza, pizza bianca