4 pizzas
Pepperoni Pizza (American Style)
- Hydration
- 65%
- Dough ball
- 250g
- Fermentation
- 49h
- Salt
- 2.8%
- Bake
- 90–120 sec
- Oven
- Wood-fired oven
- Makes
- 4pizzas
- Active time
- 30min
Ingredients
- Dough ball PizzaLovers house dough 65%, cold-fermented 48 h
- 250 g
- Peeled tomatoes, crushed by hand
- 75 g
- Grated low-moisture mozzarella American style, not fior di latte
- 85 g
- Pepperoni, thinly sliced ideally a cupping type
- 45 g
- Extra virgin olive oil
- 5.0 g
- Dried oregano
- 0.4 g
Total dough460 g
Open this recipe in the calculator
Scale up or down — the yeast is recalculated automatically.
Method
- Take the dough balls out of the fridge 2–3 hours before baking and let them sit covered at room temperature.
- Preheat the oven well in advance: 45–60 minutes for a steel in a home oven, 20–30 minutes for a gas oven, longer for a wood oven. Measure the floor with an IR thermometer — you want around 400 °C (750 °F).
- Stretch the ball by hand from the centre outward on a semola-floured surface. Never touch the outer two centimetres.
- Scatter the grated cheese evenly all the way to the edge – unlike on a Neapolitan pizza.
- Lay the pepperoni slices sparingly on top so they have room to cup.
- Slide the pizza in and bake for 90–120 seconds. Turn it two or three times so the crust colours evenly.
- Let the pizza rest for a few seconds, add anything meant to go on after the oven, and serve straight away.
Pepperoni is an American sausage, not an Italian one. We won't pretend otherwise – but on Neapolitan dough in a hot oven it still makes a really good pizza.
outside AVPN – an American pizza style; neither the sausage nor the cheese fits within the disciplinare.
Topping order
- Tomato sauce
- Grated mozzarella
- Pepperoni on top
- Oregano
Common mistakes
- Fior di latte in this recipe – it gets too wet for an American-style topping.
- Cheese laid on too thickly, which makes the pizza heavy.
- Too short a bake – the pepperoni doesn't have time to render.
Tips
- Natural-casing pepperoni cups best.
- This pizza does well with 30–60 seconds longer and slightly lower heat than a margherita.
Variations
- With honey and chilli flakes.
- With Italian salame piccante – then it becomes a diavola.
Recalculate the recipe
Want a different number of pizzas, a different ball weight or a different time in the fridge? The calculator is prefilled with this recipe’s values.
Open the calculator with the Pepperoni Pizza (American Style) settings
Read more
- Neapolitan pizza dough – the full recipe and the why behind it
- Diavola
- Salame Piccante
- Mozzarella for pizza – choosing, drying and portioning
- Baking temperature and time – from 250 to 485 degrees
