4 pizzas
Margherita
- Hydration
- 65%
- Dough ball
- 250g
- Fermentation
- 49h
- Salt
- 2.8%
- Bake
- 60–90 sec
- Oven
- Wood-fired oven
- Makes
- 4pizzas
- Active time
- 30min
Ingredients
- Dough ball PizzaLovers house dough 65%, cold-fermented 48 h
- 250 g
- Peeled San Marzano tomatoes, crushed by hand AVPN specifies 60–80 g
- 70 g
- Fior di latte, diced and drained AVPN specifies 80–100 g
- 90 g
- Fresh basil 2–3 leaves
- 2.0 g
- Grated hard cheese, e.g. pecorino optional per AVPN, 5–7 g
- 6.0 g
- Extra virgin olive oil AVPN 6–7 g
- 7.0 g
- Sea salt in the sauce
- 1.0 g
Total dough426 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 450 °C (840 °F).
- Stretch the ball by hand from the centre outward on a semola-floured surface. Never touch the outer two centimetres.
- Spread the sauce in a spiral, sprinkle over the grated hard cheese and scatter the cheese cubes sparingly.
- Put the basil under the cheese if you bake above 400 °C (750 °F), on top if you bake in a home oven.
- Slide the pizza in and bake for 60–90 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.
Margherita is not a simple pizza, it is an unforgiving one. The right amount of sauce, the right amount of cheese and a crust that has finished proving – then nothing else is needed. We stick to the weights written in the disciplinare.
AVPN classic – margherita is in the disciplinare with 60–80 g tomato, 80–100 g mozzarella and 6–7 g oil.
Topping order
- Tomato sauce
- Grated hard cheese
- Fior di latte
- Basil
- Olive oil
Common mistakes
- Cheese laid down in an even carpet – it should be sparse, or it melts into a lake.
- Wet fior di latte straight from the bag: let it drain for at least 30 minutes.
- Basil on top in a wood oven burns black in ten seconds.
Tips
- Weigh the cheese the first few times. 90 grams looks like too little and is exactly right.
- Drizzle the oil in a spiral, not in blobs, so it spreads during baking.
Variations
- Margherita Extra with mozzarella di bufala instead of fior di latte.
- Cosacca – the same pizza without mozzarella, just pecorino.
- With fresh pomodorini instead of peeled tomatoes in summer.
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 Margherita settings
Read more
- Neapolitan pizza dough – the full recipe and the why behind it
- Mozzarella for pizza – choosing, drying and portioning
- Fior di latte – the cow's milk cheese Neapolitans actually use
- Tomato sauce – three ingredients and no cooking
- Topping order – what goes on when
- Pizza in a home oven – a Neapolitan feel at 250 °C
