Cornicione – how to get a tall, airy rim

Quick answer: A tall, airy cornicione needs three things at the same time: an untouched rim when stretching, a dough that’s finished fermenting, and enough heat to inflate the gas pockets before the surface has time to set. Miss any one of the three and the rim falls flat, no matter how good the other two are.

What the cornicione actually is

The cornicione is the raised, bubbly outer rim of a Neapolitan pizza — the part that’s never pressed down or topped, and that should be soft and airy with large, irregular holes inside. It’s Neapolitan pizza’s most recognisable signature, and it doesn’t happen by chance — it’s the result of three factors working together.

The three requirements, one at a time

1. An untouched rim when stretching. You push the dough out from the centre with your fingertips and leave a rim of 1.5–2 cm completely untouched — see stretching. A rolling pin or too heavy a hand right out to the edge presses out the gas that would otherwise inflate it during baking.

2. Finished fermentation. The dough must have built up enough gas for the rim to have something to inflate with. An underproofed dough (see fermentation) simply doesn’t have enough carbon dioxide in the gluten network, however carefully you stretch it.

3. High, fast heat. The gas in the rim expands sharply when it meets extreme heat, and the surface must set fast enough to trap the expansion before it collapses. A wood-fired oven at 450–485 °C (840–905 °F) does this in seconds; a home oven at 250–300 °C (480–570 °F) takes longer and rarely gives the same dramatic rise, see baking temperature.

Common mistakes that give a flat rim

• Rolling pin or too heavy-handed stretching — pushes out all the gas before the pizza has even reached the oven.
• Underproofed dough — the rim doesn’t have enough gas to work with, see no bubbles.
• Too little heat from above — common in a home oven without a steel/stone or grill setting, see baking steel.
• The dough gets worked right out to the edge during balling or resting — leaves an already tired, less elastic rim before it even reaches the peel.

Frequently asked questions

Can you get a tall rim in a home oven? Partly — with a properly preheated steel or stone, and ideally the grill setting on for the last minute, you’ll get a good way there, but rarely as dramatically as in a wood-fired oven at 485 °C (905 °F).

Why is the rim sometimes uneven in height all the way round? Uneven balling or uneven stretching leaves thinner patches on one side — see balling for a more even starting point to work from.

Read more about the whole stretching step in stretching, fermentation’s role in fermentation, and if the rim doesn’t appear at all, see no bubbles.