Leoparding – what the spots actually are
Leopard spots are not an AVPN requirement but the result of a hot dome and the right fermentation. The chemistry, and how to get them without a burnt base.
Quick answer: The dark, charred spots on a Neapolitan rim come from sugars in the well-fermented dough caramelising – and even burning locally – where the dough is closest to the flame or the hot dome. It is not an AVPN requirement in itself, but a natural consequence of the right fermentation and the right heat.
The chemistry behind the spots
During a long fermentation, some of the flour’s starch is broken down into simpler sugars (see cold fermentation). When the dough then meets extreme, unevenly distributed heat (450 °C+ / 840 °F+), those sugars caramelise and partly char quickly at the points closest to the heat source, while the rest of the rim stays golden brown.
Why you don’t always get them at home
A short-fermented dough with fewer broken-down sugars, or a home oven that never reaches the same extreme, localised heat as a wood-fired oven, rarely gives clear leoparding – that is not a defect, just a different temperature profile. See baking temperature for the relationship, and burnt bottom and pale top if the spots instead turn into even black across the whole base rather than local dots on the rim.
The house recipe’s full fermentation: Neapolitan pizza dough.
