A few months ago we went to La Fermatta, a new pizza place recently opened at Barcelona that is in the hot restaurants’ list of our city. They sell gourmet pizzas “al taglio” like the ones you can buy on Rome to take away; I specially love the one with potato and pesto sauce. But the secret of their pizzas isn’t the quality of the ingredients, what makes a difference is its exquisite dough which they ferment during 48 hours. Since the moment I put the first slice in my mouth I went crazy with it!
La Fermatta evil pizzas made me start looking for information about homemade long fermented pizza dough. I used to make homemade pizza using the typical recipes, but I learnt something in my crazy research for the perfect homemade pizza: Don’t believe their lies! Most of Internet recipes will end with a non-elastic flavor-less dough. So here are some tips I learnt during my madness:
- Don’t be violent with the dough! Never use a rolling pin, it will pop the bubbles of your long fermented dough.
- The long you ferment the dough, the best flavor it will get. I usually put the dough in the fridge for 24/48 hours before putting it in the oven.
- To get a dough that is easier to get shape, mix all the ingredients with the 75% of the flour and let them rest for 30-60 minutes before starting the kneading. This process is called Autolyse. After 30-60 minutes start kneading and add the other 25% of the flour, it will make a huge difference when you try to shape the dough after a 24/48 hours fermentation!
This last Christmas, Santa, who was aware of my new hobby, brought me a few gifts on the subject:
- Pizzarina, a special flour for pizzas from a Barcelona artisan bread makers shop.
- The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread, a book by Peter Reinhart, a must have for homemade bread makers.
- And finally, the coolest themed gift: Mamma mia!, an awesome (and fun) card game! ;) We are always searching for two-player games and that one is perfect for us, it is designed for two or more players and guess what? It’s about making pizzas!
Do you have any tips on homemade pizza? After some disastrous attempts (poor Damaris), thanks to Mamma Mia! I’m starting to improve my techniques and the last ones don’t look as bad as my first attempts at all. Are you in the mood to share a slice with us?
All I know about pizza is thanks to that great moustached man.
I used pizzarina flour, one of my best christmas gifts this year.
Just pretending, I knead the dought with my Kitchen Aid ;)
Don’t try this at home, only for great pizza makers! ;)
A long fermentation requires low temperatures. I usually let rest the dough in the fridge for 24 hours before baking it.
Then is Damaris’ responsibility to choose the ingredients.
This time she was on the mood for mushrooms, so we used some Portobello and fresh mozzarella.
Maybe not perfect shaped but not bad, isn’t it? I think we won the game this time ;)