What Really Makes the Perfect White Pizza?

it's pizza day [Music] so unfortunately i didn't grow up liking tomato sauce so naturally i ate a lot of white pizzas kids love pizza and white pizza is just pizza without the tomato sauce pretty simple but one quick search on youtube for white pizzas and to me i just feel like they're not getting the love that they deserve there's so much potential here to make an incredible white pizza at home but you really gotta nail down the right toppings you gotta get the right combinations of cheeses white pizza is an art and i figured the best way to learn that art is to just take a tour right here in brooklyn one of the best pizza destinations in the world there's a lot of great spots right around the studio so i'm gonna hit up a few pizza joints to sample their white pizza but before that i figured i get the dough started all right listen to me very clearly it is extremely easy to make pizza dough from scratch it's only four ingredients we've got water we've got flour salt and yeast you can add honey you can add olive oil but we're gonna keep it very simple this is my overnight pizza dough recipe it's been tested it's been improved it's been honed in over the last year of quarantine just follow my lead and everything will be all right so i'm going to be using a scale because we're using baker's percentages but it's not mandatory the entire recipe is written below in the blog post i'm going to start off with 750g of flour 700 of those grams will be all-purpose flour you can use bread flour if you want and then the last 50 of those grams will be whole wheat just for a little extra flavor 750. now when it comes to the hydration percentage of your dough or the percent of water compared to your total flour there's three main options for pizza you've got 60 65 and 70 the lower your percentage the easier it will be to work your dough but the less fluffy your dough will be as you go up in percentage it's gonna be a wetter dough a little more difficult to work but the fluffier air bubblier your dough will get i'm gonna go right smack dab in the middle at 65 for this dough so all i have to do is 750 times 0.65 or 65 487 grams is the amount of water i need right a little over but that's all right now your salt percentage is usually around two percent of 750 15 grams and salt at 15 grams and finally we have yeast this is instant yeast right here and what i found is the best way to increase the flavor of your pizza dough is to extend the fermentation time and the easiest way to do that is to lower the amount of yeast you don't need to dump in a full yeast packet into your pizza dough this stuff is powerful so i'm actually going to measure this out rather than using a scale because yeast is very light and sometimes it doesn't read on a scale and i'm using just a half teaspoon of yeast going in so i'll just give this a rough mix and we'll start kneading [Music] so i just kneaded for a second there and the dough is a bit sticky right now to the surface and i don't want to add too much flour so what i'll do is i'll just cover it with a wet towel come back to it in like five minutes let some of that gluten bonding just naturally start to happen [Music] already so much smoother [Music] so this is the furthest i'm gonna go with the kneading you can see it's smoother it's still sticking a little bit but if you take a closer look there's still these little pockets here it's not completely smooth like a baby's booty so back again with the towel i'll let that sit for about 10 more minutes and i'll show you a really cool transformation all right now watch this very closely bench scraper it will stick we slowly start to just shape this you see how a little bit of resting time just completely transformed that dough now that's a baby's butt right there now we've got this beautiful dough ball right here and we're entering into the bulk ferment where this doubles in size and the easiest way to track that is a container like this where you can see the actual volume increasing i'm gonna hit it with some olive oil and now with that small amount of yeast my goal was to increase flavor but also to give me enough time to do this pizza tour so i'm guessing this doubling in size will be about four to five hours which is plenty of time to get inspired now it is looking slightly sketchy right now with this storm coming in let's hope for the best [Music] i've done a good bit of research trying to pinpoint the best white pizza in the area so i plan to loop around south brooklyn with the goal of hitting at least three pizza joints maybe more it is starting to rain as i speak in the first place i can hit by foot it's about 15 minutes away it's called f pizzeria this place opened up about a year ago by the same owners as the popular frankie's 457 who also have their own olive oil that pops up in my videos from time to time they had a few different varieties of white pizza but the bartana slice looked the most intriguing to me and it turned out to be an excellent pick this slice reminded me of the white pizza that i grew up on pretty light on the cheese with just a base of moths but the tang and bite from the charred red onions with the kick from the calabrian chilis was the perfect match just a really well executed slice of white pizza so i gotta say i'm feeling pretty good after that slice it was nice and light and i appreciate that a really good way to start the pizza tour so that was carol gardens i'm headed about 10 minutes by foot to gowanus back closer to my studio to a place called public display of affection i've been there before they have incredible pizza but i've never tried their white pizza so this place had just one baseline white pizza but you could customize it with whatever toppings you wanted so i went with the shiitake mushrooms since i've never had them on a pizza before and this was a three cheese pizza with ricotta pecorino and motz so a really cheese focused white pizza with just excellent technique and of course that extra flavor boost from that smoky wood fire one of my favorite touches to this pizza was the little zest of lemon that was added right when this thing came bubbling out of the oven it paired perfectly with the richness of the cheese and it's just those little tiny elements that can really change the pizza eating experience another great white pizza completely different style much more reliant on that cheese combination but i am seeing a theme building here when you take away the power of the tomato sauce you gotta rely a little bit more on these flavor enhancements those shiitake bombs or the lemon zest little adjustments to make that flavor pop so it's officially raining but i'm headed over to another place called pizza secret it's about 10 minutes away in park slope and i've never had any of their food but apparently they make an incredible white pizza i'm from napoli uh italy third generation i'm here in brooklyn i open my pizzeria three years ago pizza secrets that's it i chose the chachoe pepe pizza taking inspiration from the italian cheese and pepper pasta and this was another heavy cheese focus pizza with a base of pecorino parmesan then some shredded moths topped with some chunks of buffalo mozzarella but the cheese party wasn't over just yet when this thing came bubbling out of the oven it was topped with some creamy ricotta and finally the cracked pepper and the fresh basil leaves this pizza was definitely on the heavier side of the cheese spectrum for white pizzas but it was absolutely loaded with cheesy flavored goodness and that cracked pepper with the basil leaves was another nice little touch to just refine the overall pizza so i've got one more place left on the white pizza tour that's essential but i'm headed back to the studio real quick to take care of this mop on my head right here so lucky for me the studio right here which is actually connect i share a wall with this studio he happens to cut hair all right i'm a new man ken you've done good what's your salon called again biofiria all right studio next door all right fresh cut and i'm back on the street for the final stop on this food tour right here in fort greene which is an awesome neighborhood but also the home of emily's pizza now this place has been blowing up over the last few years they have multiple spots all over the city but this original spot i've never been to and i was able to order ahead because i know exactly what i need to try which is their signature pizza a white pizza called the emily pizza named after the owner [Music] all right so it's officially clear if you want to make a really good white pizza you can't just rely on some cheese and some standard toppings you need that little something extra in this case with emily's the pistachios and that little drizzle of honey fantastic takes it to the next level really good pizza i'm certainly inspired i feel like i got a great sort of variety of white pizzas it's back to the studio now to check in on that fermentation process hopefully we've doubled in size over this pizza tour and we're in good shape to form some dough balls all right let's see where we're at with this ferment oh yes talk about on point my friends five hours and 22 minutes later we have a perfect size [Music] i'm gonna cut pieces and i'm looking for around 250 grams each that's close enough that's the perfect size for my pizza maker but you know do whatever you want got a little bit of semolina you can use regular flour one two three four five semolina plastic so that worked out great five perfect 250 gram pizzas with that dough recipe now like i mentioned before longer fermentation equals more flavor and in this case the way i'm going to slow things down a bit is let these proof in the fridge overnight it blows down the yeast production but that bacteria production keeps on going and i'll see all of you tomorrow in my outdoor studio to cook up these pizzas all right welcome back it's finally time to make some pizzas i'm making two white pizzas tonight the first one's gonna be an original white pizza a flavor combination that i've been tinkering with over the last few weeks the second one's inspired by the emily pizza well more of an exact replication i feel like since i got that pizza takeout i didn't get the best experience since it was just a little old so i want to taste those flavor combinations super fresh coming out of this oven so tonight i'm working with the uni fyra and uni's actually the sponsor of today's video which is awesome because i'm obsessed with this pizza oven for a few reasons number one is this thing is small and it's portable everything folds up everything comes apart so you can take this to the park or you can take it camping or just move it around in your backyard and number two is it's super energy efficient it runs off wood pellets and it only takes a few handfuls of pellets to cook around two to three pizzas not to mention it gets up to 950 degrees fahrenheit which is plenty of heat and also it heats up in 15 minutes i don't want to be waiting an hour or two hours for my pizza oven to come to temperature and finally i love this thing because it's just fun the flavor in the char you get from the actual fire is really unmatched unless you have a full-on pizza oven but a big pizza oven is not very realistic for most people but you know it is this thing right here so if you're interested in checking out the unifira or any of the other ovens uni offers just check out the link below in the description so i've really been liking this fine semolina to roll out the pizza it's a little less of a mess and it's like a hundred degrees outside right now which is just awful conditions for pizza making so we'll see what happens here look at that bubble that's insane that's gonna burn in the oven so i'm just gonna pop it semolina on here slide that right on i'm going to start this one off with a base of creamy very creamy rakota and just spread that on as the bottom layer now i made this beautiful pesto today with garlic scapes a ton of herbs pistachios lemon zest parmesan and olive oil i'm gonna just spot this around the pizza now i'll go on with some fresh mozzarella i've got some caramelized onions and mushrooms right here i'm just gonna sprinkle those on and that's ready to go had some trouble getting that off because it's so hot gonna give that a turn rotate it so that was a bit of a disaster first pizza is always you know never the best but i bet it will taste good salad bubs in the crust let's see if we can improve that on the next round flavor incredible wow wow just needed a little redemption on the technique i'm gonna go pull the dough from the fridge hopefully that will work out better for this emily pie [Music] so i'm gonna start this one with a little truffle oil on the base and i've got a truffle cheese here see those truffles let me go on with the motts pistachios i like the idea of putting a little honey on now so it caramelizes in the oven you can do a little after too that looks incredible let's rotate it looking good look at this thing oh my god i do think i'm gonna just drizzle a little bit of the fresh honey on top look at that crumb structure here we go oh my god oh my god that is memorable that is memorable right there incredible when you come up with a combination like that it deserves to be the name of the restaurant all right the fifth and final pizza boom that was awesome i hope you learned a few things about white pizza i certainly did there's nothing better than actually getting out there testing these things learning from the pros themselves so you can then come home and perfect it yourself like a true pro home cook thanks again to uni for sponsoring this video and i will see you very soon

Channel: Pro Home Cooks

Views: 115,389

Rating: 4.9294753 out of 5

Keywords: white pizza, white pizza recipe, perfect white pizza, best white pizza, how to make white pizza, overnight pizza dough, cold pizza dough, cold dough ferment, Emily pizza, best toppings for pizza, best toppings for white pizza, pistachio pizza, pesto pizza, what cheese for white pizza, pizza bianca, pro home cooks pizza, best pizza method, ooni review, ooni fyra, ooni oven, best pizza oven, cheap pizza oven, mike g

Id: iDOBkae3OFY

Length: 16min 59sec (1019 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 16 2021