we asked a pizza maker for his manufacturing secrets

Preparation of the dough, choice of ingredients, cooking method… A trainer gave us advice on how to make a homemade pizza (almost) like a pro.

What if one of your good resolutions for 2024 was to (finally) make a success of your homemade pizza? Round, tasty, honeycombed… Nour Hasni, pizza maker trainer at the CFMT (Professional and Transition Training Center), listed his 4 commandments for us on the occasion of World Pizza Day, Wednesday January 17 .

1 Choose your ingredients wisely

“For Neapolitan pizza, you must choose double zero Italian flour which allows you to have a pizza ball that is sufficiently resistant to fermentation and maturation”, explains Nour Hasni. In mass distribution, this corresponds to a t-45 type flour, the “ideal refining level”.

The choice of tomato sauce is also one of the fundamentals of the pizza maker. “You should choose a tomato that has not been overly manufactured,” specifies the trainer, and choose Italian brands that “do not exceed 24 hours between field and potting”. The variety of tomatoes also counts: the tastiest are the San Marzano.

As for cheese, it is better to opt for “a quality mozzarella type fior di latte (milk flower)”. “If we take poor quality mozzarella, justifies Nour Hasni, when you push it during cooking, it very quickly becomes elastic. A tasteless gratin pizza.

2 Be patient

Even if you use a robot to prepare the dough, you must mix the ingredients “homogeneously and very slowly”, insists the trainer. Water, flour, yeast, “to begin with”. Then you add the salt “which will bring a bit of a flavor enhancer and preservative”. Finally, “you can add or not olive oil to achieve a fairly elastic dough”. “It gives a nice little taste!”, he promises.

Ideally, you should let the pizza dough rest for 48 hours. “The flour mixed with the yeast and water produces a chemical reaction, there is a bacteria which develops. This will allow the dough to swell and all the flavors to develop”. This fermentation stage will determine what we’re going to do.”then feel after cooking.”

3 Do not flour the work surface

Spreading pizza dough on flour should be banned! “When you have a good recipe, you already have good hydration of the dough, recalls Nour Hasni. If we spread flour under the dough, we will add flour to the recipe, it will make it flourier and less flavorful.

The alternative is to spread it on… Semolina. Yes, yes, you read that right. “Very fine raw semolina, on the bottom and top of the dough which will allow it to be spread more easily, in the shape of a disc without weakening it”. But be careful, you should sprinkle the semolina only after having formed the cornice (the sidewalk) of your pizza. Then, once the shape holds, you can remove the semolina. “You will understand by testing”promises the trainer.

4 Place a mold filled with water in the oven

If you don’t have a pizza oven, it will be “very complicated to have a very honeycombed cornice”, admits Nour Hasni. But you can still use a classic oven by raising the temperature to maximum. “up to 250 degrees”, if possible. The cooking method to avoid is rotating heat. It is best to heat the top and bottom of the oven. A little tip: place a cake mold filled with water at the very bottom of the oven, “It helps humidify the air.” We put it in the oven for 15 minutes and “Buon appetito!”.