The art of hand making authentic Neapolitan pizza dough hosted by Chef Leo Spizzirri, Inglewood, CA 

Thank you Michael!

Mario is truly a master in his trade. His passion for the art of Neapolitan pizza making is an inspiration to us all!

Thank you altrogeruvah!

Thank you Marco!

I use 3 quarts of water at 107°-112° for 8 lbs of flour. 1 table spoon of instant yeast. 3/4 of extra virgin olive oil baking. 3/4 of clover honey. Add the 1 table spoon from measuring spoon to the warm water. Slowly Mix in the honey first into the warm water. The honey is heavier to it it sit at the bottom of the mixing container. After honey as disolves, slowly add in the olive oil while mixing for about a minute. Have your flour in mixing container. Lightly fluff it if needed. Yoy will be looking for clumps of flour if any. Slowly add you warm water mixture into the flour. Not all at once. In portions. Hand mix gently until all of the water mixture has been used into the flour. Your dough will probably needs a little more flour. Pour more flour into mixture. So, roughly half a cup and knead the dough until the flour and water mixture has a smooth surface and you gently roll the dough over on to itself. Practice and find the texture your looking for. Once the dough is smooth, grab a little of the dough and lift it up. If the dough shrinks back into place. Your dough is ready to rise. If the dough breaks. Keep kneading. Kneading the dough is roughly ten minutes. Put the dough in a container with a lid and put the container with the lid left on the kitchen counter and let sit , covered for 2 hours. This will proof pretty well. Get a digital scale. Their inexpensive. I measure 9 ounces for 9 inch dough. Hope this helps you and everyone out.

Hi Andrew! Mixing dough by hand gives you a chance to feel the dough through it's development stages. An electric mixer will do a great job but it is important to understand when the dough is truly ready as to not overmix. The VPN respects traditions that date back 300 years. Hand mixing is done and is still common to see in smaller batch sizes but for larger amounts of work, like Mario demonstrates in the video, those bright shiny mixers in the background are almost always used! ; ) Thanks for the comment!

Usually 60%

Paesan Control Centre lol you’re so right paesano! I actually saw an Italian in Australia who straight up used a wooden trough

jackpast this video was made in the VPN dough room in California. The mixers are also used for making dough in the school. This video was highlighting the art of making Neapolitan dough by hand

Ask Leo Pizza Oh, ok! Thanks for sharing this video! I make my dough by hand (only (3) 270 g balls) in my home. It’s just not worth getting the stand mixer out. And besides, the feel of the dough changing states in your hands gives me the same pleasure as eating the final product. But this quantity by hand! Wow!

Only if you use too much yeast. Hot and humid condition would require 1g of yeast per liter of water. Fresh yeast that is, never dry. Also, a bulk fermentation step of 12 hours then balling the dough will ensure successful dough that can be easily stretched.

Hi Doug, I know what you mean about the camera work, the guy who edited the video for me told me all about my mistakes! LOL Next time I'll see if you're available to shoot the video instead! Thanks for checking out my video! Leo

Just harassing you my man. great stuff I went through the VPN School with Mario and Jose good stuff

The art of hand making dough dates back centuries. While there are many state of the art mechanical ways to make dough, the beauty of Neapolitan pizza making in the lack of technology. The formulas are still very similar to the way the dough was 300 years ago. The best thing about making dough by hand is that the dough is not overworked and there in not a lot of extra friction applied to the dough when making it in the manner which you see in the video. While a batch of dough this size takes about 40 minutes to mix, the results are priceless.

I bet if they had electric back 300 years ago they woulda plugged it in and said Bada Bing!!!

casper5314 there’s 2 of us speaking. No translation.

Hi Bud, First, I think you meant "Guaglio" LOL... There's a lot of reasons why your pizza dough could be tough. Things like the amount of water in your dough, mixing process, and final dough handling can all effect the texture of your final pizza. Let me know a little more about your dough and I can definitely help you come up with a solution. You can also email me at leo@thepizzaprojectgroup.com. Thanks for your question and watching my video!

Haha. When I was in college I had a lab partner who had no hair halfway up his forearm. I asked him why he shaved his forearms he said he didn't. He worked in a pizzeria every day after class making dough by hand eventually all the hair was pulled out. I never looked at dough the same way since.

Fuck you

Paesan Control Centre back then it was by accident to lose the hair during this ridiculous process, now in beauty salons all over Italy they have dough in hot boxes as facial hair, arm pit and leghair as a removal service. Very popular in Siciliano culture...

full of protein