A two-day, cold-fermented Neapolitan-style dough built on a poolish. Choose your batch size — everything scales to suit.
How many dough balls?
each ≈ 280 g · a 10–12″ pizza
6
I.The Poolish
Day 1 · the preferment
II.The Dough
Day 2 · the final mix
The Method
Two overnight rests — start two days before you want to bake.
Day 1 — make the poolish
Combine the poolish water, 00 flour, yeast and honey in a bowl and mix until smooth.
Cover tightly, rest 1 hour at room temp, then refrigerate 16–24 hrs.
Why: the room-temp hour activates the yeast; real fermentation kicks in after ~6 hrs. It'll look a little flat coming out of the fridge — that's normal.
Day 2 — mix the dough
Take the poolish out — ~30 min to come back to temperature (or use it straight from the fridge — I'm not your mom).
Add the dough water to the poolish and break it up, then add the salt and dissolve it in with your fingers.
Add the flour, bring it together into a dough, and work it on the bench until it starts to come smooth.
Texture: the dough should still be sticky — knead with quick movements to bring it together. If dough is too sticky to work with, let the dough rest (e.g., 15–20 minutes)to allow the gluten to develop naturally. Use a little olive oil on your hand and dough instead of adding more flour.
Add the olive oil now and knead it in for 10–15 min, until smooth and elastic.
Order matters: the oil goes in after the dough has come together, not with the flour. It helps the bake and strengthens the gluten.
Rest 15–20 min, then do a stretch-and-fold a few times to build the gluten.
How: with lightly oiled hands, grab the dough from the sides and pull it up and over onto itself in one motion. Repeat a few times until the surface is smooth and taut.
Place in a lightly oiled bowl, seal airtight, and refrigerate 16–24 hrs.
This second cold rest is the "double fermentation" that makes the dough next-level.
Day 3 — shape & bake
Take the dough out 30 min – 1 hr to come to room temp.
Shaping straight from cold tears the gluten skin you've built — let it relax first.
Lightly flour the bench, flip the dough out, and cut into 6 dough balls without deflating the air.
Go easy on the flour so you don't change the hydration. Don't touch or press the bottom of the dough — that's where the air lives. The bottom of the dough while it was in the bowl will also become the bottom of each ball, so preserve as much of that gluten structure as possible.
Shape each into a tight ball, pinch the seam closed, and set them seam-side down in a floured container.
The one beginners get wrong: seam-side down. Placed seam-up, the balls relax flat. A pinch of flour in the box stops sticking.
Rest at room temp ~2 hrs (1 hr if it's hot), until at the peak of fermentation.
Stretch from the middle outwards, pushing air to the edges for the crust. Bake in a max-heat oven with a preheated stone.
Stretching on semolina gives a crunchier base. Preheat the stone at max for ~1 hour before the first pizza.