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Homemade Bonci pizza


Pizza Bonci

Soft, honeycombed and very digestible, Bonci's pizza is one of the most popular: here are all the tips for preparing it.

For those who don't know him yet, let's start by saying that Gabriele Bonci is a Roman pizza chef and chef who has been a guest of La Prova del Cuoco for a long time. One of his most famous recipes also bears his name and is Bonci's pizza. It's true, there are so many recipes circulating on the web for preparing pan pizza , but this one is truly incredible.

The reason for the success of pizza with the Bonci Method lies in its simplicity : it is a no-knead pizza which therefore requires neither getting your hands dirty nor using a planetary mixer. It has very little yeast , making it much more digestible than classic pizza, and finally it is prepared with just a few simple ingredients . What makes the difference then? The leavening, obviously. But let's see the whole process step by step.

Rolling out Bonci pizza dough
Rolling out Bonci pizza dough

Ingredients for Bonci's pizza

The protagonist of any pizza is the flour . It goes without saying that choosing top quality, preferably organic and made from Italian wheat, is already an excellent starting point. However, this is not enough: since it is a long-rising pizza, it is essential to choose a sufficiently strong flour.
The strength of the flour is indicated on the packaging (unfortunately not yet on all) with the letter W. Choose a flour with W between 270 and 330 . If this information is not shown on the label, then check the percentage of protein in the nutritional table and verify that it is at least 12% .

Second ingredient to use is yeast . Bonci's pizza can be prepared with both dry and fresh brewer's yeast. For home baking, the pizza chef recommends dry brewer's yeast (1 gram per kilo of flour is enough) because it is less sensitive to temperature changes.

This pan pizza also has high hydration, a term that indicates the percentage of water compared to flour. In this case we are talking about 80% hydration , that is to say that for 1 kg of flour you will need 800 g of water, strictly at room temperature (preferably not cold or lukewarm) and possibly from a bottle.

The other ingredients for Bonci's pizza dough are extra virgin olive oil and salt , always added away from the yeast. Let's see them listed in detail with the respective doses for 3 people:

How to prepare Bonci's pizza recipe

A "simple" pizza, to enter the Olympus of the best and most prepared versions of all, must have something special. In the case of Bonci's pizza there are many details which, one after the other, really make the difference.

Ingredients

For the dough

  • Flour 0 (strength W from 270 to 330) – 500 g
  • Bottled water – 400 ml
  • Extra virgin olive oil – 20 g
  • Fine salt – 10 g
  • Dry brewer's yeast – 0.5 g
  • Remilled durum wheat semolina for rolling out – to taste

For filling

  • Tomato puree – 300 g
  • Mozzarella fiordilatte – 300 g

Preparation

Bonci pizza dough

1

To prepare Bonci's pizza, start by placing the flour in a bowl together with the yeast .

2

Pour about half the amount of water into the center of the flour and start mixing with a spoon.

3

Then add the remaining water , always mixing well and collecting the flour from the edges of the bowl and add the salt and oil . The final dough will be very soft, almost impossible to work with your hands. It's right that this is the case.

4

Cover the container with a cloth and let it rest at room temperature for 15 minutes.

How to make folds

Bonci pizza folds
Bonci pizza folds

How to make folds

1

Now spread plenty of semolina on the pastry board (perfect because it is not absorbed by the dough) and start with the folds. This is the key step for an excellent success of the recipe because it gives strength to the dough and helps it rise. Spread the dough in front of you to form a rectangle with the longer side parallel to you.

2

Imagine dividing it into three smaller rectangles with two vertical and parallel lines then, using a tarot card, fold the right rectangle over the central one, then cover it with the left one: you have made the first tri-fold .

3

At this point you find yourself with a rectangle with the shorter side towards you. Make a book fold, bringing the upper side to match the lower one.

4

Now cover with a cloth and leave to rest for 20 minutes , then repeat the operation 2 more times . In total you will make 3 rounds of trifolds and 3 rounds of book folds.

Read also
How to make folds in bread, pizza and leavened dough

Maturation in the fridge

Leavened dough
Leavened dough

Dough maturation

1

Put the dough back in the bowl, cover it with cling film and transfer it to the refrigerator on the lowest shelf for 16 hours .

2

It is not a real leavening, but rather a maturation that will lead to the doubling of the volume and the formation of bubbles on the surface. If the bubbles do not form, it will still be fine, the important thing is that the dough has risen.

Cutting, dressing and seasoning

Tomato on pizza
Tomato on pizza

Cutting, dressing and seasoning

1

Bring the dough back to room temperature for at least 15 minutes.

2

Then roll it out in a lightly greased pan without using a rolling pin: push lightly with your fingertips, from the center outwards, until the entire pan is covered (with the doses indicated you will obtain a pan measuring approximately 35×45 cm).

3

Let rise at room temperature for another 2 hours.

4

At this point, fill the pizza only with tomato . All other ingredients will be added later.

You can also learn more about all the preparation phases of the pizza dough: cutting, cutting and sizing, you will become expert pizza chefs !

How to cook Bonci's pizza

The next step is cooking. You don't need to have professional or wood-fired ovens available to be able to enjoy a respectable pizza. In the home oven, cooking pizza is also simpler but some aspects must be taken into consideration, first of all the temperature it can reach and then the heat distribution . Here's how to recreate the conditions of a professional oven at home.

Cooking

1

Cook at 250°C for 10 minutes on the lowest shelf of the oven.

2

Lower the temperature to 220°C , remove from the oven and add the mozzarella and any other ingredients.

3

Continue cooking for another 10 minutes . Remove from the oven and enjoy immediately.

If your oven does not reach the indicated temperature you can cook it for a few more minutes at the maximum available (which must never be lower than 220°C ), then proceed as indicated in point 2.

To show you how simple it is to make, here is a short video with all the steps.

Now that you know all the secrets of his pizza, it is also worth knowing the creator, the legendary Gabriele Bonci . It is also true, however, that it takes around 24 hours between the first dough and cooking, so if you haven't organized everything in time you will have to fall back on something quicker, such as pizza dough (classic but certainly no less satisfying ).

Conservation

Bonci's pizza, as always in the case of homemade pizza, is good freshly made. However, if you have leftovers, we recommend consuming it within 2 days , heating it in a pan with the lid on for 5 minutes or in the oven at 140°C for 10 minutes. For best results, wrap it in foil.

Read also
Pan pizza: photos and videos to prepare it without errors

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