Hi,
I want to replicate the texture and consistency of real Neapolitan pizza crust at home by using imported Italian 00 flour. I know that King Arthur markets something that they say is a good imitation, but I've read posts that suggest that it's made from a different kind of wheat and am looking for the real thing.
Can anyone recommend a good brand of 00 and tell me how I can obtain it in the US?
Thanks very much.
Tipo 00 flour does not tell you much, except mostly low gluten flour.
Every mill in Italy has several, including household use.
Mostly like our pastry flour.
Check the
C=3D=A6-)=A7 H. W. Hans Kuntze, CMC, S.g.K. (_o_)
Have you tried an Italian deli/grocery? The one I use from time to time has it.
Graham
There are several Italian delis in my area, including an expensive specialty foods shop, and none of them has it. I'm looking more for a mail-order or Internet merchant that sells it and can ship it to me.
Incidentally, a thank you to everyone on this group for the pizza stone recommendations. I've hesitated to post an update because I haven't had the new stone for very long, but I got a 15x20 Fibrament stone and it works fine. In fact, the bottom of the pizzas cook better than the last stone.
For what I'm aware, the Italian double-zero flour correnspond at your "cake flour", where the zero flour stands for "bread flour".
However the best flour one can get in Italy for making pizza is the Manitoba flour (aka American flour)!
In Jones's book, Pizza Napoletana, she recommends a mix of 5 parts all purpose to one part cake/pastry flour as being very close to pizza crust in Naples made from 00 flour.
On the other hand, a friend of mine owned a pizza shop for a couple of years and made his dough from a mix of General Mills All Trumps and semolina, and it was really, really good crust.
I've made both doughs and prefer the Jones recipe most of the time, but make the other one every so often, when I have the time -- it takes two days.
I've heard that flour sold in the southern part of the US is blended to a softer standard and milled finer than flours in other regions of the US, because southern cooks make proportionately more pastries, biscuits, scones, etc. I tried to get some southern flour -- White Lily, etc. -- on my last trip to Florida, but didn't find any. I have a hunch that the southern regional flour might be close to Italian 00.
Barry
Yes, but the point is that the Manitoba flour marketed in Italy is labelled "American Flour".
And isn't wrong because for the Europeans America is the entire continent... :-)
cheers, webpecker
I've heard that wheat grown in the southern part of the US is lower protein because the soil and weather conditions produce a lower protein flour.
I think it is more like that kind of wheat that grows in the southern climate is lower in gluten producing proteins.
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