Styles · Roman pan
Roman pan pizza dough
Lots of water, a few folds, and a fridge doing the work. The teglia is friendlier than it looks.
Roman pan pizza dough (teglia) is a high-hydration dough, 70 to 90% water, made with a few folds instead of kneading and a long cold rise in the fridge. For a 30×40 cm pan you need 387 g flour, 309 g water (80%), 8.5 g salt, 15.5 g oil and 1.9 g fresh yeast. Lots of water, and the fridge does the work.
Roman pan pizza, pizza in teglia alla romana, is almost the opposite of a Neapolitan. Where the Neapolitan is little water and firm hands, the teglia is lots of water and almost no handling. At first the dough is slack and sticky and looks wrong, which is normal. You don't knead it, you fold it, and time in the fridge does the heavy lifting. What you get is a tall crumb full of holes, with a base fried crisp by the oil. Sold by the slice, it's pizza al taglio.
The recipe, in short
These quantities make one 30×40 cm pan (about 12×16 in; a US half-sheet at 13×18 in works too — take 0.6 × its area in cm²), which is 1200 cm² of base. The weights come out of our calculator.
- Flour, strong 0 or type-1 (W around 330): 387 g
- Water, cold: 309 g (80%)
- Fine salt: 8.5 g
- Extra-virgin olive oil: 15.5 g (4%)
- Fresh yeast: 1.9 g (or 0.6 g instant dry)
Cut in four, each portion is about 360 kcal of dough alone; the topping adds to that.
The yeast is set for about 24 hours, 18 of them in the fridge and the rest at room temperature, around 20 °C. Change the timings and the yeast changes with them; the calculator keeps up.
Put this next to the pala, which runs the same 24-hour protocol on half the yeast, and the gap looks like an arithmetic error. It isn't: dough proofing in a metal pan sits colder than the air around it, so the model knocks about a quarter off the effective temperature (20 °C behaves like roughly 15 °C), and that alone nearly doubles the yeast you need.
W 240-280 is roughly 11.5-12.5% protein, so a strong bread flour is close, though for the teglia's 24 hours you want the strongest one you can find. North American flours drink more water than Italian 00, so expect to add 2-3% more.
How much dough a pan needs
You don't guess the weight, it follows from the pan. The Italian rule is blunt: multiply the pan's area in square centimetres by a coefficient to get the grams of dough.
- 0.5 for a thin, crisp pan pizza
- 0.6 for the classic thickness
- 0.7 for a tall pan, more focaccia than pizza
A 30×40 pan is 1200 cm². At 0.6 that's 720 g, our quantity. Want it lower? Drop to 0.5 and it's 600 g. Prefer it tall and soft? Go to 0.7 and you reach 840 g.
Grams of dough = pan length × width in cm, times 0.5–0.7. It holds for any size; for a round pan use π × radius². The calculator runs the numbers.
Why it climbs to 80% water
High hydration is the heart of the teglia. It runs from 70 to 90%, and 80% is where to start: it's the number Roman bakers converge on. More water means a more open crumb, bigger holes, a lighter crust and more aroma. It has a cost: the dough turns slack and harder to handle. Below 70% you lose the open crumb; above 85% it takes a trained hand and a strong flour.
Here is where the teglia sits next to the other styles.
| Style | Hydration | Salt (of flour) | Oil (of flour) | Reference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Neapolitan | 56–62% | 2.5–2.9% | 0% | AVPN |
| Round Roman | 55–60% | 2.2–2.5% | 2–3% | Associazione Pizza Romana |
| Roman pan (teglia) | 70–90% | 2–2.2% | 3–4% | Roman practice |
| Pala | 70–90% | 2–2.2% | 2–3% | Associazione Pizza Romana |
Ranges from the Italian standards: AVPN (Neapolitan), Associazione Pizza Romana (round Roman and pala), established Roman bakery practice (pan).
Neapolitan sits at 58%, round Roman lower still. The teglia nearly doubles the water, and that changes everything: method, flour, bake. There's a full hydration guide if you want the detail.
Folds instead of kneading
At this hydration a long knead does nothing useful, and it can even hurt: the dough is too slack to build structure under your hands. You start it with a fork, just enough to bring flour and water together, then let the gluten organise itself through rest and a few folds.
The folds go like this: with a wet hand you grab an edge, pull it up and fold it into the centre, then turn the bowl and repeat all the way round. Three sets, 20-30 minutes apart. With each set the mass goes smoother and less sticky: that's where the strength is built, with no effort and no stand mixer.
English-language recipes file all of this under "the Bonci method", and Gabriele Bonci himself is the first to say it isn't his invention: pizza in teglia arrives in Rome around 1958, and the high-hydration, long-fermentation version everyone copies is documented to Angelo Iezzi from 1987. The ranges everyone quotes come from established Roman bakery practice rather than from any single author. Bonci's own published recipe is worth quoting where it's actually his: 40 g of extra-virgin olive oil per kilo of flour (our 4%) and 7 g of dry yeast per kilo. His books print 70% hydration, incidentally, while in demos he works at 80% and higher — so the "80% because Bonci" you read everywhere is copied, not sourced.
The cold rise, where the flavour comes from
The fridge is what makes the teglia work at home. After the folds the dough rests in the fridge, covered, about 18 hours at 4 °C (40 °F). In the cold the yeast slows almost to a stop, but the enzymes keep working: they break down starch, soften the gluten, and pull out aromas a fast rise never gives.
There's a big practical win too: the fridge splits the recipe over two days. Mix in the evening, forget about it overnight, spread and bake the next day. Nothing to watch. If you want the difference between maturation and fermentation, two things that get muddled together, we take it apart in the dedicated guide.
For this to work you need a strong flour. Over 24 hours or more a weak flour gives up: the gluten falls apart and the dough turns to glue. Aim for a W around 330, a 0 or type-1 pizza flour (Caputo Nuvola is the standard). This table ties the hours of maturation to the minimum strength.
| Total hours | Recommended W | Flour type |
|---|---|---|
| 2 h | W 140 | weak |
| 3 h | W 170 | weak |
| 4 h | W 190 | weak |
| 6 h | W 220 | medium |
| 8 h | W 240 | medium |
| 12 h | W 280 | medium |
| 24 h | W 330 | strong |
| 48 h | W 380 | strong |
| 72 h | W 420 | very strong |
A rule of thumb, not a standard: no mill or disciplinare publishes an official W-to-hours table. These are our calculator’s figures. W tells you how long the gluten network can hold up, not how long the dough needs.
The longer it matures, the higher the W has to be. The reasoning is all in the flour strength (W) guide.
The method, step by step
- Dissolve the yeast in the cold water, holding back a splash. In a large bowl combine the flour with most of the water and stir with a fork until no dry flour is left.
- Add the salt, then the oil with the reserved water. Mix again: the dough is slack and sticky, and it should be. Cover and rest 20 minutes.
- Do the folds: with a wet hand lift an edge, bring it to the centre, turn the bowl and carry on all the way round. Three sets, one every 20-30 minutes.
- Into the fridge: cover well and let it mature about 18 hours at 4 °C.
- Out of the fridge: take the dough out and let it warm up 1-2 hours, until it's full of bubbles and has lost the chill.
- Into the pan: tip the dough into a well-oiled pan. Spread it with your fingertips from the centre out, without knocking the air out of the crumb. If it springs back, wait ten minutes and carry on.
- Pan proof and bake: let it puff in the pan 30-60 minutes. Top it (tomato first, mozzarella halfway through) and bake at 250 °C (480 °F) low for about ten minutes, then move it up to finish the top. The base should lift free of the pan and sound hollow.
Where a teglia goes wrong
- Kneading it. The teglia isn't a Neapolitan. Work an 80% dough for long and you get a paste. A few folds and plenty of rest.
- Flour too weak. Supermarket 00 won't survive 24 hours in the fridge; it breaks down. You want W 300-330.
- Too little oil in the pan. The oil isn't just flavour, it's what fries the base crisp and releases it. Be generous: the bottom should just about swim.
- Spreading it flat. Crush all the air out and you lose the open crumb. Spread gently, and if the dough springs back, let it relax.
Frequently asked questions
How much water for Roman pan pizza?
From 70 to 90% of the flour weight. 80% is where most Roman bakers land: a nicely open crumb, still manageable. The more water you add, the more aroma and open crumb you get, and the harder it is to spread.
How much dough for the pan?
The pan area in cm² times a coefficient from 0.5 (thin) to 0.7 (tall). A 30×40 pan makes 720 g at the classic thickness.
Can I make it same-day, without the fridge?
You can, but you give up the best part. Without the cold maturation the crumb is tighter and the flavour is plainer, and you have to raise the yeast. In a hurry, the calculator recalculates the quantities for the hours you actually have.
What flour for teglia romana?
A 0 or type-1 pizza flour, W around 330 (Caputo Nuvola is a classic). With high hydration and a long maturation a weak flour won't hold up.
Sources
- Established Roman bakery practice for pizza in teglia: 75-100% hydration, with 80% as the working reference.
- Angelo Iezzi, credited from 1987 with the high-hydration, long-fermentation teglia.
- Gabriele Bonci, published home recipe (Pizzarium, "Il gioco della pizza"): 40 g of extra-virgin olive oil and 7 g of dry yeast per kilo of flour.
- Associazione Pizza Romana, on pizza in teglia and al taglio.
- High-hydration flour specs: Caputo (Nuvola, type 0) technical data.
- Yeast and dosage model (time and temperature). See our Sources and Method pages.
- Energy values worked out from the quantities, using the CREA Italian food composition tables: wheat flour type 0/00, 340 kcal per 100 g; olive oil, 899 kcal per 100 g.