Styles · Round Roman

Round Roman pizza dough

Low, thin and crisp, rolled right to the edge. The trick is the oil worked into the dough.

By the Pizza Call · Updated July 23, 2026

You hear a round Roman before you taste it. The base cracks under the knife, dry and brittle, and the dialect name for the pizza is simply the noise it makes: scrocchiarella, from scrocchiare, to crackle. Two things get you there: oil kneaded into the dough, which shortens the gluten and turns the crust friable, and a thin, even stretch, usually with a rolling pin, which Roman tradition is perfectly happy about.

The recipe, in short

These quantities make four 180 g balls, which is the disciplinare's own weight (170-190 g) for a disc of about 33 cm rolled to 3-4 mm (about ⅛ in). The numbers come from our calculator.

• Flour, strong 00 (W 260-350, and W 330 for these hours): 446 g
• Water at room temperature: 250 g (56%)
• Salt, fine: 11 g (2.5%)
• Extra-virgin olive oil: 13 g (3%)
• Fresh yeast: 1.25 g (or 0.4 g instant dry)

One 180 g ball comes to about 410 kcal, the olive oil included: dough only, before the topping.

Where the crunch comes from: oil and low water

The real difference from a Neapolitan is the fat. A Neapolitan allows none in the dough; round Roman carries 20 to 30 g of extra-virgin olive oil per kilo of flour, and that oil is what makes the scrocchiarella. Fat slips in among the gluten strands, shortens them, and in the oven you get a crust that snaps clean rather than bending. You'll still read recipes calling for seed oil or lard: that's the older Roman practice, not what the disciplinare asks for today.

Water, by contrast, stays low, between 55 and 60%. It sounds backwards and it makes sense once you see why: less water means less steam to drive off, so the sheet dries and crisps sooner. Above 60% Roman struggles to crunch and turns chewy. What the style does want is time. The disciplinare asks for at least 24 hours of fermentation, and ours spends 20 of them at 4 °C (40 °F), which is why the flour has to be strong: W 330 over this stretch, well inside the 260-350 the standard allows. We cover both levers in the hydration guide and the flour strength (W) guide.

Roman or Neapolitan?

These are the two ends of the Italian round pizza, and it pays to pick one up front, because the dough and the stretch both change. Neapolitan wants water, no fat, a hand stretch that leaves a rim, and a ferocious oven that puffs the edge in ninety seconds. Round Roman wants oil, little water, a long cold rest, a thin flat stretch to the very edge, and a bake that dries it out rather than blowing it up. One is soft and open, the other dry and crisp. The table lines the two up, with teglia and pala for reference.

How much yeast

The yeast follows the hours and the temperature, not the style. For this recipe, 1.25 g on 446 g of flour is right: about 2.8 g per kilo, which sounds like a lot until you remember where those hours are spent. Twenty of the twenty-four are at 4 °C, and cold yeast barely moves, so you need more of it at the start than a room-temperature dough of the same length would take.

That's also why the table below won't give you this recipe's number directly. It's computed at constant room temperature with no fridge, for the Neapolitan reference (58% hydration, 2.9% salt): useful for judging a same-day dough, not a cold one.

For a Roman with oil in it, add 15-20% to whatever the table says, since fat slows the rise. Or skip the arithmetic: the calculator already accounts for the oil, the hydration, the hours and the fridge.

Shaping and baking

1. Dissolve the salt in most of the water, and the yeast separately in the little that's left.
2. Knead the flour and salted water, add the yeast, and work the oil in only near the end, a little at a time: added early, it holds back the gluten. Knead until smooth, about ten minutes.
3. First rest (puntata, the bulk rest before the dough is divided): cover and leave 20-30 minutes, then shape the 180 g balls.
4. Into the fridge: covered, about 20 hours at 4 °C. This is the part most home recipes skip, and it's the part that makes the difference.
5. Back to room temperature: 3-4 hours out of the fridge, until the balls are puffy but not doubled. Roman rolls out better slightly under-proofed than bursting with air.
6. Rolling: the rolling pin is allowed here, and it's the easy way to an even 3-4 mm sheet. Roll to a finger's width from the edge, with no rim. To be sure it won't blister, dock the base with the tines of a fork.
7. Baking: top it lightly, don't drown it, and bake until the base is golden and stiff. In a pizza oven that's about two minutes at 320-350 °C (610-660 °F), the figure the disciplinare gives. In a home oven you swap heat for time: 250 °C (480 °F) on a stone, low shelf first to dry the base, then high to colour.

What kills the crunch

• Rolling too thick. Leave it thick and it won't crunch: Roman has to be thin and even from edge to edge.
• Too much water. Above 60% the sheet stays chewy. For scrocchiarella a dry dough is a feature, not a fault.
• No oil. Without that 3% of fat you lose the friability and end up with a pizza that's dry and hard rather than crisp.
• Wet toppings. Watery mozzarella or a loose tomato release steam and soften the base. Drain well and go light.
• A cool oven or a short bake. The base has to cook until it's stiff. Pull it coloured on top but soft underneath and it'll never crunch.

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