Ninety
Seconds.

The constraint

The oven is not the variable. Water is.

A 60-to-90-second bake at 430°C solves the crust and creates every other problem. Nothing on top has time to dry out, so any moisture you add stays — pooling under the cheese, steaming the centre flat. And nothing has time to cook, so anything that needs actual heat work has to arrive already cooked. Your six ingredients split cleanly along those two lines, which is why the combinations below all read the same way: a short list that goes IN and a shorter list that goes ON AFTER.

Dough ball

250 gPer 12" pie. Stretch to 28–30 cm, leave a 1.5 cm rim untouched.

Hydration

60 %Not 65–70. That's the home-oven number — this bake is too fast to drive off the extra water.

Flour

Tipo 00Caputo Pizzeria (red). Bread flour at 12.7% protein is the honest substitute.

Salt / yeast

2.5 / 0.15 %Baker's percentage. 0.15% yeast for a 24–48 h cold ferment; 0.3% if same-day.

Stone temp

~430 °CMeasured dead centre with an IR gun, not guessed from the flame.

Total topping

≤ 180 gEverything that goes in the oven, cheese and sauce included. Overloading is the single most common failure.

The dough

Four ingredients, forty-eight hours

Flour, water, salt, yeast. No oil, no sugar, no milk — a true Neapolitan dough has never contained any of them, and at this temperature they only burn. What makes the difference is time: the 24-to-48-hour cold ferment is doing the flavour work that a three-hour same-day dough simply cannot, and it costs you nothing but fridge space.

1. Dissolve. Salt into all the water, stirred until you can't feel grit. Then whisk in about 10 % of the flour to make a loose slurry, and the yeast into that — yeast never touches undiluted salt.
2. Combine. Add the rest of the flour in three or four goes, mixing with a hand or a wooden spoon until there is no dry flour left. It will look shaggy and wrong. Cover it and walk away for 20 minutes — this autolyse does a third of your kneading for you.
3. Knead. 10–15 minutes by hand on an unfloured bench, or 8 minutes in a mixer on low. Done is when the dough is smooth, slightly tacky, and a stretched piece goes translucent before it tears.
4. Bulk rise. Covered, at room temperature, 2 hours. In a warm kitchen check at 90 minutes; you want it relaxed and slightly puffed, not doubled.
5. Ball. Divide into 250 g pieces and shape each into a tight ball with a smooth, unbroken top — that skin is what holds the gas. Into a lidded container or a proofing box, spaced apart.
6. Cold ferment. Fridge, 24 to 48 hours. 24 h is good, 36 h is better, 48 h is the edge. Past that the gluten starts to slacken and the balls spread and tear when you open them.
7. Wake up. Out of the fridge 3–4 hours before baking — 2 hours if the kitchen is over 25 °C. The dough must reach room temperature all the way through, or the centre stays tight and won't open. A cold ball is the single most common reason a pizza comes out small and thick.
8. Open. Flour the bench, press from the centre out with your fingertips, leaving the outer 1.5 cm untouched. Stretch over your knuckles or by draping. 28–30 cm, thin enough to see light through the middle.

The larder

What each ingredient wants

Get this table right and the combinations almost design themselves. Get it wrong and it doesn't matter which combination you picked. The six you asked for, plus the three that carry the potato pie at the end.

Raw cured meat and cold-smoked fish are not toppings. They are garnishes that happen to be the reason you made the pizza.

Two foundations

Rossa or bianca

The choice isn't aesthetic. Tomato brings acid and water; a white base brings fat and salt. Match it to what you're putting on top — acid fights delicate seafood and buries cured ham, fat carries both.

Four with tomato

Rossa

Rossa

Gamberi e Peperoni

Shrimp, roasted red pepper, garlic-chilli oil

• 70 gSan Marzano, hand-crushed, salted
• 50 gFior di latte — deliberately light, it's competing with the shrimp
• 6Butterflied shrimp, laid flat, cut side down
• 40 gRoasted red pepper, torn into strips
• 1 tspGarlic-chilli oil, drizzled

On afterFlat-leaf parsley, torn. A squeeze of lemon. Nothing else.

The one combination where the shrimp genuinely cooks in the bake — butterflied, they're 5 mm thick. Roasted pepper does the work of a sauce reduction without the water. Keep the cheese down: this is a seafood pie, not a cheese pie wearing shrimp.

Rossa

Boscaiola

Mushrooms, oregano, pecorino

• 70 gSan Marzano
• 70 gFior di latte, torn and drained
• 35 gMushrooms, dry-sautéed dry with garlic and thyme
• pinchDried oregano — rubbed between the palms first

On afterGrated pecorino romano and a hard grind of black pepper, so the cheese stays sharp instead of melting into the background.

The plainest pie here and the best diagnostic: if this one comes out soggy, your mushrooms weren't dry enough. Mixed mushrooms beat button — chestnut for body, a few oyster or shiitake for the edges that crisp and go almost meaty.

Rossa

Peperoni Gialli e Prosciutto

Yellow pepper, fior di latte, prosciutto crudo after

• 60 gSan Marzano — under-sauced on purpose
• 80 gFior di latte
• 40 gRoasted yellow pepper, torn (sweeter and less acidic than red)
• —Basil leaves, tucked under the cheese so they steam rather than burn

On after3 slices of prosciutto crudo, draped in loose folds while the pie is still radiating. A thread of good olive oil.

Yellow pepper's sweetness is the bridge between tomato acid and cured salt — red pepper is good here, yellow is better. Draping matters: folds catch heat and release the fat's aroma; flat slices just sit there. Cotto variant: swap in 50 g of torn prosciutto cotto and it goes on before the bake instead, under the cheese — a rounder, more domestic pizza, and a much better one for anyone who finds crudo too salty.

Rossa

Marinara di Mare

No cheese. Shrimp, garlic, oregano, lemon

• 80 gSan Marzano — more, since it's carrying the pie alone
• 2Garlic cloves, sliced paper-thin
• 6Butterflied shrimp
• goodDried oregano, olive oil, sea salt

On afterLemon zest, a little juice, parsley.

The Neapolitan-orthodox seafood answer — in Naples, cheese and fish don't share a pie, and once you've tasted this you'll see the argument. Without mozzarella the crust and the tomato both get louder, and the shrimp taste like shrimp rather than like cheese. Make this one first, before the pizza gets complicated.

Seven without

Bianca

This is where your ingredient list actually lives. Prosciutto, both salmons, mushrooms and shrimp are all happier without tomato underneath them.

Bianca

Salmone e Limone

Smoked salmon, lemon crème fraîche, dill

• 1 tspOlive oil brushed over the dough
• 70 gFior di latte, torn and well drained
• grindBlack pepper. That's the entire oven build.

On after50 g cold-smoked salmon, torn into ribbons · dots of crème fraîche whipped with lemon zest and juice · dill fronds · capers if you like them · more pepper.

The best pie on this page, and barely a recipe — a plain cheese pizza used as a hot plate for cold fish. Everything cold goes on after the pie stops steaming, or the crème fraîche breaks and the salmon goes opaque and greasy. Wait fifteen seconds. It matters.

Bianca

Prosciutto, Rucola, Parmigiano

The canonical bianca. Three things, no tomato

• 1 tspGarlic-infused olive oil, brushed
• 90 gFior di latte — generous here, it's the base and the sauce
• grindBlack pepper

On after3–4 slices prosciutto crudo · a handful of rocket dressed in lemon and oil in a separate bowl · shaved parmigiano · olive oil.

Dress the rocket before it touches the pizza, never on top — oil and lemon poured over a hot pie run straight into the crust and make it soggy in about four seconds. The lemon in the dressing is doing the job tomato acid would otherwise do.

Bianca

Funghi al Timo

Mushrooms, thyme, garlic, a whisper of truffle

• 1 tspGarlic oil
• 75 gFior di latte
• 45 gMixed mushrooms, dry-sautéed with thyme until browned and completely dry
• 15 gGrated parmigiano, under the mushrooms

On afterFresh thyme leaves. Two or three drops of truffle oil — drops, not a drizzle. Flaky salt.

Without tomato you can taste the mushrooms properly, which is the point. The parmigiano underneath melts into a savoury floor that stops the mushrooms sitting on the pie like a garnish. Truffle oil is easy to overdo and unforgivable when you do.

Bianca

Gamberi al Bianco

Shrimp, lemon, chilli, basil

• 1 tspChilli-garlic oil
• 60 gFior di latte, scattered not blanketed
• 6Butterflied shrimp, bone dry
• —Thin slivers of fresh red chilli

On afterLemon zest, a hard squeeze of juice, basil torn at the last second, olive oil.

Fat instead of acid under the shrimp, so the sweetness comes through — this is the same ingredient as the Gamberi e Peperoni and it tastes like a different animal. The lemon after the bake is doing the tomato's job from above, where you can control it.

Bianca

Tre Peperoni e Ricotta

Ricotta base, three roasted peppers, prosciutto after

• 80 gRicotta loosened with olive oil, lemon zest and salt — dotted, not spread
• 50 gFior di latte, in the gaps between the ricotta
• 50 gRoasted red, yellow and green pepper, peeled and torn

On after3 slices prosciutto crudo · basil · black pepper · olive oil.

Dotting rather than spreading the ricotta is the whole technique: you get pockets of cool, milky cheese against blistered pepper instead of a uniform pale layer. Green pepper is the bitter note that stops three peppers tasting like jam.

Bianca

Mare e Monti

Mushrooms and shrimp — the greedy one

• 1 tspGarlic oil
• 60 gFior di latte
• 30 gMushrooms, dry-sautéed, scattered on one half-ish
• 5Butterflied shrimp on the rest

On afterParsley, lemon zest, olive oil.

Sea and mountain, the Italian pairing that shouldn't work and does. Keep the two ingredients in loose zones rather than mixed — you want bites of each, not a stew. This is also the pie where the topping ceiling bites hardest: 90 g of solids plus 60 g of cheese is already at the limit.

Bianca

Patate, Pancetta e Tartufo

Potato, bacon, rosemary, truffle oil

• 1 tspRendered bacon fat, brushed over the dough instead of oil
• 60 gFior di latte — restrained; the potato is already the starch and the sauce
• 90 gPotato, sliced 1.5–2 mm, par-boiled 3 min, dried, tossed with oil, salt and rosemary — laid overlapping like roof tiles
• 40 gPancetta or streaky bacon in 1 cm lardons, part-rendered but still soft
• —Rosemary needles, chopped fine. Go easy: it turns medicinal fast.

On after3–4 drops of truffle oil · grated parmigiano · flaky salt · a hard grind of black pepper. A few rocket leaves if you want something green to cut it.

Starch on starch, which sounds like a mistake and is a Roman and Ligurian classic — the potato behaves like a sauce, going creamy underneath and crisping at the tile edges where it meets the flame. Everything here is about part-cooking: raw potato stays chalky in 90 seconds, and bacon taken to crisp in the pan comes out of the oven burnt. Both want to arrive most of the way there. And the truffle oil goes on at the end, in drops, because heat destroys the aroma and leaves you with nothing but oil.

Failure modes

Five ways this goes wrong

One evening

A running order that works

Six balls of dough, four people, roughly forty minutes of baking. Order matters — you're managing both palates and prep.

1. Prep the day before. Dough mixed and balled, in the fridge 24–48 h. Mushrooms sautéed and cooled. Peppers roasted, peeled, torn. All of it keeps.
2. Two hours out. Dough balls to room temperature. Tear and drain the fior di latte. Butterfly and salt the shrimp, then blot them and keep them cold.
3. Fire up 20 minutes before the first pie. Bake one plain margherita as a calibration pie. It tells you the stone temperature and the turn rhythm before it matters.
4. Marinara di Mare first, while palates are clean and nobody's had cheese yet. The cheeseless one always disappears fastest, which surprises people every time.
5. Gamberi e Peperoni, then Boscaiola — the two tomato pies, back to back while the stone is at its hottest.
6. Funghi al Timo and Prosciutto, Rucola, Parmigiano as the middle of the evening. Switch to the bianca builds and the whole meal changes register.
7. Patate, Pancetta e Tartufo when the fire has had an hour of pies through it and people have stopped pretending they aren't full. It is the richest thing on this page and it wants to arrive late.
8. Salmone e Limone last, on purpose. It's cold, sharp and clean, it needs no oven work beyond a plain cheese pie, and it functions as dessert's opposite — the thing that resets your mouth after an hour of fire.