Pizza Bianca Romana: Rome's Crackly No-Sauce White Pizza

Pour 350 ml of the water into a large bowl and add the flour. Mix with your hand or a spatula until no dry flour remains — the dough will look shaggy. Cover and rest 20 minutes (autolyse).

Dissolve the yeast in the remaining 40 ml water, then pour it over the dough along with the fine sea salt and 30 ml olive oil. Squeeze everything together with wet hands until fully incorporated; it will be sticky and rough.

Rest 30 minutes, then perform a set of stretch-and-fold: grab one side of the dough, stretch it up as high as it will go without tearing, and fold it over the center. Rotate the bowl 90° and repeat — four folds per set. Do 4 sets total, every 30 minutes over 2 hours.

After the last fold, cover the bowl tightly with cling film and refrigerate for 12–24 hours. The dough will double and develop bubbles throughout.

Remove the dough from the fridge 1 hour before baking. Pour 30 ml olive oil onto a 30 × 40 cm rimmed baking tray and spread it to coat. Place a baking steel or heavy inverted tray on the lowest oven rack and preheat to 260°C (500°F) — allow 45 minutes for full heat saturation.

Tip the dough onto the oiled tray without punching it down — treat the bubbles as something to protect. Using well-oiled fingertips, press and stretch the dough gently toward the edges. If it springs back, rest it 10 minutes and try again. Never use a rolling pin.

Once the dough fills the tray, dimple the entire surface deeply with your fingertips every 3–4 cm. Strip the rosemary leaves from the sprigs and press them into the surface. Pour the remaining 30 ml olive oil over the top so it pools in the dimples. Scatter the coarse salt evenly.

Let the topped dough rest at room temperature 20–30 minutes while the oven finishes preheating.

Slide the tray onto the steel and bake on the bottom rack for 10 minutes, then move to the upper-middle rack for a further 8–10 minutes until the surface is deep golden and the edges are crackled with dark tips.

Immediately lift the pizza out of the tray onto a wire rack — leaving it in the pan traps steam and softens the bottom. Rest 5 minutes, then cut with scissors or a bench scraper and serve.