Roman al taglio with potato & rosemary

Essential tool for this bake

Dough Formula

Ingredients

Instructions

1. 1

   Whisk the instant yeast into the flour. Add 350 g of the water, mix to a shaggy mass with no dry flour left, cover and rest 30 minutes.

   💡 Holding back 50 g of the water makes the first mix possible by hand. You add it later, once gluten has something to hold on to.

2. 2

   Add the salt and the remaining 50 g water a splash at a time, pinching it through the dough until it disappears. Work in the olive oil last.

   💡 At 80% hydration this will feel wrong — slack, sticky, formless. That is the correct feeling. Do not add flour to fix it.

3. 3

   Do four sets of stretch-and-folds in the bowl, 30 minutes apart, with a wet hand. After the fourth set the dough should hold a soft dome for a minute.

   💡 Wet your hand, not the dough. A wet hand releases; a floured hand tears.

4. 4

   Cover and cold ferment 24-48 hours at 3-4°C (37-39°F). The dough should roughly double and be full of visible bubbles against the side of the tub.

5. 5

   Take the tub out 3-4 hours before you bake. Oil the 40×30 cm tray heavily, tip the dough in without punching it down, and let it relax 30 minutes.

6. 6

   Dimple the dough toward the corners with flat fingertips, wait 30 minutes, and repeat until it fills the tray. Proof until visibly puffed and bubbled.

   💡 Never force it in one go. If it springs back, it is not ready — walk away for another 20 minutes.

7. 7

   Heat the oven with a steel or stone on the lowest rack to 280°C (535°F), or as high as it goes, for at least 45 minutes.

8. 8

   Toss the potato slices with the olive oil, garlic, half the rosemary and the fine salt. Leave them 10 minutes so they soften and stop springing back.

9. 9

   Slide the tray onto the steel and par-bake the naked dough for 10-12 minutes, until it is set, dry to the touch and just turning gold. It will look underdone. It is not.

   💡 The par-bake is what keeps the base crisp under wet potato. Skip it and you get a steamed middle.

10. 10

    Shingle the potato slices over the par-baked base, add the fior di latte if using, and bake another 8-10 minutes until the potato edges curl and colour.

11. 11

    Lift the slab straight onto a wire rack — never leave it in the tray. Add the remaining rosemary, flaky salt and pepper, and cut into squares.

    💡 Ten minutes on a rack is the difference between a crisp base and a soggy one. The tray traps steam the moment it leaves the oven.

Tips

• →Hands-on time is about 40 minutes. The other 29 hours are the fridge and the counter working without you.
• →Weigh the water. At 80% hydration a 15 g error is a visible change in the dough.
• →A mandoline is not optional — potato thicker than 2 mm will not cook through in 10 minutes.
• →Par-bake naked, always. Wet toppings on raw 80% dough steam the crumb from above.
• →Cut with a rocker or scissors, never a wheel — a wheel drags the topping off the slab.
• →Leftovers reheat beautifully in a dry pan over medium heat, cut side down, 3 minutes.

Shop this bake

• Flour

  

  Caputo Nuvola Super (type 0)

  A type 0 at W320–340 built for 70–80% hydration and the big hollow canotto rim. Buy it third, once you can already handle a 65% dough on a peel.

  Check price on Amazon →Read the review →

• Ingredient

  

  SAF Instant Yeast

  Instant, so it goes in dry with the flour: no warm-water step means no step at which the yeast can be cooked, which is where an active-dry dough most often dies.

  Check price on Amazon →Read the review →

• Equipment

  

  Greater Goods Single Sensor Baking Scale

  One model behind one listing, on the maker's own page: 5 kg (11 lb) of capacity, reading down to 1 g. What the listing sends is what the maker documents — rarer here than it ought to be.

  Check price on Amazon →Read the buying guide →

• Equipment

  

  6qt Dough Proofing Tub

  One deep tub for a party-sized bulk rise, when a single shelf and a single lid matter more than how fast the middle of the mass chills.

  $29.99· as of Oct 11, 2026, 16:49 UTC

  i

  Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon.com at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.
  Check price on Amazon →Read the buying guide →

• Equipment

  

  Anmarko Stainless Steel Bench Scraper

  Rigid where a plastic bowl scraper flexes: a blade under a millimetre thick gets under wet dough flat and still divides a batch in one press.

  $9.99· as of Oct 11, 2026, 16:49 UTC

  i

  Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon.com at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.
  Check price on Amazon →Read the review →

• Equipment

  

  KitchenStar 18-Inch Pizza Rocker Blade

  Buy it after the scraper. A blade longer than the pizza cuts in one downward press — for pies you lift onto a board, not ones you cut in the tin.

  $29.97· as of Oct 11, 2026, 16:49 UTC

  i

  Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon.com at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.
  Check price on Amazon →Read the review →

• Equipment

  

  Original Baking Steel

  6.4 mm is the home compromise: enough stored heat to bake two pies back to back, in a slab that will never crack the way a cordierite stone eventually does.

  $139.00· as of Oct 11, 2026, 16:49 UTC

  i

  Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon.com at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.
  Check price on Amazon →Read the review →

If this goes wrong

• Pizza dough is too sticky to handle

  Sticky is usually hydration your flour cannot absorb, gluten that has not finished forming, or a dough that has got too warm. Weigh your water, give it time and folds, and handle it with wet hands and a scraper instead of more flour.

• Pizza base is soggy in the middle

  Not enough heat is reaching the centre of the base fast enough to drive the water out before the crust sets. Bake on a fully preheated steel or stone rather than a tray, give it 45–60 minutes at maximum, and cut the water you put on top.

• Pizza crust is dense and bready, not chewy

  Dense crust means the gas never got in or never got out of the dough into the crumb. Proof to the peak, keep the rim untouched, stop adding bench flour, and bake on a surface hot enough to give you real oven spring.