Why is Caputo 00 Flour the best for Pizzas?- WE FOUND OUT!

If you plan to start to cook your favorite pizzas, you should have the skills and the right ingredients.

This post on Caputo 00 flour talks about the best flour and what makes it so special and why everyone prefers to use this while making a Neapolitan pizza

This post will go over everything you need to know in order to understand the Caputo 00 Flour.

Making a good pizza is easy, but you need many things such as precision, heat, temperature control, and most importantly, high-quality ingredients. Those will determine a good pizza. 

The flour is perhaps the most important ingredient for making pizza as you can edit and experiment with the other parts such as the sauce, cheese, and the toppings of the pizza. 

On the other hand, the flour needs to be the best to attain the finish that you want.

If you want a crispy pizza crust, that all depends on the type of flour and how you process it.

Caputo is one of the leading companies that produce high-quality flour in many types of pasta bread recipes.

That means that they also have one of the best flours to use on your favorite pizzas. 

So with this post, we will take a look at the different components of this amazing pizza flour and see how you can cook with it or make the best dough in the proper processing way.

 

What Is Caputo 00 Flour?

If you want to talk about authentic pizza, you should use an Italian Antimo Caputo 00 Flour to make your pizzas.

It is a type of flour that you can use to make Neapolitan pizzas at home. So can you use it with other types of pizzas, absolutely, as it is perhaps the best option out there.

This type of flour is made from Italy by a Naples-based company called Antimo Caputo or Caputo for short.

That means that they know everything about authentic Neapolitan pizzas.

The Italian Antimo brand is known internationally for the flour that they produce. They are not the same as other brands that you see in groceries as they are authentic and checked for quality.

The Italian Caputo 00 flour is a high-quality brand of flour that you can make the best pizzas at home or anywhere you want.

The flour is unlike any other type of flour that you use in making pizzas as it has the best quality. The texture, taste, and content are perfect for making the best dough for your favorite pizza.

The Caputo flour comes in different kinds, but the company is best known for the Tipo 00 flour, a fine-milled flour that goes perfectly with any type of pizza sauce or topping you want.

 

What is the Gluten Content in Caputo 00?

Gluten content in flours is extremely important because it determines how stretchy or flexible the pizza dough will be.

It is also the protein that gets activated by the yeast to get that amazing texture.

Compared to more commonly used flours for pizza, the Caputo 00 has more gluten but not too much. It is just a little over the average, so it can be stretched and kneaded more.

The Caputo 00 has 12.5% gluten, which is a perfect percentage to give your pizza dough just enough stretch.

You can make thin-crust pizzas with this level of gluten in the flour.

This is something that I like about the Caputo flour is that it can make you a nice chewy and crispy thin crust pizza.

 

What’s So Special About Caputo 00 Flour?

There are two main reasons why the Caputo 00 Flour is special. 

First, it is finely milled, so you get that perfect ratio with water and yeast when you process it, making it manageable.

See, the Caputo 00 or Tipo 00 flour is finely milled, which means you can easily mold or knead it.

You need to be precise, however, to attain the consistency that you are looking for.

Being finely milled, the flavors from each grain are exposed, and you get to taste the authenticity.

The second reason is that it has a slightly higher gluten content than regular flour.

Gluten is the protein that comes with flour and is broken down by yeast.

 The more gluten you have, the stretchier the dough will be without breaking to be shaped into thin doughs.

This means that you can easily make thin-crust pizza with this flour as it will not break that easily.

However, the gluten is not excessive as you can still get that crunch on the crust.

 

What Is The Difference Between All-Purpose Flour And 00 Flour? 

This section of the post is more like why the Tipo 00 flour is better than an all-purpose flour rather than looking at the differences. See, they have the same components, but the 00 flour is far better.

See, when you compare the 00 flour to all-purpose flour, the first thing you will notice is the milling.

The 00 flour is far more finely milled compared to the all-purpose flour that you have.

 It is as if it has been powdered and it gently slides off of your hands when you pick it up.

All-purpose flour needs to be adjusted to pizzas and other pasta or bread recipes that it is used for. 

The gluten content is also different as you will see that the Tipo 00 flour has more gluten than all-purpose flour.

That means that it is stretchier and more elastic when you knead and shape it.

Because of the strong bond between the gluten content and the activation of yeast, slow and cold fermentation is perfect when you have a Tipo 00 flour because of the higher gluten content.

 

Different Types Of Caputo Flour 

There are many types of flour that you can choose from Caputo.

Different names go with them, but they can be differentiated easily with the color of the bag that they pack in.

 The different types of Caputo 00 flour do not have many differences, but can you use them in pasta or bread recipes? Yes, but you will see one is better than the other because of the slight difference in the contents.

See, for example, you have the Caputo Chef’s flour or the Caputo Red.

The Chef’s flour is perfect for long fermentation since it has a larger protein or gluten content than the other.

The Chef’s flour has 13% gluten in it, which means that it is a strong flour.

It can hold its shape even for days and when you ferment it, there is a lot that the yeast needs to work with.

The Caputo Blue or the Caputo Pizzeria has a lower protein content which means that the Caputo Pizzeria and Blue does not stretch as much as the Chef’s Flour, but it can still make great pizzas when you need to. 

This Caputo Pizzeria flour is perfect if you want to cook your pizza right away.

It rises quickly, or you can wait for up to 8 hours to ferment it and get all the delicious flavors you need from the dough.

 

Which Caputo Flour is best For making Pizzas?

As you can see from the comparison above, Caputo uses two main flours, and you can choose from to cook your pizza.

That depends on how you would want to process your pizza.

If you love making pizzas with a long fermentation period to get as much of that unique flavor as you can, then the perfect choice is the Caputo Red or the Chef’s Flour to make your pizzas.

You can choose Caputo Blue on how to make pizza dough quickly due to its lower protein content.

This will finish quickly, and you can even allow it to rise within just 8 hours.

The flour you choose will depend on how you want to cook your pizza.

If you want it right away, you have the Caputo Blue, but if you just like to wait and store it for future use, you have the Caputo Red.

You can get 1 kg of this flour on different sites or get the 15 kg option if you are making a lot of pizzas. The 1 kg pack is more for home cooks while the 15 kg option is good for large pizzerias.

 

Which Pizza Flour Should You Pick?

I prefer the Caputo Red or the Caputo Chef’s Flour as it has a slightly more versatile quality. It is also easier how to make pizza dough with this flour in terms of the process.

You can use it with any type of recipe and not only with the pizzas that you want. Can you use it with other pastries? Yes, but that depends on the type of pastry you want to cook.

Here’s the thing though, I would not complain if I was served with a pizza that is made with the other Tipo 00 flour as they do not have that much of a difference in the outcome.

If you are not sure whether you will cook with home ovens or with authentic wood-fired pizza ovens, then I recommend getting the Chef’s Flour as it works better in both ways.

 

Caputo Pizza Flour Dough Recipe

 

What You Will Need 

• 4 cups of Caputo 00 Flour (500 grams)
• 1 and a half cups of water (350 mL)
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil (25 grams)
• 1 and a half teaspoons of salt (8 grams)
• Half teaspoon of active dry yeast (1.5 grams)

 Tip: Using the measurements by weight is more accurate instead of using volume (cups, tablespoon, teaspoon). This will give you better results, so use a kitchen scale if you have one.

 

Step 1: Combine The Ingredients

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and then mix them well together.

The mixture should have a soft consistency and some of the flour will naturally still stick to your hands when you touch it.

Allow the dough to rest for 10 minutes to get the water into the flour.

This will also help make the dough drier and easier to handle as the water is absorbed well by the flour in it.

 

Step 2: Kneading

 After 10 minutes, get the dough on a clean work station and then knead it by hand for 8 minutes. 

After kneading, form a big ball by folding the sides into the middle of the dough.

After that, coat the dough with olive oil and then place it back in the bowl.

Cover the bowl with a damp towel and then allow the dough to rise for 2 hours until it has doubled in size.

 

Step 3: Divide And Store

Once the dough has doubled in size, remove it from the bowl and cut it into three equal pieces with a pastry scraper.

Place each piece in a zip lock bag or a sealed container and refrigerate.

 This will take overnight, and each ball of dough will make one pizza.

You can bring it out when you are about to cook to allow it to come up to room temperature before you shape it.

If you are a beginner then you should read up more on how to proof and ferment your pizza dough the right way.

You can store the pizza dough and it will last you for a few days. If you are still new to making pizzas then check out this detailed post on how I store my pizza dough, so that you can make it last longer.

Find the place where to buy your best ingredients for the pizza sauce, the best mozzarella cheese, and toppings of your pizza, and enjoy the delicious meal!

If you are wondering where to buy the 1kg or 15 kg Caputo 00 flour, it is available on Amazon and other shopping sites so you will not run out of places where to buy this amazing flour for your pizzas.

I also recommend King Arthur 00 flour as an alternative. The King Arthur 00 flour is the same as the Caputo 00 and can make great pizzas so if you run out of Antimo, King Arthur 00 flour will get results nearly the same as the Caputo 00.

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