Pizza process as of 2012

For posterity's sake and my own personal record-keeping:
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There are two principles that I follow to make what I call a "neo-Neapolitan style pizza." The first is that you have to knead the dough SLOW and let it rise for at least 2 days (it starts to decompose after about 6 days) and the second is that once it is made, you have to bake it FAST.

The 3 components:

1) The dough

• Basic Neapolitan style pizza is only 4 ingredients - flour, water, salt, yeast. I have modified this recipe by also adding 1/3 cup of whole wheat, 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, and a tablespoon of raw honey. I call it "neo-Neapolitan style."
• The dough has to remain super-hydrated (about 80%) throughout the whole process in order to not get dried out and bake properly. This makes the dough extremely sticky, but the less flour you use the better. 
• This was my guide for how to engage a process called "slow rise." There is way more information in here than you need, but I believe that the more you know about a subject, the easier it becomes to make adjustments when things don't turn out right:
  http://www.varasanos.com/PizzaRecipe.htm
• After you have mixed the dough (from beginning to end the mixing and initial rise takes about 90 minutes), you have to remove it from your mixer and knead it. Instead of adding a ton of extra flour to the mix, what you want to do (and this is the technique used by many bread artisans) is called the "stretch and fold" method. Use the olive oil to cover the kneading surface and your hands, and you won't need any more flour. Here are some videos that show how it works, and how it turns a very sticky batter-like dough into something that resembles Jello. Stretch & fold 4 times, waiting 10 minutes in between each time, and you get great results.

Once the dough has been stretched and folded 4 times, now it's time to shape it and proof it in the refrigerator for at least 2 days. Do not let too much time pass between the final kneading and refrigerating it.

2) The sauce

Our sauce isn't anything fancy, but does require fresh seasonings. 

• can of crushed tomatoes
• balsalmic vinegar
• fresh basil
• extra virgin olive oil
• sugar
• oregano 
• parsley 
• salt, pepper
• LOTS of fresh garlic

Don't cook this sauce before it is applied. The more you cook it, the more the flavor disappears. Just mix it together in a food processor and then put it on the dough when it's time to bake.

That said, sauce is an entirely subjective component in the process, so whether you like it thicker or sweeter or maybe no sauce at all, experiment until it hits your personal sweet spot.

I actually add a 'pre-topping' of sorts by applying a mixture of olive oil and minced garlic to the pizza dough right before I put on the sauce. The oil and garlic bake right into the dough.

3) The baking process

Remove the dough at least an hour before baking time so that it can warm up to room temperature.

Most pizza ovens and brick bread ovens go up to 800 to 1000 degrees. Our conventional ovens only go up to about 450 if you're lucky. So we have to simulate the heat that is used. The first step in the simulation is to keep the dough very hydrated (see above). The second step is to create a very high heat scenario. I accomplish this by using a hot skillet technique:

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2010/01/recipe-vaughns-perfect-skillet-pizza/34064/

The cast iron skillet is a different kind of pan in that its metallic properties require it a longer heating time but, because of its porous nature, will actually retain that heat, somewhat similar to the bricks you would find in a brick oven. Preheated on your stovetop (I stay around level 6 on the dial; anything hotter and it burns), you can get the bottom of the dough much hotter than it would be in the oven.

Preheat the skillet, then lay down the dough on the skillet and assemble the pizza. Preheat your oven broiler. Then, put the assembled pizza in your oven broiler, which heats the top of things much hotter than the normal convection heat. Now the dough is getting much higher heat from above and below. The net result is that the pizza should bake in about 2-3 minutes, based on your oven's abilities. Bake it for 90 seconds, rotate and check it, and then bake it for another minute or so and it should be done. The top should see the cheese starting to smolder and the bottom and edges should be getting charred and blistered.