Heckers and Ceresota Unbleached Flour has become synonymous with pizza flour.
Ceresota is the #1 pizza flour in the Chicago land area with award-winning Chicago-style deep-dish and cracker-thin pizza dough.
What makes Heckers and Ceresota Unbleached All-Purpose flour ideal for pizza?
Higher Protein All-Purpose flour (winter patent)
- Excellent Mixing, fermentation, and proofing tolerance
- More extendibility
- Dough works better with yeast
- Dough will rise evenly: especially important when adding heavy toppings
- Superb flavor and texture
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Premium High Gluten Unbleached Flour
- Unbleached and Un-Bromated
- Superior Tolerance, Stretch & Elasticity
- Excellent Dough Texture
- Superior Browning
- Outstanding Water Absorption
Protein Content: 14% protein +/- .3
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What is the best flour for making pizza crusts?
Of course, Heckers or Ceresota! :-)
Simply, there is no one best flour for making pizza. Different types of pizza may require different types of flour. Read about the different pizza types below.
Why is a high gluten flour best for making pizza?
Higher gluten flour increases elasticity of dough which helps create more bake volume and chewier products.
Do I need different types of flour to make different pizzas?
If you're making both thin crust and deep-dish pizzas, you don't need two different types of flour. Instead, use a strong bread-type flour with a protein content in the 12% range like Ceresota Unbleached All Purpose Flour is probably the closest thing to an all-purpose pizza flour.
Flour like Ceresota Unbleached All Purpose Flour can be used to make just about any type of pizza and it is sufficiently strong to allow for three or more days of refrigerated storage in your cooler.
Basic Pizza Crust - Hellen's Homemade Pizza
Choose Your Pizza Type:
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Deep Dish Pizza
Deep dish pizza originated in Chicago. Deep dish pizza, also known as a stuffed pizza has a thick, dense crust, with lots of cheese, and toppings. Sauce may be placed on top of the toppings. Rich and filling, you'll need a fork to eat it! Ceresota flour is the perfect flour for a deep-dish, Chicago-style pizza.
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What's the best pizza flour for deep dish pizza?
The best deep dish pizza is made by finding a flour with the right balance between strength and chew. A medium protein flour that provides the durability to withstand fermentation, handling, and heavy pizza toppings is ideal. But the flour cannot be too strong, or the thick crust will be too bready and less enjoyable to chew. Ceresota All-Purpose Unbleached Flour has the perfect balance in protein for deep dish and thick crust pizzas.
Ceresota flour is the #1 pizza flour in the Chicagoland area for deep-dish pizza crust.
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New York-Style Pizza
New York-Style pizza is characterized by a large, thin crust, usually large enough to be "foldable." Toppings are typically just sauce and cheese.
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What's the best pizza flour for New York style pizza?
A New York-Style pizza is best made using a very high-protein flour like Ceresota Premium High-Gluten Flour to achieve the chewy crust that is characteristic of NY pizza.
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Neapolitan-Style Pizza
Neapolitan-Style pizza originated in Naples, Italy. It is a usually a simple pizza with just a few toppings. For the crusts, strong, soft wheats are ideal for Neapolitan-Style pizza.
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What's the best pizza flour for Neapolitan-Style pizza?
You might see Neapolitan pizza calling for “W” value flour. "W" is a reliable metric for European soft wheat but has shown to be unreliable for North American hard wheat. The Italian flours are all produced with soft wheats from Europe with higher protein content. They are strong enough to withstand long fermentation, hand tossing, and heavy toppings. North America does not produce soft wheat that has that kind of strength. Europe has some very strong soft wheats that make them ideal for Neapolitan-style pizza.
In North America, we have very high quality and reliable hard wheats with these characteristics, but our soft wheat varieties are primarily used for cakes and pastries.
You can still make a fantastic Neapolitan-style pizza with North American flours like Ceresota. Many pizzerias that use Ceresota flour for a wide variety of styles of pizza, including Neapolitan.