Study of medium-high shelf life ready-to-use dough rolls for making “pizza napoletana”

The aim of this work was to investigate the possibility of developing an innovative technology to obtain ready-to-use dough rolls with a medium-high shelf life, useful for pizza-making within the disciplinary procedures of Pizza Napoletana production. For this purpose, dough obtained according to the classic recipe was leavened for 20 min at 25°C, divided into 250 g dough rolls, and further leavened for 8 (C8) or 16 h (C16) at 22°C before packaging. The packed samples were stored at 2.0 ± 0.5°C for 28 days. Every 7 days, colony-forming units, pH, total titratable acidity, volume, and the consistency of the dough rolls were evaluated. After 28 days, the samples with the longer leavening time (C16) exhibited similar characteristics to the fresh product. In addition, the ability of the dough to develop a pizza rim was evaluated through cooking tests after 28 days of storage: the rims of the C16 rolls were similar to that of the fresh product. These results represent an important starting point for large-scale marketing of ready-to-use dough rolls, allowing consumers to taste a real “Pizza Napoletana” (TSG) product even in pizzerias outside the Campania region.