A Fake Ferrari
slow dough and inauthentic pizza. words and recipe by Jack, edits by Angelos, illustration by Lena
To all those I have misled, an apology. It was not, after all, a real Ferrari.
It may have been red, it may have been fast. It may have been Italian. It may have been an excellent piece of twentieth century design. But it was a different Ferrari. G3Ferrari produce kitchen appliances, while the more well known Ferrari stick to racing cars. Google’s AI answer bot filled us with false hope that the two companies were set up by rival brothers, but this, predictably, turned out to be nonsense.
The G3Ferrari pizza oven is a genuinely brilliant piece of domestic kitchen equipment. My sister was given one as a wedding present and during lockdown, when I lived round the corner, I frequently traipsed back and forth to ‘borrow the Ferrari.’ It plugs straight into the wall and reaches 400C, with stone on the bottom and a heating element in the lid. Initially launched in the 1970s, it claims to have been the first domestic pizza oven, remaining popular in Italy ever since. Technically it has no doubt been surpassed in recent years by brands such as OONI and Gozney, but it’s a fair bit cheaper and a lot more stylish.
It was only when sitting down to write this Substack that I realised the link between this speedy red Ferrari and that speedy red Ferrari was an illusion . Clutching at straws I scrolled through page after page of results for ‘Ferrari pizza.’ Some things I found:
in the 1960s a couple of outcast Ferrari engineers produced a one-off racing car which became known as ‘the breadvan’ due to its unusual silhouette;
more recently the company's engineers refer to their new all-electric motor as ‘the pizza,’ again due to its shape;
best of all, in 2023, an unfortunate forklift truck driver in China dropped an industrial pizza oven onto a Ferrari whilst manoeuvring through a carpark.
None of these have anything to do with G3Ferrari or in any way salvaged the link between our oven and its more famous namesake.
The confusion was compounded by a very real history of crossover between car manufacturers and kitchen appliances. I recently bought my mum a Peugeot pepper grinder, only later to discover that the company had begun its life producing pepper and coffee grinders before it moved into making cars. General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford all produced domestic refrigerators in the mid-twentieth century, applying their insights from mass car manufacturing to the fast growing domestic appliance market.
But the Fake Ferrari makes good pizza. And perhaps, like the brand confusion, the trick to good pizza is having an agnostic relationship to ‘the authentic.’ The dough recipe below is one we’ve settled on after many Ferrari parties. It's loosely based on a Neapolitan pizza - bubbly and chewy - but it’s made with a rye sourdough starter. We’ve also listed some of our favourite toppings from over the years, which range from fairly traditional to less so.
Pizza Dough Recipe (Makes 8 x 8 inch pizzas)
There’s no need for kneading here. Just lots of waiting. I make this with a rye sourdough starter, but if you haven’t got a starter you could also use dried yeast. This dough needs around 3 days in the fridge to ‘bulk ferment,’ so it does involve some forward planning. If you want to make pizzas on Saturday evening then you need to do the initial mix on Wednesday (and if you’re using sourdough starter you’ll need to feed that up about 12hrs before that!). It’s pretty hands off though - it sits in the fridge minding its own business until the day you want to use it.
500g 00’ flour (or strong white bread flour)
325ml water
50g sourdough starter (fed and ready to use) / 2tsp dried yeast
10g salt
Mix the dough by whisking the starter into the water, followed by the flour and salt. Mix until there are no clumps of flour.
Decant into a lightly oiled tupperware box that is at least twice as big as the dough. Cover, leave out of the fridge for an hour or two to get the fermentation going, then put it in the fridge for 2 to 3 days. By the end, it should have doubled in size and you should see the air bubbles pushing up against the side of the tupperware.
A few hours before you want to make pizzas, remove the dough from the fridge. Knock back the dough, then portion into tight 120g balls. Place in sealed containers or cover with cling film and leave to rest at room temperature until doubled in size.
When ready to cook, carefully pull/push out each ball with your hands in order to keep the air bubbles intact (don’t use a rolling pin).
They should take around 3 minutes to cook in the Ferrari. (or, if you are Ferrari-less, here’s a method for cooking Neapolitan pizza in a skillet and finishing it in the oven).
Pizza Toppings
Cheese and Marmite. 50/50 grated gruyere/cheddar. Lots of marmite (loosened in a touch of hot water to help with spreading on raw dough). Some quick pickled slivers of onion. Mayonnaise to drizzle and dip the crusts in. Always the star of the show.
Salsiccia Siciliana. Sicilian sausages taken out of their casings and quickly browned in a pan. Good with tomato and basil, or creme fraiche and a little Lamiri Harissa.
Spinach, Anchovy and Pine nuts. A Neapolitan take on Sam and Sam Clarke’s coca recipe, from one of my favourite cookbooks, Moro East.
Duck Duck Dukkah. Confit duck with pistachio dukkah.
Creme fraiche, potato, fried onion.