Neapolitan Pizza Bake Timer
Embed this timer
Copy and paste this snippet into your website or blog post. Free to use — please keep the credit link so others can find the timer.
Add to Home Screen
Tap Share in Safari, then choose "Add to Home Screen".
Common uses for a neapolitan pizza bake timer
- Wood-fired oven pizza
- Portable high-temperature pizza ovens
- Chasing leoparding on the cornicione
- Understanding why home ovens differ
Verace pizza napoletana is one of the few things in cooking with an actual published specification. The Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana sets out what the product must be, including a bake of roughly 60 to 90 seconds in a wood-fired oven at around 430–480 °C[1]. That short bake is not showmanship — it is what produces the specific result the standard describes.
At that temperature the dough puffs violently before the base can dry out, giving a soft, pliable crust with a puffed, blistered rim. Bake the same dough at a domestic 250 °C and you get something perfectly nice that is categorically not Neapolitan: the moisture drives off, the base crisps, and the leoparding never forms because there is not enough heat to char the surface before the interior cooks through.
The turn is part of the technique
In a wood-fired oven the heat is directional — one side faces the fire. At ninety seconds total, a pizza left unturned burns on the flame side while the far edge stays pale.
The usual approach is a partial turn every twenty to thirty seconds, using a peel, keeping the pizza moving through the hot spot rather than parked in it. This is why Neapolitan pizzaioli barely leave the oven mouth during a bake: there is no time to step away.
Leoparding, and what it actually is
The dark spots on a good cornicione are localised charring of the surface, produced when very high heat hits an airy, well-fermented rim faster than the interior can cook. They are a consequence of temperature and fermentation together, not something you can produce by baking longer.
If your rim is uniformly tan rather than spotted, the oven is not hot enough — that is the honest answer, and no amount of technique substitutes for the temperature the standard specifies.
The AVPN specification is the first row; the others describe what happens as the temperature drops, and are practical observations rather than part of any standard[1].
| Oven temperature | Bake time | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 430–480 °C (AVPN spec) | 60–90 s | Soft, pliable, leoparded rim |
| 370–400 °C | 2–3 min | Good puff, less charring |
| 300–340 °C | 4–6 min | Crisper base, tan rim |
| 250–280 °C (home oven max) | 7–10 min | Crisp throughout; not Neapolitan |
- Turn the pizza every 20–30 seconds in a wood-fired oven — heat is directional and 90 seconds leaves no margin.
- Leoparding comes from temperature and fermentation together; it cannot be produced by baking longer.
Source: Disciplinare Internazionale — international regulation for Verace Pizza Napoletana
Sources
- Disciplinare Internazionale — international regulation for Verace Pizza Napoletana , Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana — accessed 2026-07-28