For iPhone
EnglishNeapolitan, 4 × 260 g, for dinner tomorrow at 7:00 PM?
Fornata is an iPhone app that works out pizza dough and walks you through the mix. Pick one of eight pizzas, say when you eat and how many: you get the grams, the time of every step and a countdown on your lock screen.
Coming soon to the App Store
4.99 USD, paid once. No subscription, no account. The App Store shows the price in your currency. iPhone with iOS 17 or later.
The same plan to scale: 24 h 41 min from the first gram of flour to the table. The tomato-red bars are the hands-on work, 41 min in all. The rest of the time the dough works on its own.
Worked out for a stand mixer, an electric pizza oven at 470 °C and a 22 °C kitchen. On first launch the app asks how you mix and what you bake in.
“Which pizza are we making?”, “When are we eating?” and “How many pizzas?” Answer them on the Pizza tab and the plan appears right below.
A shopping list in grams and every step with its time, written like a recipe: “Pour 397 g of water at 13 °C into the bowl.” Heating the oven is a step of its own, because it is the one people forget.
Tap “Start at 6:18 PM” at the counter and cooking mode shows one step at a time: the current action with its grams in large type, the small tasks to tick off and a timer for the kneading. “Done, next” moves you on, and “Undo” saves you if you tapped too soon.
A waiting step shows a photo of the dough at that stage, the countdown and, where it helps, “What ready looks like”. If the dough runs fast or slow, “−15 min” and “+15 min” shorten or lengthen the wait, and near the end “It’s ready, next” lets you move on early.
The current stage counts down on the lock screen and in the Dynamic Island, with the next one underneath. Reminders arrive even when the app is closed, and a tap on one, or on the countdown, opens the current step in cooking mode.
Kitchen warmer than planned? Tap the temperature on the Dough tab and the forecast follows. For the Neapolitan above, 24 °C instead of 22 °C in the bulk rest gives “Will be ready: tomorrow 6:17 PM, 42 minutes earlier than planned”.
The grams are the app’s first answer for each style, before you change the number of pizzas.
A pizza oven, electric, wood-fired or gas: 60–90 sec in the oven.
Soft rim, a minute in the heat easy
Soft dough, a tall rim with leopard spotting, a minute in fierce heat. The easiest to handle: the dough is not sticky and stretches well.
Oven: 450–500 °C, 60–90 sec
4 × 260 g, ready tomorrow
Tall, open rim medium
The same Neapolitan, only wetter. The dough is softer and stickier, but the crumb comes out noticeably lighter. Needs confident hands and good flour.
Oven: 450–500 °C, 60–90 sec
4 × 280 g, ready tomorrow
Inflated rim, little centre for the experienced
The showiest one. Made with a biga: a separate dough that matures 18 hours before mixing. Needs a very hot oven and patience.
Oven: 470–500 °C, 60 sec
Start the biga, 20 h 15 min
Mix the dough
4 × 280 g, ready in two days
Long maturing, gentle tang for the experienced
If you keep a starter. The flavour is deeper and more complex, and the dough stays fresh longer. It always takes a little longer than with yeast.
Oven: 450–500 °C, 60–90 sec
4 × 260 g, ready tomorrow
The main difference is the temperature of the oven. A Neapolitan lives at 450–500 °C and bakes in a minute; anything that bakes longer than five minutes needs oil in the dough, otherwise it dries out. That is why New York and Roman thin have oil and the Neapolitan does not.
An ordinary oven, on a stone or a steel, in a tray or a pan: 3–18 min in the oven.
Crisp, almost no rim easy
The exact opposite of the Neapolitan: thin, dry, brittle. There is almost no rim, the dough is rolled out with a pin, and this is the one case where a rolling pin is not a crime.
Oven: 300–330 °C, 3–5 min
4 × 200 g, ready tomorrow
Big, folds in half easy
A New York street classic: a slice the size of your face, folded lengthwise. Crisp base and soft top, with oil and a little sugar in the dough. Baked in an ordinary oven.
Oven: 290–310 °C, 6–8 min
4 × 340 g, ready tomorrow
Thick, crisp cheese edge medium
Fluffy and soft inside, with caramelised cheese fried onto the walls of the pan along the edges. Baked in a steel pan in the oven, and you hardly stretch it by hand.
Oven: 280 °C, 12–15 min
4 × 450 g, ready tomorrow
Open crumb, cut in squares medium
Baked in an ordinary oven in a tray. The dough is very wet, but you hardly knead it, only fold.
Oven: 280 °C, 15–18 min
4 × 600 g, ready tomorrow
Only have a home oven? The app moves the Neapolitan there too: on a stone at 280 °C it plans 6 min a pizza instead of 65 sec, and heats the stone for 50 min first.
Yeast keeps time by warmth, not by the clock. Fornata turns every stage into hours at 20 °C and doses the yeast from a model calibrated against practice. An hour in the fridge at 4 °C counts as only 9 min, so the dough that spends most of its time in the cold gets more yeast.
Tomorrow
0.57 gfresh (compressed)
In two days
1.2 gfresh (compressed)
| Stage | Speed | Hours at 20 °C |
|---|---|---|
| Mixing18 min at 23 °C | × 1.35 | 0.405 |
| Bulk rest4 h at 22 °C | × 1.22 | 4.88 |
| Dividing into balls15 min at 22 °C | × 1.22 | 0.305 |
| Ball proofing20 h at 22 °C | × 1.22 | 24.4 |
| 24 h 41 min on the clock | 29.99 |
Fresh yeast = 9.28 ÷ 29.991.368 = 0.089 % of the flour, and 0.089 % of 640 g is 0.57 g.
The curve is calibrated on doughs that work in practice: 24 h at 20 °C take 0.12 % fresh yeast, 48 h take 0.05 %.
Today,
Just shaped
Tomorrow,
Ready for the oven
Mixing warms the dough, a machine more than hands, so the water starts cooler. The same Neapolitans in a 22 °C kitchen:
In summer, when the tap runs warm, the step tells you how much ice to add.
When to switch on, how hot and how long a pizza takes follow what you bake in. The same dinner at 7:00 PM:
In a home oven with a stone the whole batch takes 30 min to bake, so the plan moves: mixing starts at 6:27 PM instead of 6:18 PM.
The Book tab explains why dough behaves the way it does, with tables to cook from and a list of faults with their fixes. Offline, like the rest of the app.
Three lines from its table of faults: