What if Leopard Spotting in Neapolitan Pizza Never Deserved the Hype?
- Feb 21, 2025
- 8 min read
Introducing the Hype
Leopard spotting, the distinctive charred blisters on the crust of Neapolitan pizza, has become a sought-after characteristic among enthusiasts, especially in North America.
In Italy, appropriate coloration is considered a qualitative distinction, an indicator of proper dough fermentation and baking technique. However, in North America, leopard spotting—sometimes referred to as "the measle"—has often been elevated to an isolated criterion for quality, overshadowing other essential factors in evaluating a great pizza.
This tendency to pick up a single property of quality and exaggerate its importance is not unique to pizza (super flaky croissants lacking the chewiness of traditional French croissants, over-sourdoughing baked goods often losing balance, extreme bitterness in IPAs). A similar phenomenon occurred with Chardonnay, where excessive oakiness became a hallmark of premium quality, despite it not always being desirable.
Has leopard spotting met the same fate?
💡Oak aging in Chardonnay💡
Originally, oak aging in Chardonnay was used to add complexity, body, and subtle flavors like vanilla, spice, and butter. However, in the 1980s and 1990s, a trend emerged—especially in California—where heavily oaked Chardonnays became synonymous with premium quality. Wineries started overdoing it, using new oak barrels or oak chips to intensify the toasty, buttery flavors. This resulted in wines that were overly rich, masking the grape’s natural fruitiness and acidity.
Eventually, there was a backlash, and many winemakers shifted toward a more balanced style, emphasizing freshness and terroir instead of excessive oak.
What to Look for in a Neapolitan Pizza?
A great Neapolitan pizza experience is an easy-to-digest harmony of taste, aroma, and texture
Taste – A balance of light sourness (fermentation) and bitterness (charred spots), complemented by umami-rich ingredients.
Aroma – Fresh basil, aged cheeses, and the unmistakable scent of a high-heat oven.
Texture – Soft yet structured, with a chewy interior, airy cornicione, and a subtly crisp base.
Digestibility – Beyond the degustation, the pizza should be easy to digest.
You can read the full article here: https://nonanza.wixsite.com/nonanza/post/what-defines-a-great-neapolitan-pizza
Defining Leopard Spotting
It’s important to define the terms used, as leopard spotting is not a binary characteristic but rather exists on a spectrum.
I suggest referring to the overall process of color change in dough as coloration and the appearance of dark spots on the pizza as spotting or blistering, breaking it down further in 3 categories:
Heavy spotting (or measles, “a morbillo” in Italian): Large, dark blisters covering most of the crust.
Light spotting (or browning): Scattered, small blisters that add subtle contrast.
No spotting: A uniformly golden crust without distinct dark spots.
All three variations can be found in various pizza styles around the world. For instance, Roman and New York styles have very few, if at all, spotting due to the lower baking temperature needed to achieve their iconic crispiness.
For Neapolitan style, the key question remains: what level of spotting truly represents the best experience? First, we need to understand what causes these charred blisters. Then, we’ll analyze the impact of each level of spotting on the final product before concluding on the ideal balance for Neapolitan pizza.
What Causes the Charred Blisters?
Before baking, two key processes must take place to enable the coloration of Neapolitan pizza such as:
Dough maturation: Enzymes degrade the starches, proteins and fats into other simpler molecules changing the properties of the dough. This process is also important for digestibility as some of the raw components of flour are less digestible by the human organism. Three reactions are mostly important:
Amylase: α-amylase and β-amylase break down starch into maltose and other simple sugars. These sugars feed yeast fermentation and also participate in caramelization and Maillard reactions, intensifying crust coloration.
Protease: Proteases break down gluten proteins into smaller peptides and amino acids. This process softens the dough, making it more extensible and influencing the way it expands during baking. The amino acids released are crucial for the Maillard reaction, enhancing browning and the formation of complex flavors.
Lipases: While less significant, lipases break down fats into free fatty acids, which can contribute to subtle flavor development and influence browning indirectly
Dough fermentation: Yeasts consume the sugars made available by the enzymes and produce carbon dioxide, creating gas pockets that expand during baking.
Once dough maturation and fermentation have taken place, four main processes happen simultaneously during baking to create the spotting:
Gas expansion: Pockets of trapped CO₂ and steam cause the dough to rise, forming larger air pockets.
Gluten network expansion: The gluten structure expands under the pressure of the gas expansion, an even structure ensures even oven spring, minimizing excessive blistering while allowing controlled bubbling. Those little bubbles create different heights in the crust, exposing some parts to higher heat from the oven by bringing them closer to the heat source and drying them, creating favorable conditions for caramelization and Maillard reaction to happen.
Caramelization: Simple sugars such as glucose and fructose (and certain other carbohydrates) when heated to high temperatures have the ability to brown. Caramelization requires high temperatures, becoming noticeable around 330°F/165°C.
Maillard reaction: Involves a reaction between sugars (or carbohydrates) and amino acids. Compared to caramelization, it occurs at lower temperatures (around 100°F/50°C).
Maturation (enzymatic activity) and fermentation (yeast activity) occur at different speeds. At room temperature, fermentation takes only a few hours depending on the quantity of yeast while maturation takes up to 36 hours.
The perfect blistering is achieved only if both maturation and fermentation reach the appropriate level at the same time.
If maturation is complete but fermentation is incomplete, the dough will lack gas to expand.
If the maturation is incomplete, the dough will lack the necessary sugars to feed fermentation and develop the appropriate coloration and the pizza will not be easy to digest.
If maturation goes beyond completion, the dough will start losing its structure and form large bubbles (heavy spotting) as the proteins forming the gluten network will degrade beyond the appropriate level.
Temperature here plays a key role as it slows down fermentation more than it does to maturation. By lowering temperature we can lower fermentation speed allowing for the appropriate time for maturation.
For these specific reasons, light spotting (no large bubbles, no burnt parts) demonstrates the perfect management of both maturation and fermentation.
Sasà Martucci | I Masanielli Caserta, 16° 50 Top Pizza World 2024, 6° 50 Top Pizza Italia 2024
No Spotting is the Sign of Undesirable Characteristics
While many factors can contribute to a lack of spotting, here’s a selection of common causes and their effects:
Extreme crispiness due to low oven temperature: When the oven is not hot enough, the dough dries out rather than caramelizing properly, resulting in a dry and hard crust texture, sometimes chewy.
Lack of caramelization due to over-fermentation: Excessive fermentation depletes available sugars, leading to an overly acidic dough with reduced browning potential. This also weakens the dough structure, impacting both texture and appearance (leading to a dough digestible but with weak aromas).
Lack of caramelization due to under-fermentation: Insufficient fermentation means that starches have not yet converted into sugars necessary for caramelization. This results in a bland, one-dimensional flavor profile, particularly affecting the middle and background aromatic notes (most likely not easy to digest as fermentation is typically faster than maturation, weak aromas, dense structure).
Uneven caramelization of sugars due to poor flame positioning: Improper heat distribution in the oven can lead to uneven caramelization, causing some areas to burn while others remain pale and dry (extreme bitterness due to large burnt spots while lighter parts lack flavor depth).
Lack of caramelization due to excessive use of semolina or flour: Heavy dusting of semolina or flour on the dough surface can act as a barrier to caramelization insulating the dough from direct heat. This prevents the desired crust development and results in a dry, flavor-lacking final product. This can also lead to thicker crust and floury feel.
Heavy Spotting Can Come Along with a Loss of Balance
While some charring is desirable in Neapolitan pizza, excessive blistering can also impact the final product:
Appearance: Overly large or numerous blisters can make the crust look burnt rather than attractively charred.
Taste: While light bitterness adds complexity, excessive charring can overwhelm other flavors.
Texture: Large blisters tend to become fragile and crumbly, compromising the crust’s texture.
Several factors can contribute to extreme blistering, affecting the final texture and coloration:
Overly structured dough: A dough with excessive strength (e.g., from excessive mixing) have low volume after leavening, the air bubbles (alveoli) are not spread evenly throughout the entire loaf.
Big bubbles form where alveoli are bigger causing extreme bitterness
Scarcity of alveoli where the tomatoes are doesn’t allow for rapid cooking leading to uncooked base
If cooking is extended, the water evaporates leading to a crunchy texture
Under fermented dough due to rapid refrigeration: Cooling the dough too quickly can hinder fermentation, limiting gas production and distribution - the dough is “blocked” and the air pockets are not porous - making it harder for the gluten network to expand properly leading to a denser pizza.
Under fermented dough (and incomplete maturation): If the dough was fermented at room temperature, under fermentation also means under maturation leading to irregular spotting (uneven distribution of gas across the dough ball).
Cold dough: Due to excessive dough strength and small size of the air bubbles (alveoli), among other factors, using dough straight from the fridge prevents even expansion and can lead to irregular blistering as well as uneven bake inside the dough.
Light Spotting Brings Desirable Characteristics to Neapolitan Pizza
A well-colored crust enhances the visual appeal, taste, aroma, and texture, elevating the entire pizza experience.
Visual appeal: A properly browned crust creates an appetizing look by balancing colors and contrasts adding depth to the pizza’s presentation.
Taste enhancement: The coloration process contributes significantly to the taste profile of the pizza. A slight bitterness from caramelization counterbalances the sweetness and acidity of the tomato sauce, ensuring a harmonious blend of sweet, salty, sour, and bitter elements.
Aromatic complexity: A well-baked pizza emits a full spectrum of aromas:
Top notes: The first aromas when the pizza arrives at the table is rich in caramelization scents (fragrant volatile molecules), immediately stimulating appetite. These aromas come from the caramelization of degraded starches (e.g., cooked sugar, rich, nutty, and slightly bitter)
Middle notes: These develop through the caramelization starches and Maillard reaction producing complex and meaty flavors (e.g., roasted cocoa, coffee, nuts, toffee, maple syrup, and molasses).
Background (base) notes: Maillard reactions produce deep, earthy base notes providing a lingering depth to the flavor profile.
Textural impact: coloration serves as a visual indicator of a properly baked pizza, affecting both texture and mouthfeel:
A well-colored crust offers a light crunch, providing a pleasant auditory and tactile sensation.
It ensures that the pizza is thoroughly baked, balancing the interplay between floppiness and firmness in the base, crucial for achieving the desired structure of a Neapolitan pizza.
Digestibility: If both maturation and fermentation are well complete, the pizza will be easier to digest leading to a more enjoyable experience
Should You Be Looking for Leopard Spotting?
While a light and even leopard spotting indicates proper dough maturation, fermentation and baking technique focusing on it excessively has led to heavy spotting in some cases—like with over-oaked Chardonnay—can overshadow other key qualities of a great Neapolitan pizza. Instead of seeing it as an isolated standard, we should appreciate it as part of a larger balance of taste, texture, and digestibility.
One could consider extreme blistering as an intentional stylistic choice when executed with skill. While difficult, intensified spotting can be counterbalanced with the right ingredient pairings. Similar to how chefs use burnt onions to introduce a controlled bitterness, charring can add complexity when harmonized with other elements. Balance is key.
However, can extreme blistering be achieved when maturation and fermentation are both adequately managed?
Sources
Masi, Paolo, Annalisa Romano, and Matteo Bordignon. The Neapolitan Pizza: A Scientific Guide to the Art of Pizza Making. Springer, 2021
Casucci, Fabrizio. La Pizza è un'Arte. Edizioni Malvarosa, 2020.
Italia Squisita. Pizza napoletana: i 6 errori più comuni - Enzo Coccia. 2017. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV4gegZ7JNU
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