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Media masa — Buenos Aires's twice-proofed everyday pan pizza

The everyday crust of Buenos Aires pizzerias: a medium-thickness dough proofed twice — once in bulk, once again in the pan — for a spongy, open crumb, then covered generously with cheese to the pan's edge.

For Media masa (Argentine half-dough pizza) in Domestic fan (convection) oven. One 30cm round pan, cut into wedges.

Dough spec

Flour
Bread flour
Hydration
64%
Salt
2.2%
Oil
4%

Scale this guide

Pan area
875 cm²
Dough (typical)
656 g
Range
525-788 g

Medium pan styles such as Grandma pizza or a standard sheet pizza.

This dough is sized to the pan, not a per-pizza ball weight — use the pan/tray dough calculator with your pan's dimensions and the medium_pan loading band for a different pan size. Open the full dough calculator for more control, or the fermentation schedule builder to work backwards from a target bake time using this guide’s room temperature long fermentation approach.

Steps

  1. MixMachine-mix flour, water, salt, and oil to a soft, extensible dough.
  2. Bulk fermentBulk ferment at room temperature for 1-2 hours.
  3. ShapePress the dough into an oiled round pan, working it out to the edge.
  4. Final proofProof a second time, in the pan, for a further 1-2 hours — this second, in-pan proof is what gives media masa its characteristic spongy, open crumb, and is the step most often skipped by home cooks trying to shortcut the schedule.
  5. TopApply tomato sauce, then cover generously with cheese all the way to the pan's edge — media masa is deliberately more cheese-forward than fugazza's traditionally cheese-free onion topping.
  6. BakeBake at around 220-250C for 10-15 minutes, until the cheese is bubbling and golden and the base is cooked through.
  7. RestRest briefly in the pan before cutting.
  8. ServeCut into wedges and share directly from the pan.

Bake notes

Skipping the second, in-pan proof is the most common way a home attempt ends up dense rather than spongy — treat both proofs as equally essential, not the first as 'real' fermentation and the second as just a rest.

The double-proof technique and dough percentages are generally-accepted documented conventions of Buenos Aires pizzeria practice; the specific bread-flour pairing is catalogued at a softer limited-evidence/editorial-inference confidence (see style-flour-associations), reflecting that home Argentine flour grades don't map precisely onto this catalogue's flour categories.

Generally accepted · Widely accepted contemporary practice

Show sources and evidence