There's little point in trying to match the horsepower available to a pizzaiolo. Their professional pizza ovens, especially the models that burn wood or coal, are the muscle cars of kitchens: when blazing at temperatures that range from 800 degrees to an infernal 1,000 degrees, they can turn raw dough into a blistered, bubbling pizza in as little as 75 seconds. It puts the home cook, whose oven typically reaches 550 degrees, at a permanent disadvantage. No wonder some of the pizza-obsessed do everything to coax their ovens into performing above their limits. (Making pizza on the self-cleaning cycle seems to be popular.) The Johnny Knoxville approach has its appeal. But after cooking more than 200 pizzas over several months, I learned an easier way to edge closer to the kind of airy, creamy, chewy, thin crust you find at pizzerias that have otherwise sane people waiting in line for an hour. And it has less to do with heat than good baking technique. I let the dough rise overnight. It's not a new idea. Anthony Mangieri redefined New York's artisanal scene when he opened Una Pizza Napoletana in 2004 (now living in San Francisco, he will reopen his pizzeria there later this summer). He learned to let dough rise for 24 hours in Naples. Pizzeria Mozza in Los Angeles, Pizzeria Delfina in San Francisco and Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix all have overnight rises; at Lucali's in Brooklyn, the dough rises for about 36 hours; and at Saraghina, also in Brooklyn, it goes for as long as 72 hours. And yet most recipes for the home cook specify a three-hour rise at room temperature. That might be enough to let activated yeast produce carbon dioxide that inflates the dough. But the prolonged fermentation of an overnight rise not only develops the dough's structure, it also enables starches to transform into flavorful sugars. The dough becomes complex and nuanced. It's a crust you want to eat. It's also a crust you want to admire. While a three-hour rise yields a crust that has the pasty pallor of raw flour, the caramelized sugars from an overnight rise give the cornicione, or edge, a color that goes from golden brown to the deep bronze of a '70s tan. Peter Reinhart, author of 'Artisan Breads Every Day' and 'American Pie,' said the 24-hour wait will improve any dough: take your favorite recipe, let it sit overnight, then enjoy the upgrade. Reinhart recommends letting the dough rise at room temperature for three hours, then refrigerating it. Or you might follow the example of Mangieri and let the dough remain at room temperature for the entire rise. Mangieri is unusually candid for a pizzaiolo (most guard the tricks of their trade -- understandably, they don't want to give away the store). Besides employing an overnight rise, he uses a natural starter (instead of yeast) and Italian 00 flour. Italian 00 flour is considered 'soft' -- low in the proteins called glutens that give dough its elasticity, like the flour used in the thin and supple Naples-style pizzas so popular in New York. Only I discovered that things aren't so simple. The 00 designation refers to how finely the flour is milled, not the protein content. Some 00 flours are around 7 percent proteins, others are 11 percent or higher. (By comparison, all-purpose flour is around 11 percent.) While many pizzaioli consider the ideal 00 pizza flour to have 8 to 10 percent protein, there's no sure way to tell from the bag, although some brands, like King Arthur Flour and Divella, post the percentages on their websites. My goal was to mix soft and hard flours for a crust with Naples-style pliability and a bit of American chew. (Some pizzerias swear by a single flour, while others formulate blends.) Blending the flours doesn't mean they cancel each other out. 'It's like mixing vinegar and olive oil,' said Edoardo Mantelli, the pizzaiolo of Saraghina. 'Together they create a different flavor.' Flavor is the point. Which is why, although I came up with a yeast dough that I like, I much prefer one made from a mother starter -- sometimes called a sponge. It is a natural culture of active yeasts (which produce carbon dioxide and alcohol) and bacteria (which produce lactic acid) that both leaven pizzas and give them a tangy bite. There is plenty of mythology surrounding mother starters, what Jeff Ford of Cress Spring Bakery in Blue Mounds, Wis., calls 'misty-eyed accounts of capturing yeast in the air.' According to Ford, all you're doing is using water to activate dormant yeasts and bacteria already on the flour. 'You're essentially becoming a farmer by providing an environment for microorganisms that want to grow,' Ford said. 'It's slightly more complicated than opening a pack of yeast, but it doesn't take a lot of effort.' Indeed, following the instructions in 'Artisan Breads Every Day' took almost no effort. After a little more than a week of mixing flour with liquid (Reinhart starts with unsweetened pineapple juice, which counteracts a harmful bacteria, then switches to filtered or spring water), I began a culture that lives today, months later, in my refrigerator. Keeping the starter alive is easier than caring for a pet egg. Every week or so I mix flour with water and add some of the starter, discarding the rest (or giving it to a curious friend). To use the starter, break it apart in water, add it to the flour and salt, mix and let it rise overnight. Over time, I learned to let it sit at room temperature overnight to develop the lactic acid for a pleasant sharpness. Dough this elemental doesn't need honey or sugar for flavor. And it doesn't need olive oil -- raw dough is easy to handle with slightly damp hands. To shape the pizza, press out the dough on a floured surface with two hands, spinning the disk while flattening it. (A rolling pin abuses the dough's structure; tossing it into the air is an unnecessary flourish.) If the dough is overworked and contracts, let it rest a minute and start again. Go light on the toppings: no more than an ounce of sauce for a classic margherita. Pull mozzarella into irregular chunks for a more varied texture. And you should have a metal pizza peel (which releases dough more easily than wood), a pizza cutter and a pizza stone, which lets you get the most out of your oven without invalidating the warranty. Place the stone on the bottom of the oven to absorb more heat, turn the temperature as high as possible and warm it up for an hour before baking. If you have a convection fan, turn it on. Someday, you might build a wood-burning oven -- right after you start making your own vinegar, raising honeybees and churning butter with cream from cows you milk. Until then, you can make pizzeria-quality pizza with the perfectly normal oven in your kitchen. PIZZA DOUGH WITH SOURDOUGH STARTER Time: 20 minutes, plus 1 or 2 days' resting Combine two specialty flours to create the right texture. 8 ounces sourdough starter (see recipe) 10 ounces 00 flour such as Divella or King Arthur Italian Style (about 2 cups) 6 ounces high-gluten flour such as King Arthur Sir Lancelot (about 1 cup plus 1 tablespoon) 1 ounce salt (about 4 teaspoons) Additional flour, for dusting. 1. Using your fingers, break the starter dough into 1-inch pieces in a bowl and mix with 1 cup room temperature water until soupy and chunky. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the flours and salt, then add the starter and water. Mix with a wooden spoon until the dough begins to bind, then let rest for 5 minutes. Using the dough hook, knead on the mixer's second-lowest setting for 5 to 7 minutes, until dough pulls away from the bowl and becomes a smooth ball. Lift dough hook, scraping off any excess dough. Settle a sheet of plastic wrap on the dough, and let rest for 3 to 4 hours. 2. Cut dough into 4 8-ounce pieces. (For smaller pizzas, divide into 5 6-ounce pieces.) Turn each piece out on a floured surface, folding and kneading three or four times until it becomes a smooth ball. Place each piece in a plastic bin large enough to allow it to double in size, let a sheet of plastic wrap settle on the dough, and cover with a lid. Refrigerate for 48 hours, or at least 24 hours, before shaping and baking. Yield: Dough for 4 12-inch pizzas or 5 9-inch pizzas. RADICCHIO PIZZA WITH GREMOLATA Time: 45 minutes, plus at least 90 minutes' resting Radicchio Pizza with Gremolata; No tomatoes, but plenty of citrus. 32 ounces pizza dough in 4 equal portions (see recipe) 1 bunch parsley, roughly chopped 2 cloves garlic, minced Zest of 2 lemons Zest of 2 oranges Zest of 2 grapefruit 2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for drizzling Salt and fresh ground pepper Flour, for dusting 2 heads radicchio, cored and outer leaves discarded, cut into 1/4-inch strips 8 ounces mozzarella 2 ounces grated Parmesan or aged pecorino. 1. Remove dough from refrigerator 90 minutes before baking. An hour before baking, heat oven with a baking stone set on its floor to its highest temperature. If it has a convection fan, turn it on. 2. Mix the parsley, garlic, citrus zests and 2 tablespoons of the oil. Add salt and fresh ground pepper until the flavor is strong and sharp. Let the gremolata sit for at least 30 minutes, or up to two hours. 3. On a floured surface, pull one ball of dough into a disk with your fingers, then press down and fan out your hands until the dough is about 12 inches across, about 1/8-inch thick in the center and 1/4-inch thick around the edge. 4. Gently drag dough onto a floured pizza peel, preferably metal. Working efficiently so the dough does not stick to the peel, scatter with 1/4 of the grated cheese, 1/4 of the mozzarella and, last, 1/4 of the radicchio -- it will look like too much, but it will cook down. Sprinkle with olive oil and a pinch of salt. Quickly open the oven and slide pizza onto stone. Bake for 6 to 8 minutes, until crust is puffy and radicchio is wilted and charred. Meanwhile, prepare next pizza and repeat with remaining dough and toppings. Let each pizza rest for one minute before spooning 1/4 of the gremolata over it and slicing. Yield: 4 12-inch pizzas. PIZZA DOUGH WITH YEAST Time: 20 minutes, plus at least 27 hours' resting Dough that take a short time to make but a long time to be ready to bake. 12 ounces 00 flour like Delvina or King Arthur Italian Style (about 2 cups plus 2 tablespoons) 10 ounces high-gluten flour like King Arthur's Sir Lancelot (about 2 cups) 1 ounce salt (about 4 teaspoons) 1 teaspoon instant yeast Additional flour, for dusting. 1. Combine flours, salt and yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add 2 cups of room temperature water, then mix on low speed using dough hook until dough binds, about 1 minute, adding more water as necessary. Let rest for 5 minutes. Knead on second-lowest setting for 5 to 7 minutes, until dough pulls away from the bowl and forms a smooth ball. Turn out onto a floured surface, knead and form into a ball, then let rest in a bowl for 3 to 4 hours. 2. Cut dough into 4 8-ounce pieces. (Or divide into 5 6-ounce pieces for smaller pizzas.) Turn out each piece on a floured surface, folding and kneading each three or four times until it forms a smooth ball. Set each piece in a plastic bin large enough to allow it to double in size, settle a sheet of plastic wrap on the dough, then cover with a lid. Refrigerate for 48 hours, or at least 24 hours, before shaping and baking. Yield: Dough for 4 12-inch pizzas or 5 9-inch pizzas. SOURDOUGH STARTER Adapted from 'Artisan Breads Every Day,' by Peter Reinhart (Ten Speed Press, 2009) Time: 4 to 8 days, mostly unattended Sourdough Starter; For pizza that is the opposite of fast food. 16 ounces flour 3 ounces unsweetened pineapple juice 10 ounces filtered or spring water. 1. Make seed culture: Combine 1 ounce of the flour and 2 ounces unsweetened pineapple juice in a large glass or small nonreactive bowl. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature, stirring with a wet spoon twice a day. Bubbles should appear after 24 to 36 hours. After 48 hours, add 1 ounce flour and remaining pineapple juice, stirring to incorporate. Re-cover with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature, stirring with a wet spoon twice a day. When it is foamy, in 1 to 4 days, combine 2 ounces flour and 1 ounce filtered or spring water in a medium nonreactive bowl. Add seed culture, stirring to incorporate, and re-cover with plastic wrap. Stir twice a day to aerate. 2. When mixture has doubled in bulk, in 1 to 2 days, convert it into a starter: Combine 12 ounces flour and 9 ounces filtered or spring water in bowl. Add 4 ounces of seed culture mixture (discard the rest, or use to make a second starter) and mix until fully incorporated. Transfer to a lightly floured surface and knead for 2 minutes. It should have the consistency of bread dough. Transfer to a nonreactive bowl and let rest at room temperature until it doubles in size, about 4 to 8 hours. Knead lightly, then store in container with tight-fitting lid (container must be large enough to let starter triple in bulk). Store in refrigerator. Note: Every 5 to 10 days the starter will need to be fed with more flour and water. Follow the directions in step 2 above, substituting starter for seed culture. Yield: 25 ounces, or enough for 2 pizza recipes and leftover starter. 