Thin crust vs New York — the difference
Crisp versus foldable, settled in the dough: the Roman tonda is a dry, rolled-thin round that shatters when you bite it, while New York is a bigger, gently enriched dough stretched into the wide slice you fold to eat.
Side by side
Every number below is the calculator’s, at each style’s default size:
| Thin & crispy | New York | |
|---|---|---|
| Format | Hand-stretched round | Hand-stretched round |
| Typical size | 180 g ball ≈ 30 cm | 320 g ball ≈ 35 cm |
| Dough per pizza | 180 g | 320 g |
| Hydration | 56% | 63% |
| Salt | 2.5% | 2.5% |
| Oil | 2.5% | 2.5% |
| Sugar | — | 1.5% |
| Oven | 300 °C / 572 °F | 290 °C / 554 °F |
| Flour | All-purpose or light 00 | Bread flour |
| Protein | 10.5–12% | 12.5–14% |
What sets them apart
Thin & crispy. The tonda is the crispness specialist: stingy with the water, rolled — never stretched — to a thin, nearly rimless round, and baked hot until the whole disc crackles like its scrocchiarella name promises.
New York. New York is built around the fold: a heavier ball enriched with a little oil and sugar so the crumb stays tender and browns in a home oven, stretched wide and baked until the base holds a point without cracking at the crease.
Which one to make
Go Thin & crispy. Choose thin crust when you want shatter — an audibly crisp round where the toppings ride on a cracker.
Go New York. Choose New York for the classic big slice — chewy-crisp, foldable, and entirely at home on a steel in a domestic oven.
Both love a steel and a full preheat, and neither wants the blistered puffy rim of the Italian softies. They part at water and technique: New York keeps noticeably more hydration and is stretched by hand to preserve chew, while the tonda is mixed stiff and flattened with a rolling pin on purpose. Switch presets and the calculator reweighs the ball and rebalances the water.
For the numbers behind the table, see the hydration and flour guides.
Questions from the counter
Why does New York pizza fold while thin crust snaps?
Water and fat. The New York dough keeps enough hydration, plus a little oil, to stay flexible after the bake, so a wide slice bends at the crease instead of breaking. The tonda is mixed dry and rolled thin precisely so the oven can dry it into a cracker. Same steel, opposite targets.
Can I roll out New York dough to make it crispier?
Rolling will crisp it, but it presses out the chew that makes the slice New York — and the dough is wetter than a true cracker crust wants. If snap is the goal, start from the thin-crust preset instead: it's drier by design and meant to meet a rolling pin.
Make either one
The calculator weighs and schedules both — pick a preset and it does the rest.
The clock is a suggestion. The dough is the boss. In bocca al lupo!
Impasto is a free pizza dough calculator for Neapolitan, New York, Roman, Sicilian, Detroit, thin crust and focaccia doughs — flour, water, salt and yeast weighed in baker's percentages, with the fermentation schedule written for you.