Homemade Pizza Dough

Why not make your own pizza dough?

It really isn’t that difficult to make pizza dough from scratch. We got into the pizza night routine years ago. At first it was frozen pizzas, meh! Then a poor attempt at bread machine dough. Great if you like the flavour of yeast and a bread pizza. For the longest time we were getting fresh pizza from Costco. There was always a weird aftertaste from the cheese though. I started making the dough in this recipe and have never looked back. It’s a same day dough that has very little hands on time. This rim is puffy, the crust is light, airy and will support deluxe toppings. Looking at the recipe and the timeline I use, you might think it’s a lot of work. It’s not. It takes me less than 15 minutes to prep., make the dough, get it into it’s proofing bowl and clean up my mess.

It’s not all about the toppings

Toppings don’t necessarily define the style of pizza. A lot has to do with the dough and how it is cooked. Neapolitan pizzas are cooked at temperatures of 800℉-1000℉ for 60-90 seconds. The result is a thin crust with a puffy rim. This recipe is based on that style. A residential oven doesn’t have the ability to reach these temperatures, so we’ve modified the dough and the cooking times. Don’t get me wrong, we’re not making Neapolitan pizza, we make a deluxe pizza on a Neapolitan style crust. Big difference. It’s almost a cross between Neapolitan and the New York style which is cooked lower and longer.

This style is easier to replicate at home. Pan pizza, skillet pizza, there are many different styles. They all come back to the four basic ingredients. Water, flour, yeast and salt. Throw in a bit of patience, and you have a recipe for the perfect dough.

WEIGH YOUR INGREDIENTS

I prefer to measure the weight of my ingredients. You can pull a cup of flour out of the bag and you’ll notice that a simple action like packing density in that cup will drastically affect the outcome of your dough. As an example, 1 cup of bread flour should weigh in at 120 grams, over or under packing that flour, can throw that number out of whack quite easily.

Yeast is a very significant ingredient that, can make or break your pizza. Too much and your making bread, too little and your getting take out. I use 1.8 grams of yeast for a 16″ pizza shell. Weighing your ingredients will give you exacting results and the ability to fine tune if necessary.

BAKERS PERCENTAGE

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve made this dough. To get consistent results I always keep the water to flour ratio at 60%. So for the 300 grams of flour in this recipe, I use 180 grams of water. Basic math. The same goes if I were to make a small pizza using 100 grams of flour, in that case I would use 60 grams of water. It would give me the same dough consistency as the large pizza. Simply put, the percentages are always based off the amount of flour, and that amount will always be 100%. In this case for every 100 grams of flour I use 2 grams of salt (2%). And finally for every 100 grams of flour I use 0.6 grams of yeast.

I know, it’s not an exciting read, but all I’m saying is that if you want to adjust the size of the pizza, it’s easy to do.

Tip: A digital scale that will measure as low as 0.1 gram is a worthwhile investment as a kitchen tool.

BRING ON THE HEAT

Baking pizza in a residential oven can come at a temperature disadvantage. However the thought of our gas range reaching temperatures of 1000℉ is somewhat disturbing to me. I can’t talk about residential oven specs. but, our oven reaches a rated maximum temperature of  550℉. Because we are not cooking a 90 second pizza at 900℉, a crust with a low moisture content will dry out at the longer and lower temperatures we’re confined to without having a pizza oven. This is why for the total weight of flour I use 60% weight of water. Grams or ounces the math is the same. Like I mentioned earlier, you may not ever use this but I find it’s a good rule of thumb for pizza dough.

USE A PIZZA STONE

Using a metal pizza pan won’t give the best results for this crust. I highly recommend using a pizza stone. The stone should be brought up to temperature with the oven and preheated for at least 30 minutes before cooking the pizza.
Tip: Always make your crust at least 1″ diameter smaller than the stone.

IT’S A LARGE PIZZA

The following recipe in this post is for 1 large or 2 small pizzas. We always make a large 16″

A TIMELINE FOR BUILDING THE DOUGH

This is a basic timeline that we use. It’s simple, it works and will give you a great pizza crust every time.

The first decision you need to make, is the size of pizza. If this is your first homemade pizza dough, I highly recommend making 2 ten inch pizzas. The dough is much easier to handle at a smaller size. Simply create 2 dough balls when getting ready to proof the dough.

THE FIRST THING YOU NEED TO DO IS GATHER YOUR MATERIALS.

300 grams of all bread flour
180 grams warm water (95℉-105℉)
6 grams fine sea salt
1.8 grams active dry yeast

COMBINE THE INGREDIENTS (10:00 AM)

• If using a stand mixer, warm the bowl with warm water and discard the water.
• In the mixing bowl, dissolve the sea salt in the 180 grams of water.
• Add the yeast to the water/salt mixture and wait 5 minutes
• Combine the flour and water
• With a stand mixer use a dough hook on #2 for approx. 5 minutes. The dough will be tacky and stuck to the dough hook. Gently scrape off the hook and let stand for 20 minutes.
• If mixing by hand, keep your hand wet and mix the dough in a squeezing motion. while rotating the bowl with your other hand. Mix for about 5 minutes, until the dough is well combined and sticky. Let stand for 20 minutes.

THE FIRST RISE (10:30 AM)

• Turn the dough out onto a floured surface. Flour your hands and gently form the dough into a ball. If it’s sticky knead a little more flour into it. Dust the dough ball with flour and place it in a covered medium size bowl.
• Place the dough in a warm draft free location.
• Tip: If your house is cool, put the bowl in a cool oven and turn on the light. The incandescent light will warm the oven slightly.

WAIT AN HOUR AND A HALF (12:00 PM)

• If you are making smaller pizzas, this is were you would divide the dough into smaller dough balls.
  • With the dough in front of you, grasp the right side, gently pull sideways (without tearing the dough) and fold over the top. Rotate 90 degrees and repeat.
  • Do this procedure several times
  • Flip the dough over and form into a ball. Try to create some tension by placing both hands around the dough ball with your baby fingers on the counter. Grasp the dough ball and gently pull towards you. This should cause the dough to tighten on the surface.
  • Place the dough back into a lightly oiled bowl. Lightly oil the surface of the dough, cover and put back into a warm draft free location.

FOUR – FIVE MORE HOURS AND YOU’RE READY TO GO (4-5:00 PM)

• After the dough has proofed for 4 – 5 hours, it is ready for use
• Dust your hands in flour and place the dough on a generously floured surface. Gently flatten the centre and with your fingertips push out towards the edge. Leave about half an inch around the perimeter. Flip the dough over and do the same. You can stretch the dough by holding the rim at 10 and 2 o’clock. Let it hang and the weight of the pizza will stretch the dough. Another method is to drape the dough over the back of both hands and gently stretch and rotate it into the size. The dough should be thin but yet thick enough to support the toppings. In the event of a tear, just patch it with a piece of dough. Place your newly shaped pizza dough on a well floured peel.
• Tip: If you’re worried that the crust will stick to the peel use parchment paper. I actually form the crust on parchment paper with a dusting of cornmeal. Cut the paper a bit oversize so you have enough to grasp while baking for removal. Then slide the parchment paper and crust onto the peel and add the toppings. When you’re ready to bake the pizza, slide it onto your pizza stone with the parchment paper. Five minutes into baking the pizza the paper should release and you can pull it out from between the pizza and stone.

IT’S TIME TO MAKE A PIZZA

And there you have it. All thats left is to add the toppings and bake it off. I said before there’s not a lot of hands on time. Most of it is waiting for the dough to rise. Watch a movie, go shopping do whatever you want. Maybe get out your cutting board and start prepping for our Super deluxe pizza or our Chicken, red onion and jalapeño pizza.