Pizza Dough

I get asked for my pizza dough recipe all the time. So much that I have it written down online in multiple locations. Here is another one of them.

Ingredients

| Ingredient   | 1x      | 4x     | 6x      |
|--------------+---------+--------+---------|
| Bread flour  | 300 g   | 1200 g | 1800 g  |
| Yeast        | 2 1/4 t | 3 T    | 4 1/2 T |
| Sugar        | 1 1/2 t | 2 T    | 3 T     |
| Salt         | 3/4 t   | 1 T    | 1 1/2 T |
| Olive oil[1] | 2 T     | 8 T    | 12 T    |
| Water        | 175 mL  | 700 mL | 1050 mL |

Method

• Add bread flour, yeast, sugar, salt, olive oil into a bowl. Combine.
• Add water. Knead in the bowl til it's fairly together, then dump onto a lightly-floured counter.
• Keep kneading on the counter until the dough comes together and is pretty smooth and stretchy. You can look up the /window pane test/ online if you want to get fancy with it. I usually go for like, 10--15 minutes. However long it takes to work the frustration out of your body.
• Put some olive oil in the bowl.
• Make the dough into a ball[2] and put it in the bowl. Roll it around so it's well-oiled.
• Let it rise til it's at least doubled in size. Should take like, an hour or less. Sometimes I think I should use less yeast.
• Feel free to punch it down and let it rise some more, or put it in the fridge overnight, or whatever. Seriously, this dough is really forgiving and I've punched it and re-risen it like, I think 5x before and it was fine? The longer you let the yeast work on the dough the better it will taste. That's just science.
• Take the dough and put it on the counter. Honestly it probably doesn't need to be floured (the dough will be smooth enough not to stick), but you can flour it if you want.
• Cut the dough into however many pieces you made the recipe to above. Usually I get something like 510 g out of each piece. They should be roughly equal in weight.
• Make balls of your pieces and put those pieces in freezer-safe bags (quarts usually work for me). Put them in the freezer until you're ready to use em!

Making pizza with the dough

Honestly for this part I do kinda what you see on TV or wherever. Let the dough thaw for a while til it's workable. Plop it on the counter. Pull it into a smallish disc. Pick it up and put it on your knuckles, and gently stretch it into a wider and wider disc. You could throw it in the air, but I've never been able to successfully.

I use parchment paper under the dough so it doesn't stick to the thing I slide it onto the pizza stone with but you could just put the dough in a pan. Put sauce on, cheese, toppings.

Bake at 450 or so (I've done more but not really less) for like, 14 minutes. I am a big believer in experimentation and trusting that you know what a pizza is supposed to look like. Just look at it and smell it and use your brains :)

Then, you know, eat it.

Notes

8 T is 1/2 c. 12 T is 3/4 c.

Making a dough ball is one of the more technical bits of pizza dough making. What you want to do is ...

• Take the piece of dough in both hands. It really doesn't matter that much what it looks like.
• Rather than rolling it between your hands to make a ball, play-dough style, take the edges and fold them into the center.
• Flip the dough over and drag it on the counter toward you to pull the "skin" of the ball tight.
• You can repeat this process if you need to, or just keep putting the ball on the counter and pulling it toward you.

Honestly, seeing it is going to be better than me explaining it. Try this video: Making a dough ball

There are literally dozens of these on YouTube, so go nuts.