Making pizza dough is easy with just flour, water, yeast, oil, and sugar. Knead the dough for 10 minutes, let it rise, then shape and bake. Freeze for later use.
Making pizza dough is extremely easy, despite what you may have heard, and you may enjoy the process immensely once you get used to it. In addition to using pizza dough, you can also use it to make focaccia, another popular Italian bread product, and you don’t need to use pizza dough as soon as you can. You can make pizza dough and then freeze it for later use, raw or in cooked form, depending on personal taste.
The ingredients needed to prepare the pizza dough are very simple: flour, water, yeast, oil and a small amount of sugar. Start by dissolving a packet of yeast in one and a third cups of warm water, adding a tablespoon of sugar to fuel the yeast. Let the yeast sit for about 10 minutes, until frothy. If it doesn’t, the yeast was bad and you’ll have to start over with fresh yeast. This process is known as “fixing,” incidentally.
Add a tablespoon of salt and a cup of all-purpose flour to create a slurry of flour and water. Next, add a tablespoon of oil. Beat the slurry well; this will save you time kneading dough later. Then, add another cup of flour to the dough. If you want a whole-wheat pizza dough, you can use whole-wheat flour at this stage, creating an even mix of whole-wheat and all-purpose flour. The mixture should still be fairly wet, so add the flour until it starts to pull into a ball; you may need 3-4 cups total, depending on your kitchen conditions.
Turn your pizza dough out onto a floured surface and let it rest for a few minutes. Next, start kneading, folding the dough over itself again and again until it acquires a satiny texture. Once skewered, the dough should slowly spring back. You may need to add flour to the counter periodically as you knead the dough, and the kneading process should take about 10 minutes. According to this wise GEEK author’s Italian grandmother, you’ll know when the dough is done when it’s “as soft as a baby’s bottom.”
Once this process is done, place the pizza dough in an oiled bowl, turning once to make sure the pizza dough is covered in oil. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and put it in a warm place. If your house is a little chilly, preheat the oven briefly and let the dough rest inside. Let the dough rise until doubled in size, a process that will take about an hour to an hour and a half, then punch it out. For a thinner pizza, divide the dough in half; for a thick crust, leave it as is, and either way let it rise for another 15 minutes or so while you prepare the ingredients.
After the short second rise, roll out the dough in one round. Sprinkle a pizza stone or baking sheet with cornmeal to prevent sticking and spread your pizza over it, lightly rubbing the surface with oil and crinkling it with your fingers to prevent bubbling as the pizza cooks. Let the dough rest for another 10 minutes before re-covering and baking.
If you’re kneading the pizza with the intention of using it as a later date, you can follow the instructions above up to the topping stage and then you can bake the dough partially, let it cool completely, and then freeze it so it can be ready when you need it. You can also freeze unbaked dough that’s been rolled out, but be prepared to let it wake up for about half an hour before using it. You can also make pizza dough and place it in the refrigerator for a few days before using. When making pizza dough that you plan to refrigerate, refrigerate it after the first rise, allowing it to pass through the second rise when you’re ready to use it.
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