Makes 4-5 pizza bases. You can also use this focaccia bread/garlic herb bread.
- 680 g bread flour or Italian "OO" flour (5 1/3 cups)
- 14 g salt (2 teaspoon regular salt or 1 tablespoon coarse salt)
- 3 g instant yeast (1 teaspoon)
- 482 g water at room temp ~75-80F (2 cups + 2 tablespoons)
- 28 g sugar or honey or agave (2 tablespoons)
- 28 g olive iol (2 tablespoons)
These are all optional, and have included alternatives, but if you're going to be making a lot of pizza, these will be good investemnts (listed in order of usefulness).
- Kitchen scales (~$12) highly recommended because will help with all your other baking recipies too! As an alternative I've included volume measures too. Measuring ingrediants by weight helps a lot with consistancy when using flour because depending on how densly packed flour is how much you get in "1 cup" can vary quite dramatically. Measuring by weight means you get the same each time. Depending on your brand of flour, you might want to experiment with flour:water ratio too, and scales allow much finer level of experimentation.
- Pizza stone (~$30) or baking steel (~$30-$100) to bake pizza on. A steel can get more expensive but a quick look on Amazon saw some good deals. Benefit of a steel that it will never break. The stones can crack if heating/cooling too fast, or if you drop. The steel is practically indestructible. If you can get a second hand steel for good price DO IT! might have some rust, but easy to clean off. Alternative to stone or steel is to use a regular (aluminium) baking sheet, but crust won't be as nice. Another alternative is to cook in a cast iron pan, which gets crispy base, but makes a smaller pizza.
- Pizza peel for getting pizza in and out of oven (~$24). I use a metal one, but wooden ones can double as a nice serving board. Alternative is to use large board or baking sheet flipped over so the pizza can side off, but is more awkward and risk deforming pizza/burning hand when transferring to oven. If you're cooking pizza in a cast iron pan you don't need this at all.
- Stand mixer with dough hook. I use it because I have one, but it's really not needed, only saves a couple mins kneading time.
- Combine all ingredients into a large bowl and mix until no dry ingredients are left.
- Rest dough for 10 minutes to fully hydrate the dough.
- Knead the dough (if you have a machine, 3-6 mins with dough hook on low speed) or knead by hand until dough is soft/tacky/sticky (if kneading by hand see "stretch and fold" for a good technique).
- Spread 1 Tbsp oil on surface and rub over hands for one final stretch and fold of dough, and then tuck into a ball shape.
- Divide dough into 4 or 5 separate pieces and put them in separate freezer bags misted with oil and refrigerate at least 8 hours for yeast to develop.
(At this stage you can keep the dough bags in fridge for u pro 5 days, or freeze for a couple months. If freezing you just need to thaw in fridge for 24 hours before using).
- About 90 mins before planning to bake pizza take dough ball(s) from bag, and on oiled surface stretch/fold and round into a tight ball. Mist with oil and cover with plastic film. Leave at room temperature for 90 mins
- About 45-60 mins before planning to bake, heat oven to highest temperature. (If you have pizza stone, or pizza steel then it should be pre-heating too). Tray should be at middle height of the oven.
- While oven is heating up get toppings sauce ready.
- Dust with flour kitchen bench, pizza peel and your hands, and add ~1/2 cup flour to a bowl large enough to fit dough ball
- Put a dough ball in bowl with flour to coat bottom of the ball
- Transfer dough ball to floured surface and gently tap it down with fingers to form a disk
- Slide floured hands under the dough to pick it up, and gently stretch to larger shape. The dough should rest on back of your hands and knuckles and thumbs push out to extend the dough. The dough will get large and creep over hands so gravity will also help stretch out. Here's good video with some different techniques.
- When at right size and thickness add to pizza peel (or whatever you'll use to transfer to oven) and add sauce and toppings. Don't do this too much in advance of baking or sauce can get you soggy bottom.
Tips for shaping pizza:
- if dough is resisting being stretched out, put back on floured surface for 2-3 mins. The gluten will relax and will be easier to stretch out.
- if the dough gets too thin and rips, you can try and pinch to close gap, or you can roll back into a ball, let rest for 15 mins and try again.
- Bake for about 4 mins, then use pizza peel or spatula to rotate pizza and cook for another 2-4 mins (depending on how hot oven is). The edges may get a bit charred, but that's fine!
- Let pizza cool for 1 min before slicing and serving so you don't burn yourself.