Hello Bakers
There is so much to say about the benefits of making our own pizza dough - but I will keep it brief because I want you to experience the satisfaction of making your own dough and crafting your own pizzas.
This can be done easily with basic baking equipment. Should you want to level up your pizza making equipment - I have suggestions for you below.
We are at 65% hydration which means this dough is going to be stickier than last week’s breadsticks. In the show I demoed mixing the dough by hand but use the mixer is you have one - the method for both is below. Here is the link to the show: Saturday's show
If any questions come up for you - please message me here or on Instagram @bakingwcolette. And please tag me in your bakes as it makes me so happy to see your beautiful work.
Happy Baking! Colette
Pizza Dough Mise en place
400g bread flour (100%)
260g water - 80 degrees (65%)
5g yeast (1.25%)
18g olive oil (4.5%)
7g salt (1.8%)
Total dough weight: 690g
Yield: 3 8 ounce pizza crusts
Basic Equipment: Oven, Scale, Large mixing bowl, bowl scraper, pastry brush, dough storage container, plastic wrap or lid.
Next level: Pizza stone, Stand Mixer with dough hook attachment, pizza pans or screens, pizza peel, parchment paper.
Getting Started:
1. Gather your equipment and Ingredients
2. Mix dough and set up for bulk fermentation
3. After one hour, degass dough, shape into 227g balls and refrigerate overnight.
4. Prepare toppings - cool any cooked toppings to room temperature and drain any excess liquid from juicy toppings like mushrooms.
5. Preheat the oven.
6. Assemble pizzas - bake and enjoy!
Making the dough:
In a large mixing bowl or in the bowl of your stand mixer, fitted with the dough hook, combine the water and the yeast, stir for 10 seconds and let sit for 5 minutes.
Add the olive oil, flour and salt.
If mixing by hand - use the dough scraper to incorporate the liquid and flour mixture, work quickly and deliberately - we are looking for it to become a shaggy cohesive mass within a few minutes. Once it clears the side of the bowl - dust your work surface, lightly, with flour and then dump out the dough - it will be sticky - lightly flour your hands ***key word is lightly, and knead until the dough is smooth - use your bowl scraper if it becomes too sticky to handle.
***Adding too much flour will make the dough heavy and the finished crust chewy and tight.
Knead for a few minutes until smooth. Return to the well scraped mixing bowl or a clean one that has been lightly greased with olive oil, cover and let sit at room temperature for one hour.
In the mixer - mixing on speed 2 for 2 minutes, then reduce speed to low and mix for an additional minute - please use your timer. Optional - mixing - dump the dough out onto your work surface and knead - for 30 seconds - return to mixer bowl, cover and let sit at room temperature for one hour.
After one hour, gently press the gas out of the dough, divide into 227g (8 ounce balls) place in oil coated container, flip the balls over to coat the tops, cover and refrigerate overnight. At this point the dough can also be frozen for up to one month. Place balls of dough, individually in Zip Loc bags, label and date.
Dough Balls
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees , 425 if your oven has a convection setting. If you are using a pizza peel make sure that it preheats for at least 30 minutes.
If using a pizza pan, sheet - pan or screen brush well with olive oil. Optional: dust the pan with corn meal or semolina. If you want to bake the pizza right on the pizza stone shape on a square of parchment paper that has been lightly oiled.
Roll or stretch the dough into a 10-11” circle. Spread with sauce and top with desired toppings.
Dough rolled out on parchment - you can also use a pizza pan, sheet pan or pizza screen
Make sure that any cooked vegetables are well drained and that the pizza is not too heavily sauced - that can make the dough underneath soggy.
Bake for 12 - 14 minutes until the crust is golden brown. Brush the crust with olive oil for some extra shine