Share Your Best Pizza Dough...

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I've tried quite a few different pizza dough recipes I've found online, none still have the texture I'm searching for.

They are either too crispy or just taste too floury. Most of the recipes I've tried call for '00' strong white flour, I'm just wondering if that's where I'm going wrong OR in the amount of time I'm proving the dough (several hours to overnight).

The exact texture and taste I want is effectively Dominoes, soft, airy and tasty, maybe ever so slightly bready.

I can find various recipes online myself, but I want to know what have YOU tried and is your favourite?
 
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Soldato
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Ive used the Jamie Oliver recipe a few times, its not to bad for a pizza dough but i wouldnt class it as a Dominos sytle dough. This is more Italian.

Im still searching for the proper Italian style pizza dough tho, none ive tried have quite got there. Ginos ones worth a look also

1 kg white bread flour or Tipo '00' flour, or 800g strong white bread flour or Tipo '00' flour, plus 200g finely ground semolina flour
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 x 7 g dried yeast sachets
1 tablespoon golden caster sugar
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
650 ml lukewarm water

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/recipe/pizza-dough/#ITcYGVoXfgJK0v3q.99
 
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Thanks Kimi, I did frequently use the other Jamie Oliver one, which was for New York style pizza, which he did on the Jamie and Jimmy TV show, along with Chris Moyles.

I've just got a new oven which goes to 300 degrees (versus my old one at 250) and also has a specific pizza setting to increase the heat even more. Hence my renewed interest in DIY pizza.

Thanks for your suggestion :)
 
Man of Honour
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I posted a lazy man's pizza dough recipe a while back but it has been tweaked a bit since. Similar to Kimi, this is more of a Neapolitan style pizza dough.

You basically want dough that is about 65% hydration. So something like:

(one small pizza)
150g 00 flour
97.5g cold water
dash of olive oil
small pinch brown sugar
large pinch salt
1/4 a packet of instant yeast

Mix it all together, wrap in well-oiled clingfilm and then leave in the fridge for 24 hours. You don't need to knead. The dough will be even better if you leave it longer - 48-72 hours is optimal in terms of flavour development. If you are in a rush though you can just omit the fridge step and knead the dough as normal.

Take the dough out of the fridge and allow to come to room temperature (couple of hours). You can work with the dough whilst it's fridge temperature but it's more difficult. Take a large piece of grease proof paper and put it on your work surface. Place dough on top. Oil a large piece of clingfilm and place over the top of the dough. Use your hands to crush/spread the dough under the clingfilm until you've made it thin and pizza-shaped. This is totally untraditional but it requires very little in the way of dough handling skills to get a very good result. You can also use a rolling pin if you're that way inclined. Part of the reason for doing it this way is to avoid the dough sticking to your hands (it's quite a high hydration dough so fairly sticky) and to avoid drying the dough out by having to add too much extra flour during the shaping phase.

Leave the dough to rise how it is for an hour or two. In the meantime, pre-heat your oven to one billion degrees and pre-heat your pizza stone (or ideally, a cast iron pizza stone) to a similarly hot temperature.

Remove the clingfilm but leave the dough on the greaseproof paper. Add your tomato, cheese, toppings, etc. Use the greaseproof paper to lift the pizza onto your screaming-hot pizza stone and then place it as high in the oven as you can (I actually use grill mode quite often). It will cook in about 5 minutes and be amazing.

To make your pizza a bit more dominos-like you need to do a few things: 1) add more fat to the dough (try swapping 50% of the water for milk or adding more olive oil) 2) use cornmeal on the edges/bottom of the pizza and 3) make the base thicker/larger (increase all ingredients by 1/3rd).
 
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Associate
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Thanks FT, thats one I'll be giving a try.

It's funny you mention cornmeal as I know Dominoes dust their surface with that. I take it its not actually in the dough itself though, just used for the sake of non-stick? Also like the idea of trying milk and see how that comes out.
 
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Do you leave the pizza on the grease-proof to cook, FT?

Yup. It's all part of my being lazy :p

Thanks FT, thats one I'll be giving a try.

It's funny you mention cornmeal as I know Dominoes dust their surface with that. I take it its not actually in the dough itself though, just used for the sake of non-stick? Also like the idea of trying milk and see how that comes out.

Yeah, I don't think they add any to the dough. I certainly wouldn't :)

I thought it was Semolina that Dominos use...

It's essentially the same thing. I just use large-grain/medium grain cornmeal or semolina - whatever I can get my hands on at the time. As long as you're not using corn flour you'll be fine.
 
Man of Honour
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If it tastes floury try using bread flour instead of 00. 00 is lower in gluten and it rises better with bread flour.

My recipe for two bases is basically:
300g white bread flour
1tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp instant bread yeast
190ml warm water

I like to press mine out on semolina too.
 
Man of Honour
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It depends on the flour - for pizza you want a decent 00 flour which will have as high (or higher) protein content than your average strong white bread flour, which in turn means more gluten formation.
 
Soldato
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I use recipe based on the one Kimi mentioned from Jamie Oliver.

I use the Canadian Strong bread flour from Waitrose and it works brilliantly. Key ingredient for me is semolina though, both dusting and sometimes adding to mixture if a bit too wet.

I'm sure I do mine wrong but although I don't have a pizza stone I preheat a solid baking tray (200oC) and roll out the dough on the tray, then leave in the oven for 6-7 minutes.

Often the dough bubbles up if you don't poke some holes in it but personally I find it cooks the dough better if you let it (I'm sure this method is sacrilege but works for me).

I then add toppings and 5-10 minutes it's all done (sometimes I drop temp to 180-200).
 
Soldato
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It is sacrilege but if it works for you that's all that matters :)

I use various shortcuts to make my life easier too. It's all a balance of convenience versus results.

I would like to do it properly but trouble is when you just want results and the family whining in the background that they're hungry, there isn't much time to experiment.

Initially I did try using 00 flour but as others have said on here it did taste floury.

One thing I don't scrimp on is home made sauce. Can't stand the shop-bought stuff.
 
Man of Honour
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I often cheat with passata or this stuff (which is actually awesome).

I don't really get how 00 flour could make your dough taste floury though. If you're getting that I'd guess that it's either due to it not being hydrated enough or not working it enough (or not enough time letting autolysis do the work for you).
 
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