Share Your Best Pizza Dough...

I use the following recipe:

1 cup warm water
2 ½ teaspoons active dry yeast
1 tablespoon granulated sugar (for the yeast/warm water mixture)
3 cups unbleached strong flour, plus more as needed
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 tablespoon olive oil (plus extra for greasing bowl)

Apologies for the US measurements - but the amounts work really well and allow me to make 2x generously proportioned 12" pizzas. One for me and one for the other half, hehehe!

The most difficult bit of it all is the kneading of the dough, of course and striking the balance between kneading it just the right amount and no overdoing it. Make sure you keep the surface you're working on covered with flour to ensure that the dough doesn't stick. In terms of kneading technique, use the palms of your hands to push down and forward, spin and fold, push down and forward, spin and fold, push down and so on until the dough is of a nice consistency. Then put the dough in a oiled bowl, cover it with clingfilm and a tea towel then leave it for a couple of hours to let it prove.

Once the dough looks nice and puffy, take it out of the bowl and punch it down to get the air out from it. Then cut it into two equally proportioned balls and flatten each of them down and stretch them out to the desired size or gently roll the dough with a rolling pin. I find it easier to get my lightly oiled pizza pans ready at this point and stretch the dough while its in them, making sure that it reaches the edges nicely.

For the tomato base, just use passata with a little extra salt and, if you like, a little chilli powder for a little kick. The add cheese and whatever else you like, get the oven nice and hot (I whack my oven up as high as it'll go) and cook the pizzas for 12-14 mins.
 
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If you've stored it so it can expand properly then there's no need to. If it needs to expand more then prove it at room temp.

Edit: if using the above method then you would almost certainly at least allow the dough to reach temp. If using a rolling pin you'll also want to let the rolled dough prove a bit before you top/cook (stretching will not need this).
 
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Sounds about right.

The video I posted a while back shows off a method of stretching that is really simple. I recommend trying it out sometime (if you're worried about it knackering your bases just make a few extra dough balls and practice - dough is very cheap).

 
I've got a bit of extra dough so I'll give it a bash. I made up a batch last night to use on Friday/Saturday. I've not kneaded the dough beyond bringing it all together properly as I believe the gluten strands will form during the cold ferment, is that right?

Do you get much of a rise during the cold ferment or will that come once it's out of the fridge?
 
Yeah. Autolysis will do the job of getting the gluten in order for you. Personally I tend to re-mix after an hour or two of that just to check it has worked (paranoia) and to make the dough look a bit neater. Not needed though.

You can get a complete rise in the fridge so be sure to give the dough enough space for that. If it has only been in there for a day or so you can knock it back down and allow it to rise again out of the fridge if you want. I often do that but I've also hand-stretched the dough from cold without issues.
 
Cool, I've covered it with clingfilm but left expansion room so it should have room to rise. With hindsight, I've left dough in the fridge before and come back to find it everywhere so I'm hoping it will rise a bit. I only ask as I couldn't find my regular yeast and I'm not as convinced by the stuff I found in the cupboard to use.

Cheers for the help. :)
 
If you've got old yeast it's possible that the yeast is knackered I guess. If you're making another batch I'd get some new stuff and try that.

You could also take one of the spare bits of dough out and see if that rises at room temp.
 
Should be good. Day 1 can be a good thing to try sometime too - you'll notice much more difference between 1 and 3 and then a reasonable but not quite as dramatic improvement with day 5.

The SE deep pan pizza is pretty crazy but quite nice. I've not managed to perfect that one as I've only made it a couple of times.
 
I've begun a journey.

Trying to find the perfect dough... so doing a ton of hydration / mixing style / oil and other "ingredients" testing.

Still need to do the tables, but will be around 40-50 doughs. With the hope of it forming results good enough to have decent plan for restaurant.

You could say I'm pizza mad. :D
 
Nice. That sounds perfectly reasonable to me to be honest :)

I've recently moved from a little olive oil to none and tbh I think the results are better. I've experimented over the years with 60-70% hydration and settled on 65. I like the results on 70 but it's a bit more of a faff to deal with the dough.
 
FrenchTart said:
Nice. That sounds perfectly reasonable to me to be honest :)

I've recently moved from a little olive oil to none and tbh I think the results are better. I've experimented over the years with 60-70% hydration and settled on 65. I like the results on 70 but it's a bit more of a faff to deal with the dough.
Click to expand...

I have some very unique ideas for the doughs, should be able to create something very different!

I'm even thinking of recording the crust density to mark doughs as crispy crusts vs chewy etc.

You know if anyone has done this elsewhere? I've never seen a big dough comparison
 
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