I haven’t made pizza dough from scratch in… 13 years? 14? Tonight, I did.
I used bread flour, since it’s supposed to make a crispier crust. Other ingredients were warm water, yeast, kosher salt, sugar, and olive oil. I added a dash of garlic powder, too.
Not bad. Certainly better than frozen pizzas’ crust. But I thought it could be better. I was thinking it needed more garlic (preferably freshly-crushed garlic). The SO suggested vegetable oil instead of olive oil. I thought maybe a touch more sugar.
I thought bread flour has higher gluten, which would mean a chewier crust. Am I wrong?
I tend to use one of Deb’s recipes from smitten kitchen: this one, to be precise. It has honey and a bit of white wine. I’d be leery of adding garlic to the crust, as I tend to grill my pizzas, and I don’t think the garlic would hold up to the high heat. You could make garlic olive oil and use that in the dough, or as part of your toppings.
I myself eventually worked out that I get a much less chewy crust if I don’t use the bread flour. This is what I’ve been working with lately:
400 grams all purpose flour
250 grams mashed potato
200 ml water
8 grams salt
10 ml active dry yeast
30 ml olive oil
This makes enough dough for two pizzas using the cast iron skillet I’ve got, which is 30 cm (12 in.) in diameter. I also brush the top of the dough with olive oil to deal with another reputed cause of chewiness in pizza dough – moisture from the sauce.
Another reason to avoid bread flour is that it makes it harder to stretch the dough out to the right size and shape. The higher gluten in bread flour makes it more elastic, so that it tends to snap back more.
I wouldn’t put garlic in there, my tip is to crush up garlic, olive oil, salt and basil. Then dribble that over the pizza as soon as it comes out of the oven.
I just use a standard bread recipe, just yeast, flour, water, and salt, combined with a slow fermentation in the fridge. It depends on the style of pizza, though. I don’t like herbs or any other flavorings in my crust (unless I’m doing a focaccia kind of thing ). The best resource for this is pizzamaking.com. They have recipes and threads for all styles of pizza crust (and, for me, pizza at its heart is about the bread/crust.)
Seriously, check that site out for everything and anything you wanted to know about any kind of pizza you’ve ever wanted to make. The place is a goldmine of knowledge and experimentation.
Neat twist, but curious if you notice the dough proofing taking longer Nonacetone? I’d heard that, like salt, an acidic environment slows yeast growth so was wondering what sort of trade off might be involved.
We’ve been using the Trader Joe’s pizza dough. At $1.29, it’s more convenient than making dough from scratch. I don’t know what kind of flour they use, but I found the scratch-made-from-bread-flour dough I made last night much easier to handle. It wasn’t as ‘elastic’ as the TJ’s dough, and stayed nicely at the edges of my pizza pan. (I used the Teflon pizza pan with the holes in the bottom this time. For TJ’s dough I use a cast iron skillet or, occasionally, a slab of slate.)
I have the same issues with TJ’s dough. It always pulls back on itself. No matter if I knead it some more and rest it some more, it just springs back. Never figured out a way around it, so I don’t buy TJ’s dough anymore, though I would love it as a shortcut.
Here’s a no-knead pizza dough recipe that I used for awhile. I prefer to let it rise for 12 hours and then have it spend another day or so in the fridge to develop flavor.
See, I tried that, too. I even had a bag that had been in the fridge for well over a week (I bought two bags at the same time), and same deal. I’m really flummoxed by it.
Honestly, I don’t really pay attention! I’ve been making it this way for so long, it’s just commonplace to me, now. I do know that it takes a little longer to rise than my regular bread dough. But, we always plan ahead when we make pizza, so I always have extra time for the rising of the dough.
I bought a Kitchen Aid stand mixer three or four years ago, with the intention of making my own bread, other baking, making pasta, etc. I’ve been extremely busy for the past couple/few years though, so the mixer barely gets used. We were watching TV the other day, and whoever a commercial was for suggested getting your [husband?] a stand mixer. That put it into my mind to use mine, and I decided yesterday afternoon I’d make pizza.
I have no need for no-knead, since the knead need is met by the mixer.
The thing that I like about no-knead isn’t the kneading part so much as there is a bit more flavor development that way. They key to good pizza dough, in my opinion, is in the aging. The best pizzerias I’ve been to all have their own “poolish” – a kind of sourdough kind of thing that they use as a base for their next dough. So, at the end of one night, you leave behind some dough and use it for the next days dough, and so on and so forth.
Read about cold ferments here. You don’t need to do it the no-knead way, but taking your time makes a big difference in the flavor, in my opinion.
That’s interesting. 00 flour is usually a bit tricky to work with in a home oven environment. It’s typically for high-hydration doughs and high temperatures. I generally use AP flour, specifically Ceresota brand. Bread flour is supposed to be better for longer ferments, but I’ve gotten the best results with the regular ol’ AP flour. But it depends what kind of pizza you’re going for. New York style generally has the higher-gluten bread flour. Neapolitan usually has the very fine 00 flour, typically with low gluten levels (around 8.5% vs around 10% for AP and 12% for bread flour, ±1% or so.)
