🍕 How to make pizza dough

What you’ll learn

1. Put the bag backChoose Hamel's same-day all-purpose pizza dough over a supermarket tube, Kenji's cold New York dough, or Lam's overnight pan dough, and scale a first batch.Put the bag back. Tonight is three cups of flour, lukewarm water, yeast, salt, and oil, about twelve servings. An adult owns the oven. You mix.
2. Four things, one doughName flour, water, salt, and yeast as the dough, and explain gluten-forming protein, hydration, salt's four jobs, and how Saccharomyces cerevisiae makes gas.Flour is protein. Water is a percent. Salt is the brake. Yeast is a fungus. Oil is optional tenderness.
3. Mix until it is one lumpWeigh or spoon-and-sweep the flour, knead until smooth, use the windowpane as a gluten check, and rest the dough when it snaps back.Spoon and sweep. Mix, then knead. Glutenin snaps, gliadin stretches. Rest fifteen minutes when it fights.
4. Let the yeast eatRise until the dough is very puffy, keep water under 139°F, and name cold fermentation as later flavour rather than tonight's clock.Puffy, not a timer. Lukewarm lives. 139°F kills. Fridge overnight is Kenji's later bowl.
5. Stretch it, bake it, keep itHand-stretch instead of pinning, bake at 450°F until gold, follow the two-hour leftover clock, and name Sicilian and New York as later work.Stretch, don't roll. Light sauce. 450°F until gold. Rack, then cut. Two hours, then 3 to 4 days cold.

Questions this course answers

Grounded in trusted sources

• PJ Hamel, Pizza Crust, King Arthur Baking, 2 teaspoons active dry or instant yeast, 7/8 to 1 1/8 cups (198 g to 255 g) lukewarm water, 2 tablespoons (25 g) olive oil, 3 cups (360 g) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour, 1 1/4 teaspoons (8 g) table salt, lesser water in humid summer and greater in dry winter, active dry proofed 15 minutes in 2 tablespoons water with a pinch of sugar, mix and knead till soft and smooth, mixer 4 to 5 minutes on second speed and dough should barely clean the sides and can still look rough, same-day rise until very puffy about 1 hour instant or 90 minutes active dry, later option 45 minutes room temperature then refrigerate 4 to 24 hours and pull 2 to 3 hours before serving, rest 15 minutes when it shrinks, bake 450°F, partially baked crust 8 to 14 minutes then top, leftover pizza several days refrigerated, freeze par-baked crust up to 3 months, stone 45 to 60 minutes, https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/pizza-crust-recipe
• Brinna Sands, The Easiest Pizza You'll Ever Make, King Arthur Baking, 2 cups (454 g) lukewarm water, 2 tablespoons (25 g) olive oil optional, 1 tablespoon (18 g) table salt, 1 tablespoon (12 g) sugar, 1 tablespoon (9 g) active dry or instant yeast, 6 cups (720 g) all-purpose flour, knead 7 to 10 minutes until smooth and elastic, rise 1 to 2 hours, divide into 3 or 4 pieces for 12-inch pizzas, roll or hand-stretch, bake 450°F for 15 to 20 minutes, rack so the bottom does not get soggy, wait about 10 minutes, scissors to cut, overnight fridge after the first rise, leftover pizza airtight several days, https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/the-easiest-pizza-youll-ever-make-recipe
• PJ Hamel, The comprehensive guide to baking with yeast, King Arthur Baking, 10 May 2023, Saccharomyces cerevisiae sweet fungi of beer, yeast eats sugar then starch-derived sugars, byproducts carbon dioxide alcohol and organic acids, prefers 70°F to 100°F, water hotter than 139°F kills yeast, comfortable-to-you water is safe, salt and sugar are osmotic and slow yeast, more than 1/4 cup sugar per 3 cups flour slows it, packet now about 2 1/4 teaspoons, less yeast gives a longer more flavourful rise, instant and modern active dry interchangeable 1:1 with active dry 15 to 20 minutes slower, store opened yeast in the freezer, https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2023/05/10/guide-to-baking-with-yeast
• Rossi Anastopoulo, A beginner's guide to gluten, King Arthur Baking, 18 August 2021, gluten is formed when water meets glutenin and gliadin, King Arthur all-purpose 11.7 percent protein, bread flour 12.7 percent, cake flour 10 percent, glutenin gives elasticity, gliadin gives extensibility, kneading builds the gas-holding net, no-knead doughs develop gluten with hydration and rest, Ellen King wants dough that holds its shape like a pillow, https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2021/08/18/a-beginners-guide-to-gluten
• Rossi Anastopoulo, Why is salt important in yeast bread?, King Arthur Baking, 29 July 2020, four jobs: controls yeast fermentation, strengthens gluten, improves crust colour, modifies flavour, no-salt dough overproofs goes slack and bakes pale, salt about 1.8 to 2 percent of flour weight, half salt is the usual safe reduction, https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2020/07/29/why-is-salt-important-in-yeast-bread
• J. Kenji López-Alt, New York-Style Pizza / Basic New York-Style Pizza Dough, Serious Eats, 22 1/2 ounces (638 g, about 4 1/2 cups) bread flour, 0.5 ounce (15 g, about 1 1/2 tablespoons) sugar, 0.35 ounce (10 g, about 1 tablespoon) kosher salt, 0.35 ounce (10 g, about 2 teaspoons) instant yeast, 15 ounces lukewarm water (415 to 420 g, about 1 3/4 cups), 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, food processor, must pass the windowpane test, divide into three, refrigerate at least 1 day and up to 5, warm 2 hours before baking, spread approximately 2/3 cup sauce on a 12- to 14-inch pie leaving a 1/2- to 1-inch border, oil and sugar are the New York home-oven tricks, https://www.seriouseats.com/new-york-style-pizza
• J. Kenji López-Alt, The Pizza Lab: Three Doughs to Know, Serious Eats, New York dough baker's percent flour 100, sugar 2, salt 1.5, instant yeast 1.5, olive oil 5, water 67, oil coats flour and lowers gluten so the slice stays tender, sugar browns at lower home-oven temperatures, no-knead plus a 3 to 5 day cold ferment is the flavour-for-no-work method, Sicilian-style square dough about 70 percent hydration, https://www.seriouseats.com/the-pizza-lab-three-doughs-to-know
• Donna Currie, Pizza Protips: The Windowpane Test, Serious Eats, 13 September 2024, stretch a piece until it is a thin membrane you can see through, that means gluten is developed enough to hold bubbles and stretch in the oven, tearing from a fingernail is not a fail, https://www.seriouseats.com/technique-the-windowpane-test-for-pizza-dough

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