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Homemade Pizza Dough
Description
Thick, crisp, but chewy pizza crust. The recipe yields enough dough for two 12-inch pizzas but you can stretch this to 3 if you prefer a smaller, thinner crust. This pizza dough can also be frozen for later use.
Ingredients
Ingredients
Instructions
Instructions
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Prepare the Yeast
Combine the warm water, yeast, and granulated sugar together in the bowl of your stand mixer, if you are using one. Cover and allow to rest for 5 to 10 minutes to allow the yeast to bubble up.
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Make the Dough
Add the olive oil, flour, and salt. Beat on low speed for 2-3 minutes. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. With lightly floured hands, knead the dough for 5 minutes. You can use your Stand mixer to knead the dough but it may be a bit heavy for it. Press the dough lightly with your finger to test if its ready to rise. If it slowly bounces back, you're ready to go. If not, knead for a little longer.
If you are not using a stand mixer just use a wooden spoon to mix all the ingredients before starting to knead by hand. -
Let the dough rise
Lightly grease the bowl the same bowl you used to mix the dough with oil and place the dough in the bowl, making sure to coat all sides in the oil. Cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel and let the dough to rise at room temperature for 60-90 minutes or until it has doubled in size.
You can prepare your pizza toppings at this point
If it's a cold day, you can your tumble dryer to give you a warmer environment for the dough to rise. Just run the dryer for a few minutes, switch off and then pop the bowl inside the drum. You could also use your oven, just run it for a few minutes at its lowest setting. Once heated, switched off, pop the bowl inside and leave the door open for 20 to 30 minutes before closing it. -
Preheat your Oven
Preheat oven to 475°F (246°C), allow it to heat for at least 15-20 minutes as you shape the pizza dough.
Prepare a baking sheet or pizza tray by lining with baking paper or lightly spraying with non-stick spray or olive oil.
If you want some extra crunch and flavour to your pizza, dust the pan with a little cornflour. -
Shaping the pizza dough
When the dough is ready, punch it down and divide the dough in half. You can freeze the dough at this point if you are only making 1 pizza (see below).
Lightly flour both your work surface and hands and then gently flatten the dough into a disc, place it onto a pizza tray and stretch and flatten the disc until it is around 12-inches in diameter and about 1/2-inch thick.
If the dough keeps shrinking back as you try to stretch it, simply stop shaping and gently cover cover the dough for 5-10 minutes and then try again.
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Topping and baking the pizza
Top with your favourite toppings and bake for 13-15 minutes or until the crust starts to turn golden brown.
If you don't want your pizza to bubble up too much you can use your fingers to push little dents into the surface of the dough to prevent bubbling. Sometimes pizza fillings can make the dough become a little soggy. You can prevent this by brushing the dough with a little olive oil before the filling.
Note
Freezing Instructions: After the pizza dough rises and you divide the dough in half, you can freeze the dough to make pizza at a later time. Or you can simply freeze both balls of dough separately. Lightly coat all sides of the dough ball(s) with non-stick spray or olive oil. Place the dough ball(s) into individual zipped-top bag(s)and seal tightly, squeezing out all the air, or simply wrap in film. Freeze for up to 3 months.
To thaw, place the frozen pizza dough in the refrigerator for about 8 hours or overnight. When you are ready to make the pizza, remove the dough from the refrigerator and allow it to rest for approx. 1 hour on the counter. Then follow the recipe from Step 4.