Friday, February 27, 2009

Pizza Dough

This is a basic recipe I use for my Pizza and breads.
I have used once for a sticky bun and it worked
ok, but I've had better. I've been using this recipe since
1988.

Ingredients:
  • 2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup bread flour (or 1 cup more of the unbleached all-purpose flour)
  • 1 cup water, lukewarm or slightly hotter
  • 1 to 2 Tbsp sugar or 2 to 3 Tbsp honey
  • 1/2 to 1 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp bread yeast
  • 2 to 3 Tbsp Olive Oil
Mix yeast and water in a large round bowl.
Add sugar or honey, salt, oil and stir.
Add 1 cup flour and stir

TIP:

Be sure you do rinse off any Anti-Bacterial soap before touching the dough, otherwise you will kill or severely retard the growth of your yeast.

Work the rest of the flour into the mix and use your hands, but be sure to work off the dough that sticks to your hands back into the dough, adding more flour if needed to make the dough stick to itself more than your hands.

Knead on a counter top or flour cloth if you have one (I've never used the later). Again, add flour if it becomes too sticky to work with. This kneading process should take no more than 10 minutes from start to finish.

Cover with a damp cloth, invert your large mixing bowl over it, or spread olive oil over the surface and allow to Rise for about 30 min. This last option is good if you want to break the doughball into bread-sized chunks for making loaves of bread like you find at the fancy Italian restaurants.

During this time you can turn on the oven to 500 and let it preheat the Pizza stone.

Adjustments for texture:
For a firm dough, punch down at 30 min. and allow to rise again for about 30 min. more.

For a thin, crispy crust put into the fridge overnight or for 2 hours & bring out within
30 min prior to making the pizza. This crust is much like Shakey's Pizza, which I used to enjoy back in the 1980's.

You can also work in about 1/4 cup course cornmeal to make interesting dough.

TIP:
If you are making bread, then cover the bowl with a damp flour cloth or dish towel. Allow
this to sit for about 30 minutes. Add remaining flour and mix / knead as above.

Baking Pizza dough and or bread:
Bake on a Pizza Stone and use a good cornmeal as the sliding agent for moving the pizza dough onto the stone via the Pizza Peel (pizza shovel).

I've found that with thicker pizzas you can cook for 4-5 minutes then turn down the oven to 350 and cook longer. That way you don't burn the toppings, the crust is just right on the bottom and the pizza crust is not too soft inside.

... Enjoy!!

original posting: 8/30/07 - updated 4/12/09