Pizza Class
Kristian Allen’s Pizza Dough Recipe
Thank you for joining us for Pizza Class! This is a cheat sheet for all of the information that we will be going over with you guys today. Feel free to save this as a take home to reference later on when you’re making your own pizza dough at home!
A few things to mention before we begin. Making pizza dough is easy. Stretching pizza dough into a perfect circle takes a lot of practice. Like a lot of practice. Don’t be discouraged here especially if this is your first time, the pizza will taste great no matter what!!
Let’s talk about hydration. This word gets thrown around the pizza and bread world, and it's important to understand not just what it is, but how it affects your pizza dough. It's simple really - you can calculate the hydration of any bread or dough using the formula: (total water/total flour) x 100. Generally speaking the higher your hydration, the more water is in your dough, and that will affect many aspects of your final dough product and how it behaves in the oven. If your dough isn’t hydrated enough it will be easy to handle, but risks drying out, burning too fast in the oven, and sometimes will be “tight,” which means it will be hard to stretch into a circle. While adding more water to your dough will make it more airy and chewy once cooked, it will be much more challenging to work with on the stretch, will proof and overproof faster, and sometimes will lose structure. There are plenty of other factors to think about when making pizza, but hydration is usually the most noticeable both before and after cooking.
This recipe I have provided you on is based on the classic neapolitan pizza dough ratio, which falls around 63% hydration. I like this hydration percentage not just because it’s the original way they made it in Naples, but also because it is balanced in moisture, easy to work with and soft when cooked.
Making the Dough
The recipe: (Makes 4 doughballs)
350g Bread Flour (high gluten flour)
150g All Purpose Flour
315g water
.4g yeast
9g salt
I highly recommend buying a scale and using grams for any baking recipe, especially breads. If using a stand mixer, make sure that you are using the hook attachment, otherwise the paddle or whisk will be at risk of breaking your machine.
Dissolve the yeast in 1T warm water, make sure the water is not above 100F, it will kill the yeast instantly. While the yeast dissolves, weigh and combine all the flour together and whisk to combine. Add your water and your dissolved yeast - **DO NOT ADD SALT YET* - mix for about 45 seconds to 1 minute, until a loose dough is formed. Cover with plastic wrap or damp towel and let sit for 30 minutes. This first stage of adding the water and flour together and resting is called autolyse where the flour and water get introduced and hydrated. Think of it like a handshake that allows the flour and water to be familiar with each other so that as we mix it, it will mix more evenly!
After the autolyse stage, sprinkle in salt and mix for another minute until dough tightens up. Cover and let rest for 25 minutes. After the second rest, mix for 1 minute, and rest again for 25 minutes. Grab a large bowl that is big enough for the dough to double in size and rub the bottom with olive oil. Mix the dough for 1 more minute and transfer to an oiled bowl. Cover and let rest for 4 hours, depending on the temperature. You want the dough to at least double in size. This long proofing period at room temperature before portioning is called bulk fermentation and allows the dough to . Once fully proofed, dump the dough out on a floured surface and portion into 200-250g dough balls depending on the size you want. Let rest in the dough ball stage for at least an hour before moving to the fridge. Doughballs can be refrigerated for up to a week, but might become a little sour after 3 days. This long period in the fridge is called cold fermentation. Fermentation still happens even at 34-36 degrees in the fridge, but it happens much slower. I recommend at least 12 hours in the fridge before making a pizza, but the sweet spot is 24 hours. Play around with it and find out which one you like the best!
Stretching and Topping the Pizza
When you’re ready to make a pizza, be sure to take your dough ball out of the fridge and let it come up to room temp, which takes about 1.5 hours. This will make the dough MUCH easier to work with, and will make the dough cook better as well. Make sure to consider the temperature, if it's hot outside, this step will happen faster, if it's cold it might take up to 3 hours! Also, if using a standard oven, now would be a great time to turn on your oven and begin heating up your pizza stone. Higher the heat the better! 500 degrees!
Get yourself a small mound of flour on a wood board. Add a pinch of flour on top of the dough and carefully take the dough ball out of the container. Place it on the mound of flour on the board and flip it a few times to coat it with flour. Using the palm of your hand, push the ball down to flatten it into a circle. This step is important to set the dough ball up to stay in a circular shape as you stretch.
Using the pads of your fingers, push down on the flattened dough starting in the middle and working your way out to just before the edge to form your crust, which is also known as forming your Cornicione. Rotate and repeat this process until you have a crust all the way around the outside of the dough.
Next, use your right hand to hold the dough down, and lift up and slowly stretch the dough out with your left hand. Don’t stretch too quickly or for too long or the dough might tear. Rotate the dough and repeat this step until the dough is open enough to grab and fit over your knuckles. It’s a good habit to tuck all of your fingertips in from this point on and use the back of your knuckles only, as the tips of your fingers will cause holes and weak spots in the dough, especially in the middle part that we are stretching really thin. Make sure that your knuckles are grabbing the dough on the outside of the doughball as close to the crust as possible. Again very slowly and not too long, move your hands away from each other to stretch the dough out even further. Rotate and repeat this step as many times as it takes to get the pizza to the desired size, between 10-12 inches. Lightly flour a new space on your board and lay your dough ball down flat. You’re now ready to top your pizza!!
Some tips for topping a pizza:
Less is more, especially with sauce. Too much sauce will lead to a soggy pizza and is also the main culprit of cheese sliding off as you eat. Too many toppings will weigh down the dough and it won't cook all the way through
Put ingredients all the way to the crust, and avoid putting heavier toppings in the middle
Space out toppings to allow them to cook evenly and not steam together
Work cleanly!! You don’t want toppings or sauce on your prep board, it will get in the way of stretching future dough balls
Cooking the Pizza
Lightly flour your pizza peel. It’s important not to use too much flour here, as excess flour on the peel will burn to the bottom of your pizza stone. If you have made your dough correctly, there shouldn’t be any issues sticking at this point. Lift up the corner of the pizza closest to you, and carefully slide the peel underneath. Shake the peel back and forth to make sure that it hasn’t stuck at any point. If desired, once it's on the peel you can adjust the shape as needed.
Carefully bring the pizza to the oven and load it onto the stone. Close the oven and let bake until golden brown on the edges, this could take anywhere from 8-15 minutes depending on the strength of your oven. The crust should puff up nicely if you’ve let your stone heat up for at least an hour. If making multiple pizzas, make sure to let the pizza stone heat up for 15 minutes between putting another pizza in the oven
If using the OONI, make sure your floor is around 650-750 degrees at least. I recommend baking the pizza on low to medium low flame. High flames run the risk of burning the dough, and also cook the pizza too fast on top and won't let the dough fully cook on the edges. Load in the pizza and cook for 20 seconds on the first side. Then, rotate as needed to get a nice color on all 4 sides of the pizza. Remove from the oven once the pizza is at your desired color.
Once cooked, the pizza is ready to enjoy immediately. Enjoy!
