It’s taken me literally YEARS to be able to create my own pizza dough recipe. I can’t tell you how much trial and error I have been through with this. But finally, tonight, I perfected it and I’m so excited to share it with you! This makes enough dough for 2 pizzas, or one giant pizza.
You will need:
For the dough -
2.5 cups all purpose flour
1 cup bread flour
1.5 cups of warm water
2 1/4 tbsp of rapid rise yeast
1/2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
For the toppings -
1/3 cups of whole San Manzano tomatoes, crushed with your hands
A couple of fresh basil leaves
One ball of mozarella, sliced.
1 clove of garlic, thinly sliced
Sprinkle of salt on the tomato sauce
Drizzle of olive oil
Sprinkle of grated parmesan cheese
Sprinkle of red pepper flakes
In a bowl, add in 1.5 cups of warm to the touch water, not hot or it will kill the yeast. Along with your sugar then whisk to combine and let it sit for 5-10 minutes until it bubbles. I never miss this step, even if it is rapid rise yeast, I have had so many times where I followed someone else’s recipe where it says to skip this step and then the dough never rises. So now I’m too afraid to and I always give it a moment to wake up.
Once bubbly, add in your olive oil, then the flour and salt and stir to combine. Once the dough has come all together, turn it out on to a floured surface and knead the dough for 5 minutes. Then place in to an oiled bowl, toss the dough all around in the oiled bowl to coat and then cover with a clean towel and put it in to your oven on the PROOF setting for 1 hour. If you don’t have this setting on your oven, you can place it somewhere warm in your house OR a good trick is to preheat your oven to 100 degrees, the lowest temp. Then turn it off and once cooled slightly but still warm, put your dough in the remaining warmth with the oven off.
Once the dough has risen, punch down to deflate all the air and turn it out on to the floured surface again. Then pat it in to a round disk shape and cut it in half. You can make two pizzas or you can simply just do one huge one. You can also freeze the other half of the dough by patting it in to a disk shape, covering in plastic wrap and then in to a zip lock bag.
Next, roll out the dough in to a round shape, place on to a pizza stone or a sheer pan that has been lightly sprayed with oil. Stretch slightly to fill the space, then roll up the edges to make a crust and with a fork, pierce the middle of the pizza all over to prevent air from bubbling up in the middle during cooking. Make sure your oven is preheated to 450 degrees at this point. Top with tomato sauce, salt, garlic slices, mozzarella, basil and a drizzle of olive oil and then bake in your oven, (or in a pizza oven if you are lucky enough to have one), for 10-15 minutes until bubbly on top and the crust edges are golden brown. Sprinkle oven Parmesan cheese and red pepper flakes to serve. Enjoy with a salad and some red wine!