Pizza-ists – what’s your dough recipe?

I got a pizza stone for Xmas and have been experimenting. So far the dough has just been our normal white bread flour in the bread maker and the bass have been a bit bready for me. Interested to hear other folks recipes to try.

Thanks!

I use this pizza dough recipe which is a winner if you have any sourghdough starter on the go. I make pizza once a week with it now and it is super easy and taste amazing.

For a pizza stone use Jamie Oliver’s for a pizza oven, well that’s a whole new genre you’re entering.

Mine is
400g of plain flour,
7g sachet of yeast,
teaspoon of sugar,
about a teaspoon of French quarte seasoning salt,
a decent glug of olive oil,
enough warm water to get the dough to be smooth, glossy and the kitchen aid walls clean & not sticky,
keep the kitchen aid kneading whilst reduce down the tomato base.

It’ll be interesting to see what others use

I used to use strong white bread flour but recently started using Pivetti flour as they had it on special offer at Sainsbury’s. I won’t be going back. If you can’t get Pivetti flour then just get any 00 grade flour.

For a new york style chew i used this.

https://feelingfoodish.com/the-best-new-york-style-pizza-dough/

Its came out very very well.

And this sauce.

https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/10/new-york-style-pizza-sauce.html

Its on the dirty side of pizza eating but sometimes you don’t want fresh mozzarella and fesh pasta sauce, sometimes you wan pepperoni and dirt.

My oven only goes to 250 so preheat the stone for an hour then flick it to grill seems to work.

500gm “OO” flour
some salt
some yeast
sometimes a bit of sugar
300ml warm water.

Mix.

Prove as a blob.

Prove as 4 or 5 smaller blobs.

The proving bit is as important as the recipie, TBH.

DrP

It’s all about the tipo ’00’ flour. That finer ground flour gives the best base, lighter, fluffier and Crisps up at the edges and base well.
Franco Manca recipe all the way.
250ml water
30g sourdough starter or. 2g yeast
8g olive oil
10g salt
380g flour.

https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/bread-recipes/neapolitan-pizza-base/

This is the best I’ve found assuming you want something close to what you’d get in an Italian pizzeria. It’s definitely better to make it in advance. Also helps to divide it into balls when you’ve knocked if back and let then rest/proof again for a bit before shaping them into pizza bases, And finally, stretch don’t roll. I find that if you roll it you compress the dough. Takes a bit of trial and error, so be patient and don’t expect to nail if for the first few goes.

200g OO Flour
100g Semolina
200ml lukewarm water
1 Tbsp Olive Oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dried bread yeast

I use this in the bread machine for ease but works just as well hand kneeded.

Place on a hot tray (or stone) and add toppings.

About as close to an Italian pizza as I can get at home.

The OO / Semolina flour mix gets rid of that ‘bready’ base.

I used to use strong white bread flour but recently started using Pivetti flour as they had it on special offer at Sainsbury’s. I won’t be going back.

Totally agree with this. Worth hunting out Pivetti flour.

Pizza Pilgrims for me: Pizza Pilgrims – Neapolitan Frying Pan Pizza

The recipe and method has been excellent. Definitely recommend leaving to rest for a good while (for dinner, I’ll make the dough either in the morning or the night before).

Stretch it out rather than using a rolling pin, and leave the outer 1cm untouched as that’ll give a better edge.

This proving the dough malarkey- does that make the base more deep pan or you still making thin pizza bases with it?

I got this online and I’ve no reason to try any other…

In a bowl add

250g Strong white bread flour

325g Lukewarm water

5g Fast Action Yeast

Mix with a wooden spoon and leave covered overnight.

The next morning add

250g Strong white bread flour, or replace with an equal quantity of alternative (wholemeal/barleycorn/5seed)

10g Fine Sea Salt

Mix until it comes together and knead for 10 mins on a worktop until silky and soft

Oil the bowl lightly with olive/rapeseed oil but the dough in and let rise until doubled.

Knock back and split into portions. Ball them then put into proving trays. Leave until ready for pizza,at least a few hours.

This probably isn’t a true authentic way to do it but it’s easy to do for enough pizzas for 2 people or 20 people and tastes good and bubbly.

Been doing the following until this week when I tried sourdough – needs a bit of tweaking as it was a bit too wet/stretchy:-

520g of very strong/type OO flour, 320ml of warm water, sachet of yeast. Mix/knead and leave 20+ mins. Add 15g salt and 15ml of extra virgin olive oil. Knead until homogeneous – seems like it’ll never happen, then just does!
Put in air tight container over night.
Next night remove, divide into 4 equal pieces and stretch/fold into themselves until smooth balls. Pop back into airtight container and in fridge overnight again.

Stretch out dough and pop in dry frying pan on relatively high heat and pop toppings on. When risen and browned on base (couple of mins) pop in preheated oven on pizza stone (or similar) that’s at max temp until done – another 5 mins tops.
When one’s in, next can be stretched and assembled on hot pan.

Sourdough as above but with longer proving time and following qtys:-
145g starter
435g flour
245g water.

Salt and oil as before.

Will try 445g flour next time. Also won’t bother dividing the night before as they just become one again (unless more flour sorts the consistency).

This proving the dough malarkey- does that make the base more deep pan or you still making thin pizza bases with it?

With normal bread, proofing (the yeast fermenting and producing gases) gives the bread its ‘rise’.

With traditional pizza (e.g. thin crust Italian) you are essentially knocking back the dough again when you shape it into the base which removes most of the gas. The technique of spreading the dough out from the middle to the edge moves the gas to the edge which gives you a thin base and a crust full of air bubbles.

So I’m showing my age by using imperial measurements. This will do two pizza bases.

12oz plain flour
1 tsp dried yeast
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp of sugar
Glug of olive oil (helps stop it sticking)
Enough water to make a pliable dough.

Mix it altogether. Knead. Leave for a few hours covered in a bowl, or overnight until it doubles in size. Knock it back and give it a quick knead. Split in half and turn into pizza bases.

With a pizza stone the key is to get it nice and hot so that it cooks the base straight away. Oh also try and get your base nice and thin.

Had good results from this one (sourdough version):

https://www.francomanca.co.uk/stories/sourdough-recipe/

I make it the night before and don’t bother kneading it (tried kneading and wasn’t worth the effort IMO). I use a rolling pin to shape it. A bit of cornmeal/polenta helps to stop it sticking and adds a little extra flavour/texture. Worth spending extra on some good quality flour, mozzarella and the best tinned tomatoes you can find.

https://www.pizzacreator.net/

this one from the guardian is my go-to recipe, i just add a skoosh of olive oil to the mix too.

Thanks all. Going to try some 00 flour to see how that goes next time.

I made pizza yesterday using a similar recipe to a  standard white loaf. 500g flour, 5g yeast, 320ml water, 20ml oil, 10g salt. This is my standard pizza dough recipe.

However I made a poolish with 200g flour/200ml water and the yeast which I left overnight, I then added the rest of the ingredients and kneaded for 10mins and then tested in the fridge for a good few hours. It definitely worked better than making it fresh so it’s worth taking the time to make the dough in advance.

Finally as I don’t have a pizza stone, I put my Silverwood Aga baking tray(thick aluminium) in the oven at full whack (240°c), made the pizza on another baking sheet with a dusting of polenta and slid it onto the preheated sheet(take it out the oven to do the transfer). It cooks in about 8 minutes.

Because we are lazy, we by this…

https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/306932886

It’s awesome.

Because we are VERY lazy, we buy these…

https://groceries.morrisons.com/products/the-clay-oven-bakery-plain-naan-bread-457425011

Spread the tomato sauce and cheese+ toppings and in a hot oven et voila. Tastes as good as any bought pizza base and far less hassle than making them from scratch 😋

Foodgeek sourdough recipe, with the Ooni oven obvs 🙂

https://foodgeek.dk/en/sourdough-pizza-recipe/

I use the curious chickpea overnight pizza dough recipe but add a tablespoon of olive oil as the dough is easier to handle and use a little less water and 60/40 OO to strong bread flour

The overnight proving in the fridge gives it more taste. I use less water as I bung it in a roccbox. For the electric oven, as you cook it longer it dries out more so use the recipe as is.

Some 00 flour. 60% the amount of flour in cold water. Some yeast (I probably measured in originally but now I just ‘know’ the size of piece I want.) Think it was about 7g for approx 200g flour.
Some salt to taste. Put the salt in the water. Put some flour in to form a slurry, then add yeast. If you put the yeast in salty water, the salt inhibits it. Add rest of flour. Knead until silky. Leave to rise in a covered bowl with a very light coating of olive oil. About 12 hours at 17°

200g of flour is about right for a 10″ thinnish neopolitian style. 250 or more if you like a thicker crust.

Heston did a show on pizza and the right way to get the base so you get the crispy pockets of doughy air.

I’ve always thought I’d like a pizza oven but we couldn’t use a wood burner due to fire risks in summer.

Also, pizza varies so much from town to town, I’m not entirely sure there’s a one recipe to rule them all scenario.

If anyone could knock me up a ham and spinach calzone I’d be well happy.

From the excellent Dough book. We do this every week. It’s never failed.

– 333 g 00 flour
– 10 g yeast
– 7 g salt
– 33 ml oil
– 213 g of warm water

Numbers are odd as we’ve done 2/3rds of the original recipe for so long (to make two bases) I know it off the top of my head.

– 333 g 00 flour
– 10 g yeast
– 7 g salt
– 33 ml oil
– 213 g of warm water

I think that’s pretty similar to what we’ve been using for years now – this recipe, https://www.bakingmad.com/recipe/pizza-dough-by-allinson except we now use OO pizza flour, rather than the suggested strong bread flour. Oh, and use a bit of semolina when stretching/rolling to add a bit of extra texture. It’s super-easy and our kids much prefer these to shop-bought pizzas.

ok ok, i think i need a bit of advice. i really should have this dialled now, but i do still get the odd disaster and i dont know why.

my recipe is pretty much along the same lines as everybody elses, specifically its the guardian recipe i linked to up there ^^^

however, im never totally happy with my dough and i always feel ‘relieved’ when it the dough behaves rather than expect it.

certainly, attempts at ‘last minute dough’ are usually disastrous, no stretch in the dough, may as well have bought one in. but even the dough that ive made the day before, proved overnight in the fridge and let rest for an hour before shaping and baking, sometimes when stretching just goes so thin to the point of tearing in places and thicker elsewhere.

ive tried various stretching techniques, the one where you just hold the dough up, let it flop down and keep rotating it, and also the one where you keep flapping it over your forearm and rotating 90 degrees each ‘flap’, and im happy enough with either technique.

id really like to be happy that my dough will stretch well and make great pizzas EVERY time tho rather than being apprehensive.
ive even seen videos where they load the pizza on the bench and transfer to the peel afterwards, how on earth do they do that?? mine would be waay too sticky.

you reckon im making the dough too wet? is it easier to play with the less hydration you use?

its a strange one, i make enough good ones to know that ive got the ingredients right (i also use 00 flour), so i think the problem will be in how long i prove for, the temperature, knocking back vs not knocking back, when i divide the dough, how i store it when proving etc etc.
ive never had a dough that ive felt i could just keep on stretching and stretching if i wanted to, ive always got to the point where ‘its getting a bit thin there, its nearly through, id better stop now’ which sometimes leads to it sticking if im not quick enough from loading to the oven. and that always feels like a race too, “quick, get the sauce and ingredients on before it starts sticking!!”
id like it to be a far more relaxed affair with the knowledge its going to go juuuuuuust great. every time. and know that i can make great dough no matter when we’ll need to eat, in 6 hrs time or the next day.

anyone else feel the same or have you all got it dialled now?

Are you doing a bulk fermentation before putting in the fridge, ie knead and let double in size?.

I dont do quick dough, always do it the day before (or 2 or 3 days), it’s very quick to make, only cold prove that takes time.

Sounds like you need to mibbe try and use a bit less water, experiment with that, and maybe not try and make them as thin?.

Lots of new ideas to try there! We started making pizza dough during lockdown cos the Sainsbury’s delivery kept missing out pizza dough balls, I suspect they were simply unable to locate them in the shop!!

Our quantities are controlled by the fact that Sainsbury’s yeast comes in 7g sachets 🙂 so 300g flour, 7g yeast 1tsp salt 1tsp sugar 1tbsp olive oil and 168 g water

My modest contribution is to suggest using burrata instead of mozzarella – makes a much nicer pizza IMO 🙂

Our quantities are controlled by the fact that Sainsbury’s yeast comes in 7g sachets

For cold proved pizza, I’ll use a 7g sachet to make double what you make.

Two problems you’ve described:
1) not stretchy
2) sticking to bench

Number 1 could be anything, but I’d say most likely cause is not kneading enough/well-enough.

Number 2 is not helped by problem 1, but Probably not enough flour. When getting your dough balls out at pizza time, you can literally drop the ball in a bowl of flour. Scatter plenty on the bench too. I’d suggest you experiment with using what seems like too much, this should make the pizza easy to move, and you might be surprised that it doesn’t ruin the pizza! Then adjust from there for the next one. Could be other technique issues. It’s tricky. Try watching some YouTube Vids, try Vito iaocopelli [sp?]

Edit: also, I don’t add any oil to my dough. This solved sticking issues for me early on. my techniques better now but I haven’t tried adding oil back in.

I think it’s Allinson who do yeast in a 100g mini tub for about £1, keep it in the fridge once opened and it lasts for ages (I’ve used yeast almost a year after opening).

Number 1 could be anything, but I’d say most likely cause is not kneading enough/well-enough.

That was previously my instinct, but a friend suggested I try kneading less after I complained about hard-to-work-with hole-y dough, as he said the gluten strands can get too strong. I cut back from 15 minutes hand knead to 10 (I had been doing 15 to account for an assumed rubbish technique) and immediately made the best pizzas in ages.

thanks for the advice, some interesting thoughts. to start with ill cut out the olive oil then. i love the taste of it, seen it in some recipes, so thought yep, thatll do for me too, so ill try without.

secondly the yeast. i have a tupperware tub of it that was given to me some time ago. im not totally sure that it hasnt gone ‘out of date’, plus its quite difficult to measure out exactly 7g yeast on my scales, same with the salt, i dont think my scales are sensitive enough. it maybe better if i could use ‘half a tablespoon’ or whatever instead maybe. certainly it doesnt froth up like it says it should. thinking about it, im not sure my dough doubles in size even.

i do 2 or 3 pizzas worth of dough, mix and knead for 10 mins, then plop into an oiled bowl for 4 hours or so.
i then divide into however many pizzas i want (each one aiming for 180g) then ‘shape’ into balls. this involves ‘folding it in on itself’ until it becomes tight. i pull a corner out, fold it into itself underneath and keep rotating and folding under until i have a tightish ball (no sniggering at the back).

these balls are kept in separate containers in the fridge for a day or so until needed, left out at room temp and then go go go!
or……just in the fridge for a few hours if needed that night.

reading that back, i can see a few areas which may need improving, from buying fresher yeast, to measuring the yeast out, the folding technique……

cheers

FWIW that tub of Allisons yeast has never really worked for me, no idea why, but I’ve tried it a few times. As much as Id rather but a tub, the sachets just work.

I don’t knead at all by hand, fire it all in the magimix for 30secs, works every time.

If the yeast doesn’t froth, I bin it, not wasting good flour on it.

Now that I read back, you defo have a yeast issue. Ooer. 😬😂

I started using this guys techniques when I saw this video. Nice results