Recipes

Same-Day Pizza Dough

Makes 4-5 12 inch pizzas (each of which is plenty for 2 adults) This pizza dough takes about 8 hours to make from start to finish. Start this the morning you plan to use it. Dough can be refrigerated for 3-4 days, or frozen.

Ingredients

• 1kg Flour (ideally “00” or Pizza flour)
• 700ml Water
• 2g Yeast (1/2 teaspoon)
• 20g Salt
• A small amount of oil, such as Olive Oil (to prevent dough from sticking to things)

The morning you plan to make pizza

• Heat water to around 35C (90F to 95F)
• Put 2g Yeast in a small dish and add about 3 tablespoons of the warm water. Set aside (uncovered).
• In a large bowl, combine 1kg flour and the rest of the warm water.
• Mix until loosely combined, cover, and set aside on countertop for 30 minutes.

30 minutes later - Combine into final dough mixture

• Gently mix the yeast mixture to make it more uniform (I do this by swishing the container around a bit)
• Dust the dough ball with 20g salt
• Pour yeast mixture overtop of dough ball
• Mix by hand (using wet hands) until a uniform ball of dough forms (it will eventually all combine, just keep mixing). It may be easier to do this on a countertop rather than a bowl, depending on the size and structure of your bowl.
• Squish the dough ball a bit and fold it over itself once
• Squish again, and fold over again, perpendicular to the direction you folded first
• Put a small amount of oil in your bowl
• Form into a ball, set aside in a covered bowl for at least 60 minutes.

60 minutes later - fold the dough

• Reach under the dough and grab a bit of it from the bottom, and fold the dough up and over itself
• Fold it the same way a second time, perpendicular from the first time you folded.
• Let sit for about 6 hours.

6 hours later - dividing into 4-5 portions

• Lightly flour a countertop or workspace
• With floured hands, pull dough out of bowl and work it into an even shape
• Using a sharp knife, cut dough into even sized portions. Do not rip, break, or twist the dough.
• (Extremely) lightly cover the dough balls with some oil
• Set aside portions
  • Portions you are going to use today should be set aside, covered, on the countertop for 30-60 minutes before baking
  • Portions you are going to save for later can go into covered containers and refrigerated overnight.
  • You can freeze portions, but let them spend the night in the refrigerator first.

Using frozen dough

• Thaw in refrigerator for at least 12 hours
• Let dough sit on room-temperature countertop for 30-60 minutes before use

Ready to assemble your pizza

You can now use your dough to assemble and cook some pizza. See my page on Pizza Topping Considerations for some important considerations for assembling your final pizza, no matter what dough you are using.