Making Pizza Dough

Making pizza dough is easy, it just requires a bit of patience and practice. I learned to make pizza dough in a large 60 quart commercial mixer making 75 pounds of pizza dough at a time like they do in pizza shops.

At the time I did not consider making pizza at home...heck I was 23 AND could eat pizza every day at work. So the cold pizza in the refrigerator from the night before was all I needed!

Only a couple of years later I had a "real" job and missed having pizza for breakfast, lunch, or dinner any time I wanted...my solution was to learn how to make it at home.

There are lots of choices when it comes to making homemade pizza dough, and really personal preference is what it is all about for me. Thick crust, thin crust, white pizza, or plain cheese…all of them are fun to learn and eat.

Making pizza at home begins with the pizza dough. Getting this right or wrong will have a big impact on the success of your final product, this is the part that also scares most people or gives them fits.

Use fresh flour for your pizza making. If you or your family bakes frequently this is probably not an issue, but flour can get old just like other ingredients and should not be used if past its expiration date.

You will find pizza dough recipes using all types of flour. Small changes to the recipe are necessary to ensure that the dough forms properly, but pizza can be made using all sorts of different flours.

High protein (gluten) flours of 12% to 16% are used for bread making and are also used by some pizza makers, most home chefs use All-Purpose flour with a protein content around 10% to 11%. Either of these flours will work great for making pizza, but you will need to modify a formula that does not call for a specific type of flour.

What ever pizza dough recipe you use, only add enough flour to get the dough to come together. It is a common mistake to add more flour than is needed, which results in a tough, dry pizza dough. When too much flour is added the tendency is also to overwork the dough, mixing it for too long which creates a chewy mouthfeel.

Learn more about how to make pizza dough and about dough mixing and the options available to you.

Most of us do not start out making perfect pizza the very first try (or the next), but we guarantee that with a little practice you will be making great homemade pizza in no time, and while you are at it learn how to make tomato sauce as well.

Return from Making Pizza Dough