Best Pizza Dough Recipe is Here Before Your Eyes
That’s right, because making pizza dough is EASY.
The Foodie’s mother is of Italian American extraction, and she is a great cook. Growing up Italian (on mom’s side but that’s the only family I knew) is one of life’s great blessings.
Things like eggplant parmesan, homemade pizza and raviolis, and all sorts of great things were a part of daily life. Maybe that’s why The Looney Foodie has to wear such big pants today.
Well, that and the fact that the Foodie went and married a Cutie Foodie who’s also a great cook…
The Looney Foodie is also not helpless in the kitchen and took it upon himself to learn how to make a killer pizza dough and to formulate the best pizza dough recipe.
Mom and Mrs/ Foodie both would go to the local Italian pizzerias and buy already made pizza dough for their homemade pizza.
The Foodie was like, “Why are you two PAYING for that?” It’s not the money, but the inconvenience of having to go somewhere during their working hours to get something and pay a premium for it when making the best pizza dough recipe had to be an easy affair.
The Best Pizza Dough Recipe is a Simple One
Here we go!
The first thing is that you have to use bread flour. You can use regular flour if you absolutely must, but it won’t be the best pizza dough recipe if you do that.
Bread flour just produces a crispier crust when cooked.
You can get bread flour at most real supermarkets, and it says bread flour on the label.
Ingredients:
4 cups of bread flour (I use King Arthur and it’s pretty good)
1 tsp table sugar
1 envelope of instant dry yeast
2 tsp kosher salt (kosher salt is purer)
1 1/2 cups of WARM water (warm water activates the yeast better, trust me)
2 tablespoons of olive oil, and another 2 tsp (explanation below)
Okay, so here is the process. It’s simple to make the best pizza dough recipe so follow along. If the Foodie can do it then so can you.
Mix the BREAD flour, yeast, salt, and sugar in a Kitchenaid Stand Mixer and let it do a good job. You’ll have to use the dough hook attachment for this.
While it’s going, add the warm water and 2 tbl spoons of oil and let it beat until it forms a dough ball.
If it seems pasty as it’s well mixed, sprinkle a little bit of Bread Flour until the dough looks drier but not flaky or falling apart. Just sprinkle if you have to do this and check it between sprinkles as it’s kneading.
What you should end up with is a smooth but firm looking and feeling ball from your best pizza dough recipe.
Get a large bowl and grease it with your remaining 2 tsp of olive oil.
Place the dough into the bowl and cover it with either plastic or a clean kitchen towel.
Place it in a warm place to give the dough a chance to rise.
It will double in size in about an hour or so.
Once the time has passed you’ll see that it has indeed doubled. Oh, the magic of yeast!
Clear and clean a table surface or some sort of baking board and lightly coat it with the bread flour.
Turn the risen pizza dough out onto it and dive it into 2 pieces. Feel free to beat each into a ball and cover with plastic or the kitchen towel and they can rest for about 10 minutes.
If you plan to just use one, you can place the other in a covered bowl, or into a plastic zip lock bag in the fridge for up to two days.
You can freeze pizza dough longer, but honestly this is so easy to make that it’s better just to make and use it fresh.
If you consistently only use one, then chop the best pizza dough recipe in half and use the entire thing, just skip the splitting it into two part at the end.
Make sure that you use a pizza pan very lightly coated with oil and spread the dough firmly into it.
I actually recommend buying a good Pizza Stone and using that (no oil needed).
If you roll the pizza dough thin, you will have a very crispy pizza crust that you never knew that you can make so easy, and frankly, at least in places other than the Northeastern US, you just can’t buy pizza better than homemade.
From what the Foodie hears, outside of the Northeastern US, the pizza is relegated to frozen food and yucky pizza chain garbagy junk food.
Break that junk food pattern and learn how to make your own!
