Making Pizza At Home Starts with Dough

We ALL love pizza! But making it at home from scratch is something else. Starting to make pizza at home can be a little intimidating because the best way to end up with fantastic pizza is to make your own dough. And that INTIMIDATES people, and it did to me as well in the beginning, but once you learn the basics of making dough, you’re off, and exploring the different recipes and processes for the perfect pizza dough .

So, for me, the other huge advantage to making pizza at home is the creativity with toppings. If you order a pizza from a shop (and there are times we still do this) you usually order one pizza and maybe split it with toppings. But at home, you can make 3-4-5 or more pizzas for the family or a group of friends. Being able to be creative with toppings, and have a slice from multiple pizzas, is one of the biggest things I love about making pizza at home.

Then there’s the enormous satisfaction of taking that dough ball, stretching it out and building that pizza, launching it into the oven and watching (and turning) as it turns into a beautiful piece of art that is your pizza pie! Then you get to share this with friends and your family, and hear the oooh’s and ahhh’s about how delicious it is.

My wife making her first pizza.

And finally, when you make pizza at home, its the dish everyone can be a part of, from just building the creative toppings to stretching the dough, building the pizza, cooking it, and finally slicing and serving it. You will quickly find that everyone wants an opportunity to “make a pie”, and the huge smile on their faces will make you smile as well.

Dough Recipe

I start with a 24 hr poolish, then a 24 hour bulk fermentation and finally the 24 hr dough ball fermentation.

Ingredients

1000g of Flour (I use King Arthur Bread Flour, be AP will work)

630g water

1g active dry yeast

25g salt

4g honey (sugar will work)

20g olive oil

For the poolish, I use a 40%. We will use 40% of our total flour for this step. Using a scale measure out 400g of flour into the large bowl and then 400g of cold water, 1g active dry yeast and finally our 4g of honey. Mix all o this together very well, making sure there is not dry flour in the bowl. Once this is done, cover with a lid or saranwrap and leave on the counter for 24 hr.

The next day will complete the dough and let bulk ferment. If you have a kitchen aid mixer, use it, it makes like easier. In the mixer bowl, pour / scape out your sweet smelling poolish. place the bowl back on the mixer and attach the dough hook. Turn on low and let it start to mix. Now, measure out your remaining 600g of flower and 230g of water (63% hydration and we’ve already put in 400g). Start adding the flower slowly, and as needed add a little water to keep it incorporating. Once you get all of the flour in with some water remaining, add the salt to the bowl. finish with the rest of the water and finally add your olive oil. Turn the mixer to med-high and let it run for 5-7 min, once all sides of the bowl are clean stop the mixer and remove the dough from the mixer into a lightly greased bowl. Cover the bowl and place in the refrigerator for 24 hrs.

Now we pull the dough from the refrigerator and make our dough balls. You will be able to get 6 dough balls each weighing 270g. Once you’ve weighed these out form them into a ball and let rest for 30 min. Then come back for the final forming of the balls, the gluten will be warmed up now and the dough will be more elastic and soft and easier to work with. Make the balls one more time, they should have a smooth shine to them. Place in individual containers and place back in the refrigerator for the last 24 hrs.

On the day you make the pizza, pull the dough balls out 1 hour before you want to start stretching dough. Enjoy

You can go to my YouTube channel to see videos of this process and making pizzas.