Make-a Your Own-a Dough-a!

A great pizza starts with a great crust. Or more precisely, great dough. Thanks to an awesome wedding gift (a pizza stone!) from my pal Kate, I recently took Village Pizzeria off speed dial and started making my own pizzas, including the dough. Why? Simple. Because I loves me some pizza. And fortunately, so does Brett.

Oh, but one more thing: You could even say a great pizza starts with great flour. I fortuitously stopped into City Discount to get a pizza peel for my first pizza trial. The older Italian lady working there asked me what kind of flour I planned to use for the dough. When I said, “Oh, just regular, you know, unbleached…” she smiled politely and walked me over to their selection of Italian imports. “You need to use this,” she said, handing me a little red package of “00” flour. Only later did I discover that what she really handed me was the secret to making great pizza dough.

Makes enough for four 12” (or so) pizzas.

Step 1: Dissolve 1 envelope of yeast in 2 cups of warm water in a large bowl. Let sit 5 minutes.



Step 2: Add 3 cups of “00” flour and 2 tsp fine sea salt and mix. Add 2 more cups of the flour. (At this point I use my hands.) The dough should come away from the bowl but still be sticky. If it’s not there yet, add up to 1/2 cup of flour, 1 tablespoon at a time. (I usually only need 1 tablespoon, if that.)



Step 3: Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface. Start by pushing the dough away from you with one hand while you pull it toward you with the other. Then fold the dough in half. Do this ten times. Knead regularly until the dough is smooth, elastic and soft, but a little tacky. (The recipe says to do this for 10 minutes, but with the “00” dough it feels pretty good after about 2.)



Step 4: Shape the dough into a ball and put it into a lightly oiled large bowl. Turn to coat. Cover the bowl with plastic and let the dough rise in a warm place until it doubles in volume, about 3 hours. Sometimes it's hello, muffin top! But not this time, sorry.





Step 5: Place the dough onto a floured surface and cut it into 4 pieces. Shape these into balls. Dust them with flour and cover with plastic wrap. Let rest for 20-30 minutes, until the dough almost doubles. (Dough pictured is pre-doubling.)



Step 6: Wrap the dough balls in plastic and refrigerate until you’re ready to make your pizza(s)!

Up Next: Makin’ your own-a pizza!

Ingredients:

1 envelope dry yeast
2 cups warm water
5 to 5 1/2 cups “00” flour
2 tsp fine sea salt
Olive oil (for bowl)

Recipe Source: Chris Bianco