Give me your pizza dough tips please...

[Thatisrice]

Fed up of ordering take away pizza that I don’t particularly enjoy - so have decided to make my own. Have googled a few recipes - but looking for your hints and tips e.g.

• is white flour ok or do I really need strong flour?

• is ‘very strong’ flour too strong?

• is milk better or sugar?

• when is the earliest I can start making it (without having to freeze)

... and what’s the minimum time?

• any other mega tips? I’ve not got a bread maker or dough hooks so will have to be by hand.

Thanks.

Have you seen the little bags of pizza dough mix? They might help.

I usually make dough in the morning - ordinary flour, dried yeast, warm water, sugar, oil - and leave it to rise during the day. Or, if I don’t get it together to do that, I do it when I need it and don’t let it rise at all,but that makes it quite stodgy.

We can't get strong/bread flour here. So I use all purpose. It's not quite plain flour, but still works. Give it a go!
Personally, milk and a touch of sugar. I've eaten it made with oil and water too. They are different coughs. Try both, and see which you prefer- oil and water makes a more traditional base, milk base is softer and fluffier, imo.

Can make and leave in the fridge for the first rise if you want. Probably 12 hrs ish max, or it starts fasting rather yeasty. And probably a 45 min rise, and no second rise if you are in a real hurry. So an hour, plus cooking min.

My kids love homemade pizza. Must put it on next week's menu.

I buy the Asda pizza dough mix. It's £1.20 and it makes two good sized pizzas. Makes a lovely base.

I use a Jamie Oliver pizza dough recipe and it's so easy - one recipe makes enough for 6 pizzas

Will you cook it in the oven, or a pizza oven? If using a woodfired pizza oven, these can run quite hot so you need a wetter dough recipe. I recommend trying the Uuni (Ooni) recipe online.

I find '00' flour better than strong white. It's quite difficult to stretch dough made with strong white due to the gluten levels.

I also find it easier to make and prove the dough, then shape into balls on a floured worksurface and leave to rest for about 30 mins. The dough then adopts a more circular form easier to roll/stretch.

Good luck!

Jamie Oliver recipe is the best

Jamie recipe fan here too ! Used his recipe for years . To eat at 7ish I usually start the dough mid afternoon

Strong flour is best. Italian 00 even better.Make a wetter dough than for bread. Use water and olive oil for the liquid. Don't forget the salt. You can make it in the morning and leave it to rise in the fridge all day if you like-the slower the rise the better the dough.

The recipe I use is pretty simple, and makes enough for 4 small-medium sized pizzas. It freezes well, so if that's more dough than you need, freeze half for next time:

1tbsp sugar
3 cups flour
1tsp salt
2 tsp yeast
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup warm water

Combine the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl, then slowly add the water and oil. Mix well until it comes together, then knead it for about 5 minutes until it starts to feel satiny and elastic. You might need up to 1/4 c extra flour, depending on how absorbent your flour is - I generally use strong white and knead it on an oiled, rather than floured, worktop. Shape it into a ball and pop it in a well oiled bowl,
and let it rise for about 45 mins-1 hour. Then either shape it and bake it, or knock it back and keep it in the fridge until you're ready to bake. It'll cope fine in the fridge overnight if you need to.

I use strong white flour, water, olive oil, pinch of salt and a teaspoon of yeast. I tend to make in the morning between 9-10 (just after school run for me) to eat around 6. I leave the dough in the kitchen in the summer - nice and cool but have to bring it into the living room to prove in the winter as it's far too cool. I use a recipe from a pizza book I picked up from a charity shop I think and have scaled the measurements up a little so there's enough for four of us.

If you're going for a thicker base then a slightly lower oven temperature is best with a slightly longer cooking time. I also heat the trays up first with a bit of oil as it helps to crisp up the base.

The recipe here is bomb proof...

www.google.ie/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2011/sep/08/how-to-cook-perfect-pizza

I'd really recommend a pizza stone, and giving it time to get hot in the oven. If you don't have one, turn over a large tray and use that instead.

A quick tomato sauce would be to blitz a can of tinned tomatoes, garlic, salt, pepper and a little olive oil in a blender. Delicious.

We use this, make it mid afternoon then leave in bowl with a tea towel over the top and let it rise. Dollop a spoon full of passata on top, loads of onion, peppers, mushrooms and cheese. Lidl do a mild pepperoni which is nice too.

This Delia Smith recipe works really well. I don't bother warming the flour, I add less salt and no sugar. It's my go to recipe when kids at work want to make pizza, the dough makes a pizza big enough for three kids.

My other tip, to make sure the base cooks through before the toppings burn, is to cook the base on its own for about five minutes. It will puff up like a giant pitta bread, I flip it over and add the toppings, then put it back in the oven.

plain flour is fine but strong or bread flour is great.
500g flour
half a teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon oregano (nice for flavour but you can leave it out)
50ml olive oil (makes the dough less sticky)
250ml water
1 tablespoon dried yeast (or 1 sachet) - I don't use fast action, prefer the flavour of the other stuff

you can mix it in the morning, knead and form into a ball and leave it in the fridge to use in the evening.

I fond it easier to roll out from cold, the leave to rise before topping.

After much trial and error, this is our favourite pizza dough recipe:

250g strong white bread flour
250g plain flour
10g salt
5g dried yeast
1 tbsp olive oil
300ml warm water

Mix and knead for five mins (I use the dough hook on my food mixer, but have done it by hand too and it's fine). Leave covered in a bowl for around an hour, then roll out nice and thin. This is enough to make six large pizzas so I usually freeze half or a third for another time - makes good garlic bread too.
Cook at 250C for about 10mins once you've put the toppings on.

We use Italian flour and dh also rolls out in semolina to give a crunchy texture.

www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B07FWMVW5R/ref=mp_s_a_1_1_a_it?ref=plSrch&keywords=pizza+flour&dpPl=1&dpID=51WZmbWOk2L&tag=mumsnetforum-21&ie=UTF8&qid=1538048116&sr=8-1

And we have this pizza oven which is brill

www.amazon.co.uk/Giles-Posner-EK2309BLACK-Italian-Stone/dp/B01JZOT60Q/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?psc=1&keywords=Giles+%26+Posner&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&tag=mumsnetforum-21&ie=UTF8&qid=1538048244&sr=8-1-spons

I use this recipe and bung it in my bread machine on the pizza dough setting. Couldn't be easier!

allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/2122/quick-and-easy-pizza-dough.aspx

I've been using the same recipe for at least 10 years now (long enough that I can't remember where it's from!):
250g Strong Flour (I do fond it makes a difference)
1x 7g sachet of dried yeast
Half a tspn salt
1 tspn olive oil
Lukewarm warm water

Mix all ingredients into a dough and add enough water to make quite a wet dough. Knead in flour for 5 minutes. Spray or brush a fairly large bowl with oil and put in the dough. Cover and leave somewhere warm (if you can, if not it will take longer)for 2 hours (or as long as you want). I get three pizzas (12 inch)out of the risen dough, rolling it out very thin, putting it into a pre heated pizza tray, getting the topping on quickly and putting back into the very top of a very hot oven.

Lots of good suggestions on dough, for a quick pizza try baguette (split open) or Ciabatta.

Problem with Pizza is that you really need a high temp industrial oven as it needs to be circa 450c whereas home ovens don't go much over 300 which makes the pizza a bit soggy. Some use pyrolytic feature of their oven to bake the pizza at high temp.

I use the Ooni recipe that MustBeDueSomeBetterFeet mentions, with Caputo blue 00 flour. I've found that cold proving it really helps too (use half the amount of yeast if you do this). I'm making a batch this afternoon for tomorrow's dinner. I'll ball it up and put it in the fridge. I've left it for 72 hours ish before without any ill effects. Not sure how much longer it would last before going weird.

Thanks all for the comments. I’m going to try 50:50 if my extra strong flour and normal plain to start. We’ll see what happens tomorrow AM!

I particularly liked the idea of cooking the base slightly as I find toppings burn before the base is ready so I’ll give that a go too!

Wish me luck!

Strong flour has more gluten and so is more stretchy that's why it's used for bread and other dough ( and 00 is Italian pasta flour I think).

I use Jamie Oliver’s recipe (1k strong flour, 2 sachets of yeast etc). I make it in my food processor with a dough blade (you need a sturdy processor to do this). It makes lots of dough but you can keep leftover dough in the fridge for a few days (prob longer but we never get a chance to try)!