Can you make pizza dough in advance? Or will it rise too much?

[BreastmilkDoesAFabLatte]

This may be a silly question, but I love MN for the daft things that we ask each other...

I've got a large group of friends arriving around 3pm, and we've agreed to eat around 6pm, and I thought I'd have a stab at making pizza from scratch.

All the recipes I can find involve mixing flour, yeast and oil and then adding the toppings and baking straight away. But could I make and roll out and refridgerate the bases before my friends arrive (ie about 3-4 hours in advance) and then add the toppings when we're ready to put them into the oven? Or would the pre-rolled pizza bases rise into, like, bread rolls?

(Or should I just go to Asda to buy pizza...?)

I make pizza dough in the bread maker and freeze half. Then defrost on the day. Would that work?

Could try it. How long does it take to defrost? [clueless emoticon]

Just been searching for this and found out Jamie olivers website - not tried it though

I bung it in the microwave if I need it in a hurry, but wouldn't take more than a 3 or 4 hours. If there are a couple of frozen chunks in the middle, they tend to defrost as you spread it onto the baking tray

If you roll it out and refrigerate it, the dough won't rise very fast, if at all. Bring it out to warm up for 40-50 minutes before you're going to cook it and the base should rise a little, making it nice and fluffy.

I make pizza every week or two.

My normal timings are to start the dough about 2 hours before topping it. Basically, I mix the ingredients, let it prove for up to an hour, knock back and roll out. Then let it rise in the trays before I am ready to start topping.

If I have to make the dough well in advance, I will put it in the fridge after the initial kneading. When I take it out again, it will resume rising once it gets up to temperature.

If you are talking about four hours, I would do as the op says - get them rolled out and then refrigerate.

Don't buy cardboard bases!

Have you made your pizzas yet?

I tried to make pizza bases yesterday. In an quest to be organised ,I thought I would make a couple of bases and put them in the freezer for later in the week.

I made the dough in the bread maker but then the recipe said prove at 40C for 20 minutes. This is where I went wrong.

In my wisdom I thought I would put it in the oven to prove but the temperature started at 50C so it started to cook. I took it out after some googling as I realised that if it was too hot it was likely to kill the yeast. I just left it out for a while but it didn't seem to do anything except stick itself to the baking tray I had placed it on. I ended up throwing the dough away .

After proving the recipe said to cook for 5 minutes before freezing. Could you cook it for 5 minutes, then put the toppings on and refrigerate for a few hours? What is the best way to prove dough? Any tips?

All you need do evremummy is roll out your pizza base dough, put it onto a baking sheet, cover with film and freeze. When it's frozen, remove the baking sheet and wrap it up nicely in more film so it doesn't dry out.

When you need a base, remove from freezer, add all the toppings, leave it at room temp for maybe an hour (it's thin so it will defrost rapidly), then bake as normal.

If you're using easy-blend yeast you don't need to prove it ... one rise is fine.