Pizza Dough

Pizza made at home is magical.

The instructions below are part recipe and part method. Pizza dough is probably one of the easiest bread products to make. It’s very forgiving. It just takes time and a little attention to detail. Below will be the ingredients and amounts for one normal sized homemade pizza. Double, triple or quadruple it as needed, depending on your mixing bowl size. I’ll also describe the baker’s ratio for easy size adjustment and how much dough I use per pizza type.

A few notes to get started…

Start this process ahead of time. A chewy pizza dough texture requires a long raising (bulk ferment) time. You can get away with 4 hours at a minimum. Overnight will achieve the best results. I generally start first thing in the morning so I get a good 6-8 hours.
All ingredients are listed in grams. It will make each batch much more consistent than measuring by volume.
I recommend kneading the dough by hand. It will teach you what a proper dough feels like and that becomes invaluable when you are shaping. You can, however, mix and knead the dough in a stand mixer just fine. I’ll place notes in the instructions.
Pictures (and videos) are worth a thousand words. It’s very difficult to explain kneading and shaping processes. Look up videos on the internet to see demonstrations of the kneading and shaping techniques. I recommend channels from places like King Arthur Baking Company.

Pizza Dough

Standard Ingredients

225 grams bread flour
140 grams warm water
3 grams yeast
6 to 7 grams salt
Additional flour for kneading and shaping
Neutral oil for greasing the bowl

Helpful Tools

The following tools are very helpful but not all are necessary. Adapt as needed and everything will still work out.

Kitchen scale (for gram weights)
Large mixing bowl
Cover for the bowl or plastic wrap
Plastic dough scraper
Metal bench scraper
Sturdy spoon

Cooking Instructions

Make the dough (Mix and Bulk Ferment)

In a large bowl, pour 140 grams of warm water and add 225 grams of bread flour to it in the middle.
Add 6 to 7 grams of salt into the water around the flour.
Make a small well in the middle of the flour mound and add 3 grams of yeast. Cover the yeast with the flour.
1. If you are raising (bulk ferment) this dough overnight, only use about 1 gram of yeast
Stir all of the ingredients together with a spoon until combined as well as possible.
1. Stand Mixer: If you are mixing with a stand mixer, follow the instructions above in your mixing bowl, use a dough hook attachment and mix at this stage on the first speed until the dough starts to come together.
Let the dough rest for 10 to 15 minutes so it relaxes and the water helps saturate the flour and develop the initial gluten for kneading
After the rest, turn the dough out onto a clean surface and start to knead. You should not need extra flour but if the dough is very sticky and very hard to work with, dust the surface with a little flour.
- Knead quickly but without a lot of force. The more force you use, the more the dough will likely stick to the surface.
- The easiest way to knead is to roll the dough backwards and forwards into a log shape. Fold the dough in half and then roll into a log again. Continue this rolling and folding for about 6 minutes.
- If the dough gets sticky, which it probably will in the beginning, try not to use extra flour. Scrape up the dough from the surface and continue to knead it. As the dough becomes fully kneaded, it will become less sticky.
- Don’t overthink this process. It’s impossible to over knead a dough. Also, this dough will raise (bulk ferment) for a long time so a perfect knead isn’t necessary.
- Stand Mixer: When using a stand mixer, start the mixer on speed 2 or 3 (depending on your mixer) after the rest and let it knead for 6 minutes.
After the dough is kneaded, gently shape the dough into a ball stretching the top “skin” of the dough ball.
Lightly oil the mixing bowl and exterior of the dough ball and place it back into the mixing bowl, seam side down.
Cover it with a lid or plastic wrap.
Allow the dough to raise (bulk ferment) for as long as possible, at least 4 hours but 6-8 hours is recommended.
1. Raising (bulk ferment) overnight will provide great results. Reduce the yeast to 1 gram and just leave the dough covered on the counter.

Pre-shaping and Shaping

When you are ready to start shaping, preheat the oven as hot as it will go, 500 to 600 degrees
1. If a pizza stone or steel is to be used, place it into oven before the oven is preheated
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface.
Gently deflate the dough and shape it into a rough square. Fold it in thirds and then simply roll up the dough creating a “cinnamon roll” type shape. Keep the seam of the dough on the cutting board and gently pull the dough towards you to stretch the top of the dough ball. Turn the dough ball about ¹⁄₄ of a turn and gently stretch it again. Do this until you have a basic ball shape.
Cover the dough ball with a kitchen towel and let it rest for 10 to 15 minutes.
After resting, divide the ball if you have made more than one pizza’s worth of dough. A typical 8-12” pizza (depending on thickness) is approximately 375 grams of dough. The above listed grams of flour and water will yield about 375 grams of dough. If you are making multiple pizza’s, divide them into 375 gram dough balls. If you only made dough for one pizza, move on to shaping
1. After dividing the dough, pre-shape it again using the above steps to end up with smaller round dough balls. While another rest is not really necessary, as the dough balls rest, they will become easier to shape.
Shape the dough ball into the proper shape for the desired pizza. Any shape will make a pizza but generally try to get the dough shaped down to about ¹⁄₂” thickness. A few options are described below. During shaping, the dough will become stiffer. Allow it to rest for a few minutes to relax and then continue shaping. This will help prevent tearing the dough during shaping.
1. The thickness will definitely impact the end result. Pizza dough will spring quite a bit in the oven so try not to get the shape too thick unless you want a very “bready” pizza.
2. Thin Crust: Roll out thin crust pizza with a rolling pin. Gently poking holes with a fork all over the dough will sometimes help it from raising too much.
3. Hand Tossed: Start by pressing down the very center of the dough ball with your knuckles. Turn the dough and continue to press outward from the center creating a rounded “crust” around the outside of dough. Continue to shape larger by gently stretching the dough by hand preserving as much of the thicker crust edge as possible until the desired size and thickness is achieved. Look up videos of “Neapolitan Style” pizza for demonstrations of this technique.
4. Pan Pizza: Start by pressing the dough ball down into a round similar to the hand tossed method. As the dough gets close to the correct size, place it in a generously oiled a cast iron skillet. Continue to rest and shape until the dough meets the sides of the skillet.
5. Sheet Tray (Ohio Valley) Style: Use 700 to 800 grams of dough and roll out with a rolling pin to a rectangular shape. Place dough into a rectangular sheet tray and continue to rest and stretch until it meets the sides of the tray. Greasing the sheet tray will provide a different bottom texture to the pizza crust. Try both to see which is preferred.

Topping and Baking

Once the dough has been shaped to the desired shape, top raw dough with all desired toppings.
1. All raw meat should be pre-cooked.
2. Slice vegetables as thin as possible to prevent excess liquid
3. Squeeze out any excess liquid from toppings like pineapple
Bake in a 500 to 600 degree oven for 5 to 10 minutes. The temperature, size, shape and baking tray will affect the time it takes for the dough to fully cook.

Ratios and Measurements

Bread baking uses ratios to create dough and pizza dough is no exception. There are several different ratios that can be used but here is the standard ratio used in this recipe. Use this as a guideline to create a different amount of dough for different pizza sizes. Flour is always 100% and all other ingredients are ratios of the flour content.

Flour: 100%
Water: 62%
Salt: 3%
Yeast: 2-3%
- A little yeast goes a long way.
- Use a little bit for overnight proofing, like ¹⁄₂ to 1 gram.
- ¹⁄₂ tablespoon of yeast (about 6-7 grams) will be sufficient for raising up to about 1500 grams of flour. There’s no need to use a higher percentage of yeast for up to 1500 grams of flour. Just use 6-7 grams.