This stuff is pretty amazing. If you haven't done much with yeast doughs, I think this recipe is actually a great place to start. It is incredibly forgiving and super flexible, but you can also learn a lot about how yeast doughs look and feel from working with it. It makes good, crispy thin crust, and a nice hefty, chewy regular-ish crust depending on how you work the dough and how you shape, top, and bake it. You can't really fail with this one so much as invent new forms of pizza dough, so I'm including lots of notes and tips throughout. The ingredients list is pretty much the same as an old Cooking Light recipe from, I think, 2002; the techniques are all mine.
Also, working with yeast doughs = making a mess. You just need to make peace with that. It's part of the fun. I do find, however, that you can minimize the mess and help with cleanup if you have a good bench scraper.
Emily's Pizza Dough
Makes 2 large pizzas
1 and ¼ cups warm water; warm to the touch is fine. No need to panic. If you want to get fancy, around 105˚
1 packet (or 2 and ¼ tsp.) active dry yeast (Note: you can use a "quick" yeast, with "rapid" in the name, but the dough will rise much faster and won't have time to develop much flavor)
1 tsp. sugar
Mix these in the bottom of your stand mixer bowl or in a large bowl on your counter top. Leave for 3-5 minutes, until the yeast "blooms," at least in the center part of the bowl; it looks like the head on a good beer.
2-3 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. table salt
Add 2 cups of the flour and mix things around until it starts to come together. If you're using a stand mixer with a dough hook, you might want to scrap the sides a bit. In a bowl, a few strokes with a wooden spoon should do it.
Here's the part where people panic, but you really shouldn't. Add more flour, about ¼ cup at a time until the dough comes mostly together-ish (if it's humid, you might only use another half cup; if it's dry, you might add another whole cup. You can't screw this up unless you freak out and start dumping things.) When you feel ready:
In a mixer: switch the stand mixer to med. or med.-high and let it go for up to 10 minutes. The dough will first look wet and then it will get sort of bubbly/stringy and then might come together into a really smooth elastic ball on the dough hook. If you don't reach that last stage in 8-10 minutes, that's fine. You might just have some really tender, crispy crust! Remove the dough hook, spray the top of the dough with non-stick spray, cover with plastic wrap, and proceed.
On the counter: Turn the dough out onto your lightly floured counter. It will be messy. With your bench scraper in your dominant hand, and a bunch of flour on the other, start kneading. I like to scrape from underneath and turn the ball partway over with the scraper then push the ball down and away from me with the other. Again, you can't screw this up. You will get flour everywhere and it will be fine. Repeat for about 3-5 minutes. You might end up adding another quarter cup of flour as you go. No worries. Do this until you don't really need the scraper anymore since things seem to stay together and the dough starts to resist a bit. Spray your mixing bowl with non-stick spray, plop the dough ball in, spritz more non-stick spray on top, cover with plastic wrap, and proceed.
Leave things alone for 45-minutes to 1 hour (how warm do you keep your house?) on the counter or 3-4 hours in the fridge, until the dough looks like it has almost doubled.
Now the fun part! You can freeze a chunk of dough in a non-stick sprayed plastic bag for at least a month or two (just thaw in the fridge) OR you can MAKE PIZZA.
TO MAKE PIZZA: Cookie sheet + parchment paper + non-stick spray + half the dough. Spray your hand(s) with spray, too (you can use flour to help you spread the dough, but I find that the non-stick spray works just as well and doesn't leave raw flour everywhere on your baked pizza). Spread your dough carefully, pressing and rolling, and spraying as needed. If the dough resists or bounces back, just let it rest for a few minutes. The gluten strands need a chance to relax. For a crispy thin crust, you can just about fill a 13" x 18" half sheet pan with the dough; for a thicker crust, just go smaller. Leave us much empty crust around the edge as suits your fancy.
BAKE!: Heat your oven to 475˚. For thicker crust or really wet toppings (like, if you're one of those gross people who likes a ton of sauce), you can and should par-bake the crust for 5-8 minutes before topping. Otherwise, top your pizza, throw it in and back until the edges are crisp-golden, the cheese is bubbly, and the center is as dark as you like it. Maybe 15 minutes? This is a case where what you feel/see is way more important than a bake time. Cool for a moment on the pan before slicing to prevent topping landslides.
Eat already!
Notes: Taste your crust and jot down some notes for next time. If it was really soft when you tried to spread it, and the dough was super tender, you may have under-kneaded it. But under-kneading can yield really crispy, cracker-like crust so maybe that's exactly what you want! If the crust just didn't brown and got hard and dry, you may have added too much flour. If your toppings left the middle too soggy, consider par-baking next time.
Our favorite toppings, none of which include red sauce because we are civilized human beings: barbecue chicken with red onions, corn, and pesto. olive oil and balsamic with traditional pizza meats and fresh-sliced garlic. chicken korma with cashews and fresh mozzarella balls. "antipasti" pizza with olive olive, salami, chopped artichoke hearts and/or olives, extra red pepper flakes.
Barbecue chicken with pesto. Thin crust!
